I haven't yet read London's "Martin Eden" (often called "semi-autobiographical" but see below). When I was done watched this movie I said to myself, "This is really a cautionary tale about how young proletarian intellectuals should avoid bourgeois philosophers like Herbert Spencer." But then I did some digging and I found (yes, this is a boast) - that is -exactly- how Jack London intended it to be read! So let's start off by saying that the team get high marks for discerning and staying true to London's main point - and (from what I've picked up) to other parts of the novel as well.
Let's dispose of a couple other things too - yes, the movie takes London's tale of the working class on the west coast of the US in the first decade of the twentieth century and plops it down in Napoli in the 1950's or so. You can lose yourselves in questions like "Why does anyone remember Herbert Spencer at all? Why does nobody mention Mussolini? Shouldn't the Communists be running election campaigns? What is the war coming up - is that World War I or what?" The movie's answer to this is basically, "Look, the working class and the capitalists are what they are. Just deal with it." And for me, I've decided that it works well enough.
So: we have a young worker, brilliant but uneducated, who by a stroke of fortune (as in a Horatio Alger story, I might say) gets introduced to a ruling-class family, and, fatally, to Elena Orsini (Jessica Cressy), the beautiful daughter of the house. She becomes his inspiration to begin a life of self-education and writing - pretty much regardless of anything she says or does, just in her role as the passive focus of his adoration and his readiness to project anything on her.
Martin is skeptical of socialist indoctrination, and values only individual freedom. He resists Elena's obvious attempts to turn him into a standard-issue businessman, but he doesn't see the less obvious and more pervasive "indoctrination" that have taught him what kind of culture to value, what kind of books to read, what kind of individualism to profess.
At the same time he values his working-class associates who are kind to him and support him. His individualist skepticism - reinforced by Herbert Spencer's doctrines of unstoppable evolution and the survival of the fittest - leaves him completely unprepared for what happens when, in a very abrupt turn, he suddenly succeeds. Now what does he do? Is he the "blond beast" himself now (yes, sadly, he has also picked up some Nietzsche as well now - a quite logical development, really)?
In addition to valuable ideas, this film has great acting and production values - it is enjoyable to watch. I was put off a bit by the physical transformation wrought upon Luca Marinelli by the dissipation of success, but maybe the filmmakers meant to make it clear that he just isn't the person he was.
Anyway, this is a very good movie, worth the rewatching, but it's important to bear in mind that it's not just about depression or alcohol or the perils of success or (god forbid) some kind of nihilistic outlook mistakenly projected on London himself. London is problematic in many, many ways, but nihilism wasn't one of them at this time. London, if alive, would, I think, be very happy to have young people get together and argue about what insights would have allowed Martin to avoid his sad denouement, starting, perhaps, with "Listen to women and take them seriously" and "Love has to be more interactive than just adoring a face."
Let's dispose of a couple other things too - yes, the movie takes London's tale of the working class on the west coast of the US in the first decade of the twentieth century and plops it down in Napoli in the 1950's or so. You can lose yourselves in questions like "Why does anyone remember Herbert Spencer at all? Why does nobody mention Mussolini? Shouldn't the Communists be running election campaigns? What is the war coming up - is that World War I or what?" The movie's answer to this is basically, "Look, the working class and the capitalists are what they are. Just deal with it." And for me, I've decided that it works well enough.
So: we have a young worker, brilliant but uneducated, who by a stroke of fortune (as in a Horatio Alger story, I might say) gets introduced to a ruling-class family, and, fatally, to Elena Orsini (Jessica Cressy), the beautiful daughter of the house. She becomes his inspiration to begin a life of self-education and writing - pretty much regardless of anything she says or does, just in her role as the passive focus of his adoration and his readiness to project anything on her.
Martin is skeptical of socialist indoctrination, and values only individual freedom. He resists Elena's obvious attempts to turn him into a standard-issue businessman, but he doesn't see the less obvious and more pervasive "indoctrination" that have taught him what kind of culture to value, what kind of books to read, what kind of individualism to profess.
At the same time he values his working-class associates who are kind to him and support him. His individualist skepticism - reinforced by Herbert Spencer's doctrines of unstoppable evolution and the survival of the fittest - leaves him completely unprepared for what happens when, in a very abrupt turn, he suddenly succeeds. Now what does he do? Is he the "blond beast" himself now (yes, sadly, he has also picked up some Nietzsche as well now - a quite logical development, really)?
In addition to valuable ideas, this film has great acting and production values - it is enjoyable to watch. I was put off a bit by the physical transformation wrought upon Luca Marinelli by the dissipation of success, but maybe the filmmakers meant to make it clear that he just isn't the person he was.
Anyway, this is a very good movie, worth the rewatching, but it's important to bear in mind that it's not just about depression or alcohol or the perils of success or (god forbid) some kind of nihilistic outlook mistakenly projected on London himself. London is problematic in many, many ways, but nihilism wasn't one of them at this time. London, if alive, would, I think, be very happy to have young people get together and argue about what insights would have allowed Martin to avoid his sad denouement, starting, perhaps, with "Listen to women and take them seriously" and "Love has to be more interactive than just adoring a face."