Steven Spielberg Reuniting with Mark Rylance For THE KIDNAPPING OF EDGARDO MORTARA
Steven Spielberg has found his next film project. Deadline reports that the director will reunite with his Bridge of Spies and The BFG star Mark Rylance for a film called The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, which is based on the 1997 book by David Kertzer. Here's the synopsis:
Bologna: nightfall, June 1858. A knock sounds at the door of the Jewish merchant Momolo Mortara. Two officers of the Inquisition bust inside and seize Mortara's six-year-old son, Edgardo. As the boy is wrenched from his father's arms, his mother collapses. The reason for his abduction: the boy had been secretly "baptized" by a family servant. According to papal law, the child is therefore a Catholic who can be taken from his family and delivered to a special monastery where his conversion will be completed.
With this terrifying scene, prize-winning historian David I. Kertzer begins the true story of how one boy's kidnapping became a pivotal event in the collapse of the Vatican as a secular power. The book evokes the anguish of a modest merchant's family, the rhythms of daily life in a Jewish ghetto, and also explores, through the revolutionary campaigns of Mazzini and Garibaldi and such personages as Napoleon III, the emergence of Italy as a modern national state. Moving and informative, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara reads as both a historical thriller and an authoritative analysis of how a single human tragedy changed the course of history.
This sounds like exactly the kind of project Spielberg loves: historical nonfiction with world consequences, but seen through the grounded perspective of average people. Tony Kushner, who wrote both Munich and Lincoln for the director, has adapted the book into a screenplay.
It's cool to see that Rylance is becoming something of a go-to guy for Spielberg. The actor was apparently an extremely well-respected stage actor for years before having his breakout, Oscar-winning role in Bridge of Spies, which is a testament to the Hollywood dream: if you put in hard work for years, it will eventually pay off. That's not the case for everyone, but it's certainly working out well for Rylance so far.
Production on this one starts in early 2017 for release at the end of that year, so this will be sandwiched between Ready Player One and Indiana Jones 5 for Spielberg.