Martin Scorsese
L'Età Dell'Innocenza

For the first time, in 1993, Martin Scorsese, with the support of a rather considerable budget and taking Luchino Visconti as a model, sets out to tackle a costume drama, drawn from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Edith Wharton. However, even while moving away from the usual criminal and metropolitan microcosm, Scorsese doesn't change his way of filmmaking, he doesn't give up on the sociological themes dear to him, but simply transposes them into another era and context. Set in 19th-century New York, rigid and conformist, "The Age of Innocence" is indeed a sumptuous fresco of the aristocratic and opulent society of the time, with its contradictions, prejudices, and hypocritical and puritanical decency.

The story revolves around the unfortunate and impossible love between the controversial and nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska and the well-bred lawyer Newland Archer, who is engaged to her cousin, May. Having come from an oppressive marriage to a greedy and vile man and a bohemian life in a culturally vibrant Europe, Ellen returns to her family, the Mingotts, who, alongside the Beauforts, are the most noble and influential clan in New York. The Countess, initially deluded into believing she has somehow reclaimed her freedom, struggles to adapt to the stifling hypocrisy and the vacuous and self-serving social life of the narrow and selective New York aristocracy, so petty and mean and so distant from European habits. As beautiful and intelligent as she is harshly criticized for some behaviors considered inappropriate, she becomes the subject of hateful insulations and gossip, and consequently, a source of embarrassment, even for some members of her own family. Newland is the only one who understands and defends her, while maintaining a certain distance in public, because he is a romantic and sensitive gentleman and, unaware that he too is open to a less rigid and insidiously false lifestyle, he begins to be strongly and irremediably attracted to the woman, so spontaneous, so different from everyone else, so bright and sincere. The passion between the two erupts in a setting filled with intrigues and plots devised by those around them to the detriment of the Countess, and their love evolves into a game of sacrifices and renunciations. The rarity and intensity of their few moments together highlight all the bitterness, the poignant awareness of not being able to fully live the love they both need to be finally free and happy.

A cruel fatalism looms inexorably over the pair of lovers, and when Newland seems determined to definitively abandon a life based on falsehoods and a sweet and amiable wife, who is ultimately superficial and less naive than she appears, to escape with Ellen, it always turns out that someone or some unpleasant event prevents them from fulfilling their dream of love. A female voiceover, austere and elegant, comments on the story and describes a world made only of appearances and frivolities, where poisonous and obtuse prejudices and stale moralism reign supreme, and with a balance "so delicate that even a whisper would compromise its harmony".

Scorsese and his collaborators set up an extremely careful and sophisticated staging, from the set design (Dante Ferretti) and photography of exceptional beauty and refinement, underscored by poetic and melancholic winter exteriors that alternate with evocative landscapes and situations reminiscent of the impressionist paintings of Renoir and Sisley. The direction is quite meticulous in detail and almost choreographic, determined by panoramic pans over the luxurious and meticulously reconstructed interiors, fixed close-ups on faces as if the camera wanted to capture them in a painting, sudden flashes on period artworks, and details of princely furnishings. Excellent and perfectly cast, comprising Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day Lewis in the roles of Olenska and Archer, Wynona Ryder and Geraldine Chaplin. The magnificent and lavish costumes (Gabriella Pescucci) and the impeccable screenplay complete the whole, bringing to life a work of rare magnificence and grace.

"The Age of Innocence", although much appreciated by Scorsese's enthusiasts and a good portion of the influential critics, did not have much success upon its release, as the American audience confidently expected the usual expensive blockbuster with a typically Hollywood style, certainly not a poignant and, if you will, didactic historical and socio-cultural glimpse into 19th-century life.