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“Christmas at the Cupiello house” with Castellitto divides the audience: are the classics (really) untouchable?

As children they teach us that the classics are untouchable, works on which it is right not to put a hand back out of respect for those who write and cultivate them as if they were the plants of a forcing greenhouse. How true, however, is this sacredness of the inviolable and how much, above all, is it right to go further to try to update a timeless classic? We tasted a part of this debate on the evening of December 22, when Raiuno broadcast the version of Christmas at the Cupiello house, one of the most successful and famous comedies by Eduardo De Filippo, signed by Edoardo De Angelis. Disassembled the theatrical setting, the work took on the appearance of a real film which, despite counting on a first-rate cast, left the purists of the first Eduardo perplexed, convinced that this update was not up to par. of the original.

Let’s start, however, in order. The story is the same, as is the attention to detail and the jokes, rendered in a softer Neapolitan to be understandable without subtitles. What changes, of course, is the packaging and the small and large details that De Angelis, already director of beautiful films like Indivisible e The vice of hope, inserts within its version: from the long initial sequence shot on Donna Concetta to the music of Enzo Avitabile in the background; from the delay on the footage of the floors of the Cupiello house to the zip of the slipper that Castellitto pulls up when getting out of bed. What does not seem clear to many is that the director and, consequently Raiuno, did not want to make a carbon copy of De Filippo’s comedy, but rather an interpretation, a nuance, a color. The choice of having the only non-Neapolitan actor of the cast, namely Castellitto, play Don Luca, seems to get his hands on precisely with those who would have felt the urgency to automatically compare his interpretation to that of Eduardo.

De Angelis suggests it subtly: do not seek comparison, it is not worth it, because it gets lost at the start. His Christmas at the Cupiello house it will be darker and more intimate, but it retains the spirit of the original, and that’s what should really matter. The lyrics are an essential trace, it is true, but giving space to a re-edition does not mean taking the original and soaking it forever, but to pay a different tribute to a work that for many is and will remain (rightly) always untouchable. Stop thinking about comparisons and dwell on the extraordinary performance of Marina Confalone, Pina Turco, Adriano Pantaleo and Alessio Lapice could be the starting point to admit that Rai, broadcasting the film a few days before Christmas, performed its public service role with full honors, trying to bring today’s public closer to a classic of yesterday without losing its driving force.

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