Paolo Virzi’s Human Capital breathes life into Stephen Amidon’s novel
TOM RYAN
• THE AUSTRALIAN
• DECEMBER 06, 2014 12:00AM
A scene from Human Capital, which represents the discomfort of the upper class. Source: Supplied
STEPHEN Amidon’s Human Capital was published in 2004. The American writer’s fifth novel, set in a superficially comfortable Connecticut in the spring of 2001 (the date becomes significant), is a compelling story of our times. As it winds together the experiences of three families implicated in the accidental death of a cyclist, it also paints a savagely sardonic portrait of the workings of contemporary capitalism.
Amidon’s book has now been adapted for the screen in Italy, where it has become the nation’s official nomination for best foreign film at next year’s Academy Awards. Names and places have been changed and the chronology of the plot has been rearranged: the setting is now the wealthy Brianza region in northern Italy; the cyclist’s death happens at the start rather than a third of the way in; and the dramatic emphases are slightly different.
But the social and political issues of the novel remain crystal clear. The director and co-writer is Paolo Virzi, some of whose work has screened in Australia during the past decade courtesy of the Italian Film Festival (from Caterina in the City in 2003 to The First Beautiful Thing in 2010).
The amiable Virzi, 50, sees his work in the context of a particular tradition of Italian cinema. “Many of us in the Italian film industry have this nasty habit of infusing our big-screen entertainments with the Big Troubles the world faces,” he tells Review.
“I believe filmmaking should build something entertaining, but I think the emotion becomes stronger if it prompts you to think about the world you live in. I don’t like the filmmaker who shouts at us, who spells out his point of view explicitly in the dialogue.
“I like to hide the issues inside so the viewer can enjoy the movie. But if he likes to explore the meaning of that, there’s another gift waiting for him.’’
Virzi happened on Amidon’s book in early 2011, when it was recommended to him by Italian novelist Niccolo Ammaniti, whose wife was starring in a play Virzi was directing.
“At the time, I was reading Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full and Niccolo said to me, ‘Why don’t you read Human Capital? It’s by a younger novelist with the same skill at representing the discomfort of the new upper class.’ I found it not only did this but also twisted the upper class, the middle class and the ‘miserable’ together.”
Amidon is a little mystified that it took an Italian rather than an American production to breathe new life into his story. “I think the fact that the book’s themes — money, greed, the often crippling love for our children — are universal might explain a lot,” he muses. “But I also put it down to plain old serendipity.”
Several years earlier he’d written a screenplay for an American producer but now holds himself responsible for it never leaving the page. In the light of what Virzi and co-screenwriters Francesco Bruni and Francesco Piccolo have been able to do, he sees where he went wrong. “The changes made by Paolo, Bruni and Piccolo had me slapping my forehead. Of course! ...
“I feel that I was in some ways defeated by my own narrative structure,” he continues, referring to the book’s back-and-forth movement among its four central characters: the smooth-talking hedge fund manager, his pampered wife, the middle-class loser who risks all to make a fast buck under the financier’s guidance, and the operator from the wrong side of the tracks who sees his nephew’s inheritance as a chance to insert himself into a better life.
Virzi’s film transforms the last into a peripheral character, moves the timing of the cyclist’s death — which Amidon describes as “an inspired change” — alters the ending and brings a harder edge to its depiction of the central characters. Amidon, a former film critic for The Sunday Times and The Financial Times in Britain, begs to differ from, rather than disagree with, the last observation.
“I’ve always been fond of this book and its characters, so when I saw the movie I was sort of like a child sitting in wonder rather than a critic. My point is that I brought so much knowledge about them to my experience that I felt very sympathetic toward them.
“People talk about film and novels in the same breath, but they are such incredibly different media. I believe the differences here have more to do with the demands of producing a movie rather than deep aesthetic choices. Characters have to be more vivid, more external. Their dramas are performed, rather than inwardly felt. This can lead to them becoming more extreme.”
Both the novel and the film repeatedly present the characters driving the streets, as if they’re collectively responsible for running the cyclist off the road. Amidon and Virzi suggest they also need to be seen as victims of the social world that has spawned them. They make some awful mistakes, they’re careless with each other’s feelings, but they don’t directly set out to hurt anybody.
“This is a story in which you can’t divide the good and the evil,” Virzi observes. “I like to see the way all of the characters have their reasons, which is enhanced in both the book and the film by breaking the story up into chapters, each enabling us to see what’s happening through the experiences of different characters.”
Amidon is more overtly political in his response to the forces that have shaped the characters. “I believe capitalism in its current iteration really does have a tendency to distort human behaviour and relationships,” he says. “As Herbert Marcuse pointed out, all these technological breakthroughs of the past 100 years should be decreasing the amount of work and stress we are experiencing, and yet it seems to be having the opposite effect, with crippling debt and longer work weeks and ever-expanding material aspiration. It’s crazy. It’s like we’re all bewitched by money.”
Embellishing that notion, the settings signify wealth and power, serving as literal embodiments of what Virzi calls “the wellness without happiness that defines the Western world”. Brianza, he says, has a special meaning for Italian audiences. “It’s the richest area of our country, near the big-business centre of Milan, where we have our stockmarket. It’s our New York, our Wall Street. And because of (former prime minister Silvio) Berlusconi’s connections with the area, it also suggests something about our recent controversies.”
While Amidon and Virzi embark on further projects together, a final and irresistible irony has Human Capital in line for remakes not only in the US, India and South Korea but also as a miniseries in Britain. Which endorses Amidon’s observation that it’s a universal story. “Yes, yes,” Virzi agrees. “It could be set around London or Paris or Brussels, or maybe even Melbourne.”
Human Capital opens on December 4.
TOM RYAN
• THE AUSTRALIAN
• DECEMBER 06, 2014 12:00AM
A scene from Human Capital, which represents the discomfort of the upper class. Source: Supplied
STEPHEN Amidon’s Human Capital was published in 2004. The American writer’s fifth novel, set in a superficially comfortable Connecticut in the spring of 2001 (the date becomes significant), is a compelling story of our times. As it winds together the experiences of three families implicated in the accidental death of a cyclist, it also paints a savagely sardonic portrait of the workings of contemporary capitalism.
Amidon’s book has now been adapted for the screen in Italy, where it has become the nation’s official nomination for best foreign film at next year’s Academy Awards. Names and places have been changed and the chronology of the plot has been rearranged: the setting is now the wealthy Brianza region in northern Italy; the cyclist’s death happens at the start rather than a third of the way in; and the dramatic emphases are slightly different.
But the social and political issues of the novel remain crystal clear. The director and co-writer is Paolo Virzi, some of whose work has screened in Australia during the past decade courtesy of the Italian Film Festival (from Caterina in the City in 2003 to The First Beautiful Thing in 2010).
The amiable Virzi, 50, sees his work in the context of a particular tradition of Italian cinema. “Many of us in the Italian film industry have this nasty habit of infusing our big-screen entertainments with the Big Troubles the world faces,” he tells Review.
“I believe filmmaking should build something entertaining, but I think the emotion becomes stronger if it prompts you to think about the world you live in. I don’t like the filmmaker who shouts at us, who spells out his point of view explicitly in the dialogue.
“I like to hide the issues inside so the viewer can enjoy the movie. But if he likes to explore the meaning of that, there’s another gift waiting for him.’’
Virzi happened on Amidon’s book in early 2011, when it was recommended to him by Italian novelist Niccolo Ammaniti, whose wife was starring in a play Virzi was directing.
“At the time, I was reading Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full and Niccolo said to me, ‘Why don’t you read Human Capital? It’s by a younger novelist with the same skill at representing the discomfort of the new upper class.’ I found it not only did this but also twisted the upper class, the middle class and the ‘miserable’ together.”
Amidon is a little mystified that it took an Italian rather than an American production to breathe new life into his story. “I think the fact that the book’s themes — money, greed, the often crippling love for our children — are universal might explain a lot,” he muses. “But I also put it down to plain old serendipity.”
Several years earlier he’d written a screenplay for an American producer but now holds himself responsible for it never leaving the page. In the light of what Virzi and co-screenwriters Francesco Bruni and Francesco Piccolo have been able to do, he sees where he went wrong. “The changes made by Paolo, Bruni and Piccolo had me slapping my forehead. Of course! ...
“I feel that I was in some ways defeated by my own narrative structure,” he continues, referring to the book’s back-and-forth movement among its four central characters: the smooth-talking hedge fund manager, his pampered wife, the middle-class loser who risks all to make a fast buck under the financier’s guidance, and the operator from the wrong side of the tracks who sees his nephew’s inheritance as a chance to insert himself into a better life.
Virzi’s film transforms the last into a peripheral character, moves the timing of the cyclist’s death — which Amidon describes as “an inspired change” — alters the ending and brings a harder edge to its depiction of the central characters. Amidon, a former film critic for The Sunday Times and The Financial Times in Britain, begs to differ from, rather than disagree with, the last observation.
“I’ve always been fond of this book and its characters, so when I saw the movie I was sort of like a child sitting in wonder rather than a critic. My point is that I brought so much knowledge about them to my experience that I felt very sympathetic toward them.
“People talk about film and novels in the same breath, but they are such incredibly different media. I believe the differences here have more to do with the demands of producing a movie rather than deep aesthetic choices. Characters have to be more vivid, more external. Their dramas are performed, rather than inwardly felt. This can lead to them becoming more extreme.”
Both the novel and the film repeatedly present the characters driving the streets, as if they’re collectively responsible for running the cyclist off the road. Amidon and Virzi suggest they also need to be seen as victims of the social world that has spawned them. They make some awful mistakes, they’re careless with each other’s feelings, but they don’t directly set out to hurt anybody.
“This is a story in which you can’t divide the good and the evil,” Virzi observes. “I like to see the way all of the characters have their reasons, which is enhanced in both the book and the film by breaking the story up into chapters, each enabling us to see what’s happening through the experiences of different characters.”
Amidon is more overtly political in his response to the forces that have shaped the characters. “I believe capitalism in its current iteration really does have a tendency to distort human behaviour and relationships,” he says. “As Herbert Marcuse pointed out, all these technological breakthroughs of the past 100 years should be decreasing the amount of work and stress we are experiencing, and yet it seems to be having the opposite effect, with crippling debt and longer work weeks and ever-expanding material aspiration. It’s crazy. It’s like we’re all bewitched by money.”
Embellishing that notion, the settings signify wealth and power, serving as literal embodiments of what Virzi calls “the wellness without happiness that defines the Western world”. Brianza, he says, has a special meaning for Italian audiences. “It’s the richest area of our country, near the big-business centre of Milan, where we have our stockmarket. It’s our New York, our Wall Street. And because of (former prime minister Silvio) Berlusconi’s connections with the area, it also suggests something about our recent controversies.”
While Amidon and Virzi embark on further projects together, a final and irresistible irony has Human Capital in line for remakes not only in the US, India and South Korea but also as a miniseries in Britain. Which endorses Amidon’s observation that it’s a universal story. “Yes, yes,” Virzi agrees. “It could be set around London or Paris or Brussels, or maybe even Melbourne.”
Human Capital opens on December 4.