Muccino and The Pursuit of Happyness
Released on December 15 in the US, The Pursuit of Happyness is in second place in the US box office with $124m grossed so far. Not bad for an Italian director not yet 40 and who was developing a film at home when he got a call from superstar Will Smith and subsequently flew towards his own American Dream.
It is the precisely the old but cast-iron concept of the "American Dream" that lies at the heart of Gabriele Muccino's film, which Medusa Film will distribute on 430 Italian screens tomorrow.
Also out in the UK tomorrow, between January and February, the film will then come out in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Hungary and Sweden.
However, Muccino and Smith, who presented the film in Rome today, prefer calling it the "human dream", a universal dream, as each person pursues happiness, something Smith calls "a primitive and animal instinct, protecting our children and taking care of our families".
Inspired by the true story of African American Chris Gardner (who decided to write a book while he was collaborating with the production), the Columbia Pictures film tells the story of a young father unable to make ends meet. Intelligent and capable, he finds himself on the edge of an abyss and sleeping with his young son in homeless shelters before becoming a successful stockbroker.
If the film's "ideological" message may seem ambiguous (money brings happiness), Muccino explains: "I tried to relate American life with American resources and a European sensibility. Our values are radically different: In the US, the worst insult is to call someone a loser and the world is divided up between those who have made it and those who can't make it. What I portrayed in the film is a nightmare millions of Americans have: ending up in a shelter".
Before shooting, Muccino sent Smith The Bicycle Thief and Umberto D. "I think that Vittorio De Sica's film contain the deepest meaning of the American Dream that Gabriele and I tried to relate: fighting to survive and guaranteeing our children a better future", said the actor.
Why choose an Italian director to tell an American story? Smith's reason lies in the Muccino's highly successful 2001 film The Last Kiss. "There is a profound concept in that film: we all have an idea of what we want to be. It is to achieve that idea that every morning we find the strength, even in difficult moments, to get out of bed and face a new day”.
For now, Muccino is remaining in the States for new projects. "I've received a couple of scripts from Hilary Swank. But she's not the only one".
(Translated from Italian)
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