A retrospective film festival – “Omaggio a Massimo Troisi, ‘o miracolo napoletano’ “
Directed by Ettore Scola (Italy, 1990 – colour, 133’min. Comedy. Language: Italian)
Starring Massimo Troisi, Vincent Perez, Lauretta Masiero, Ornella Muti, Toni Ucci, Emmanuelle Beart, Tosca D’Aquino, Claudio Amendola, Remo Girone.
The story takes place in France during the 1600. A theatre company of strolling players, in between duels, ambushes, illusions and love, travels to Paris to meet King Louis XIII. Among them, Massimo Troisi, who for the first and last time, plays the part of Pulcinella. King Louis XIII owns a favour to Baron Sigognac. Sigognac joins the troop. The young and inexperienced aristocrat soon captures the attention of the two actresses of the troop, Serafina and Isabella, and ends up in a lot of trouble…until he discovers that he too does have a passion and talent for theatre and becomes successful.
The film, inspired by the book Le Capitaine Fracasse (1863) written by Theophile Gautier, was described by Laura Novati as a “theatre fable in the form of a novel”. The movie was filmed in the studio. Ettore Scola, Furio Scarpelli and Vincenzo Cerami begin from the novel by Gautier to proceed by paving their own way, keeping the same characters and plot and not getting far away from the baroque scenic dimension in a theatrical perspective.
In 1991 the film won the awards Efebo d’oro, David di Donatello and Nastro d’Argento.