Valeria Bruni Tedeschi embodies Eleonora Duse in the last years of life in Pietro Marcello’s film, an intense portrait between theater, history and resilience, which could be worth the great actress the Volpi Cup.
Protagonist of Duse by Pietro Marcello, presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival and out on September 18 with Piperfilm, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is confirmed among the most anticipated actresses of this edition, already indicated by many as a possible winner of the Volpi Cup. His interpretation of the legendary Eleonora Duse in the last years of life becomes a bridge between past and present, a dialogue between two artists who have made theater and cinema an inner resistance.
Who is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Actress and director, Bruni Tedeschi has gone through European cinema with a stylistic figure marked by fragility and intensity. From the beginning in France to the successes in Italy with directors such as Nanni Moretti and Paolo Virzì, he has been able to combine a sophisticated interpretative talent with an authorial sensitivity that brought it behind the camera. In Duse He seems to condense both souls: that of the actress capable of embodying the fragility and that of the narrator who reflects on being an artist in times of crisis.
The portrait of Eleonora Duse
Marcello’s film investigates the final years of the life of the great actress, between the Great War and the advent of fascism. Sick yet still hungry for the stage, Duse is portrayed in her vital obstinacy: “The work was pure oxygen for her,” says Bruni Tedeschi, returning the measure of an artist who did not conceive the existence without the scene.
Bruni Tedeschi underlines the almost spiritual bond with the character: “Take them as people encountered by chance, of which I immediately become a friend”. A proximity that echoes in his working method: «He was fragile and sensitive, attentive to others. I worked with her in secret meetings: dead or living people help me on the set, and I feel strong ».
The gaze of Pietro Marcello
The director tells his choice with clear words: «I have always been fascinated by the characters in revolt. With Valeria I wanted to tell the spirit of Duse, not perfection, and his gaze on a twentieth century marked by the ignob ». In the film, key figures of Italian history and culture appear: Fausto Russo Alesi in the role of Gabriele D’Annunzio, Noémie Merlant like his daughter Enrichetta, and a young Benito Mussolini. On the latter Marcello specifies: «Duse was not on the side of Mussolini. He made a mistake by naivety, thinking he could resist the arrogance of fascism ».
