For the first time in 25 years, American actor Johnny Depp will take the helm of a feature film on Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. According to Deadline, the 59-year-old actor will also co-produce the film with Al Pacino and Barry Navidi, which will be based on Modigliani’s life over the course of 48 hours who died due to poverty in the 1920s. Modigliani is based on Dennis McIntyre’s 1979 drama of the same name, which chronicles the painter’s life in Paris in 1916. The film will be Johnny Depp’s second directorial effort. He made his directorial debut with the 1997 picture The Brave, starring Marlon Brando.
Learning about new stuff can be fun! Think about all the stuff you can learn online instead of reading about AH! This is a photo of the great Amedeo Modigliani. pic.twitter.com/NqTDl145ZH
— Scott Cardinal (@ScottStories) August 15, 2022
Everything you need to know about Johnny Depp’s movie inspiration, Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy on July 12, 1884. He was a sculptor and painter whose work was characterized by elongated figures, asymmetrical compositions, and the use of basic lines. Modigliani was born in Italy to Jewish parents and moved to Paris in 1906. There, he became involved in the Montmartre art scene, where he encountered artists such as Constantin Brancusi and Pablo Picasso, who influenced the reductive character of his creations. The artist also appreciated traditional Italian Renaissance painting, which he studied as an art student in Florence and Venice.
Career
At the Salon d’Automne in 1912, he displayed his work of eight stone heads in simpler and elongated shapes influenced by African sculptures. Amedeo, who was not a professional painter, painted not just his friends and well-known figures in the Parisian creative society, but also anonymous servants, models, and neighborhood residents. In 1917, he started painting a series of around 30 large female nudists, which are considered among his best works because of their warm, brilliant colors and sensuous, rounded forms.
In his private life, he began a live-in relationship with Jeanne Hébuterne in 1917. The couple lived on the Côte d’Azur with their daughter, born in November 1918. The artist suffered from a variety of maladies during his life, including pleurisy and typhus, which ended his life in January 1920. Hébuterne leaped off a window two days later, killing herself and their unborn child.
For many years, the tragic backdrop of Modigliani’s life overshadowed critical appraisals of his art. He is still regarded as one of the most prominent and unique artists of his generation. The filming of Johnny Depp’s next film is expected to begin in Europe in 2023. As of yet, the cast of the film has not been announced.
On the professional front, Depp is presently filming Mawenn’s historical drama Jeanne du Barry, in which he plays King Louis XV. The shooting started on July 26 and will be filmed in several sites across Paris, including Versailles and other neighborhoods. Johnny Depp recently won a high-profile defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, based on an op-ed piece she penned for the Washington Post in 2018.