From 1909 to 1929, the Italians adopted more than one hundred and thirty French plays for screen.  Besides comedies, like here The Marriage of Figaro or The Barber of Seville directed by Luiggi Maggi (1867–1946), classic tragedy and romantic drama also represented genres popular with cinema. Like Beaumarchais, Corneille, Alfred de Musset and Victor Hugo to mention just a few, are also among the repertoire of prestigious French authors brought to screen by Italian film directors.

The French influence in Italy was part of the cultural Franco-Italian exchanges that occurred throughout the 19th century.  Dramatic French culture featured in many of these contributions.  After the flight of Ferdinand IV and his court when Napoleon established a monarchy in Naples, French plays triumphed on the boards of the peninsula.  This influence lasted until the Belle Epoque.  The adaptation here of the play featuring one of the greatest characters of the Age of Enlightenment is a good illustration of this.  Considered as one of the early warning signs of the French Revolution, exposing archaic privileges of the nobility, Beaumarchais’ play is adapted to screen in the form of entertainment similar to both the Bourgeois culture and popular culture.

In 1912, at a time when Italian cinema was becoming famous abroad, Italian film makers decided to produce films that were easily exported overseas and to France in particular.  To meet the demands of a huge public, sophisticated stories like those found in theatre for centuries were needed. But far from representing the intrigue on the stage, Italian film makers offered specifically cinematographic staging through rhythm, an energetic directing of actors, cross-cutting and often sumptuous decor.  So it’s thanks to the drama of plays adapted and transformed that the Italian film industry was able to free itself of theatrical performance and lay bare its specificities.

To rediscover the original colour of this 1913tinted film, we called on the Desmetcolor method; a restoration technique used for ink bath and toned films. Noël Desmet developed this method in the 1960’s when working within the Royal Film Library of Belgium.

The restoration of the film was done by the National Museum of Cinema in Turin.

The original music for this film was composed by Pablo Pico in 2010 in the context of the call for proposals launched in partnership with the Sacem (Société des auteurs compositeurs et éditeurs de musique – Society of authors, composers and music editors).