After a break of 27 years, Johnny Depp returned to the director’s chair with Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness, the biographical drama about the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. A great cast with Riccardo Scamarcio in the leading role along with Stephen Graham, Antonia Desplat, and Al Pacino, this was a passion project that took decades.
Bringing Amedeo Modigliani’s story to the screen was nearly as interesting as the artist’s life itself. Al Pacino’s vision in the late 1970s came to fruition under Depp’s direction in 2024. The movie is based on a Dennis McIntyre play, and it takes viewers through bohemian lives in Paris in the early 20th century.
The film has raised interest due to its subject regarding artistic integrity and the complexities of the art-commerce relationship. But what makes this particular portrayal of Modigliani special, and why did Depp choose this project for his directorial comeback?
The unique vision of Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness
Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness tells a story that only focuses on 72 very crucial hours of the life of Amedeo Modigliani. The film builds up a high-pressure narrative to show the idea of the artist’s wild existence rather than recreate a comprehensive biography.
The movie takes place during World War I in Paris, where we follow Modigliani, aka Modi, played by Riccardo Scamarcio, as he weighs the idea of giving up on his art and leaving while running away from the police.
Bohemian art in 1916 Paris is expressed through Modi’s relationships with his colleagues. Bruno Gouery plays the French artist Maurice Utrillo, Ryan McParland plays the Belarusian-born painter Chaïm Soutine, and Antonia Desplat plays his English muse Beatrice Hastings. They were a part of the artistic community that molded Modigliani’s work and vision during a critical moment in world history.
However, the thing that mostly singles out the story is that of a creative conflict. Modi doubts himself, struggling for artistic integrity. At the same time, he seeks an opportunity for recognition through American collector Maurice Gangnat, played by Al Pacino.
This makes the core of the whole drama when Modi goes through intense hallucinatory and mental struggles within the film’s very concise time frame.
The majority of the movie was filmed in Budapest, and the team went to LA and Turin for some additional shots. Depp also dedicated the film to his friend, rock musician Jeff Beck, who has since died, giving a personal dimension to the project. However, critically, the movie hasn’t done well and earned around $407,962 in its box-office run (via Box Office Mojo).
Al Pacino’s scene is the shining moment in Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness
The presence of Al Pacino as the rich art collector Maurice Gangnat stands as a sort of peak in Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness. For Pacino, his role goes beyond being just that actor in this film because, for him, it represents his almost 50-year dream of finally bringing Modigliani’s story into film. He pushed on with the project, even after being unable to be cast in the role of the titular artist simply due to age.
Pacino’s confrontation scene between the wealthy collector and the struggling artist makes the most compelling tension in the whole narrative from a philosophical and emotional standpoint. It highlights the conflict between the purity of art and the necessity of commercial success.
Pacino’s performance stands as the main highlight of the film because the rest of the content falls quite short. The veteran actor’s short appearance in the film delivers heartfelt depth and unflinching truth to his lines, which create a sense of relief for the viewers through his assessment of Modi’s destructive nature.
It shows what might have been with better treatment. Inside Pacino’s scene, the director shapes a dramatic high point and also gives a commentary on art creation that focuses on the struggle between artistic integrity and survival that ran throughout Modigliani’s artistic journey.
Johnny Depp almost played Amedeo Modigliani before becoming the director
Johnny Depp‘s involvement in Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness went through quite an interesting transition through the years. At one point, he was expected to perform the character Modigliani himself. The casting thread of this began as early as the late 1990s when Pacino pitched the idea to Depp while filming Donnie Brasco. For almost two decades, the project lingered on with Depp as the possible protagonist.
Mick Davis wrote a script for Modigliani sometime in the ’90s. Martin Scorsese even considered it as one of the best screenplays he had ever read. However, when it reached the office of Al Pacino and 20th Century Studios, they proposed combining it with an earlier version. Davis eventually rejected the proposition and directed his own version in 2004, starring Andy García.
In 2012, Barry Navidi and Al Pacino raised the project again with Depp still attached to play Modigliani. However, by then, Depp’s busy schedule became an obstacle. The project sat in development limbo until very close to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when Pacino approached Depp with a wholly different offer: to direct rather than star in the film.
Talking about how he landed on the director’s chair, Depp said at the San Sebastián International Film Festival (via Deadline),
I got a very strange phone call from Al Pacino who said ‘Do remember this Modigliani project?’ and he said I should direct it. For some reason, Al saw me driving this strange machine. And when Pacino speaks, you listen, so I ran with it. But I had no idea what it would be until the pieces of the puzzle came together.
According to Depp, his experience of shooting Modi turned out “infinitely more positive” than his first time as director when he made The Brave in 1990. He described his first directing attempt as being trapped in a “structured hole” with “too much math,” while he felt unbound and like a “giant toddler” during Modi.
Johnny Depp’s directorial work and Al Pacino’s dedication resulted in Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness, which the world finally experienced after many years on hold. The film presents insights into an essential time in Amedeo Modigliani’s life and examines the eternal tension between artistry and financial stability.
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