Mario Martone has arrived at the Venice Film Festival with a nine-hour cut of «Scherzetto», and festival organizers have responded by erecting a temporary oath pavilion on the Lido where every ticket holder must swear aloud, before a notary in a black robe, that they will not check a phone, whisper, or leave for any reason until the final frame.
The oath, drafted by the festival's newly created Office of Spectatorial Loyalty, runs to four minutes and requires the swearer to renounce «all prior commitments, snacks, and bladder-related excuses» for the duration. Those who refuse are escorted to a parallel screening of the original two-hour version, which Martone has renamed «Scherzetto: The Coward's Cut» and which now plays to an empty theater.
By the third day, the queue for the oath pavilion stretched past the Excelsior, and local vendors had begun selling commemorative knee cushions and thermoses stamped with the director's profile. A festival spokesperson confirmed that ushers have been retrained as «oath enforcers» and now patrol the aisles with night-vision goggles, logging any blink longer than two seconds.
Martone, for his part, has announced that the nine-hour version is «the prismatic cut the film always demanded» and that he will personally attend every screening, seated in the front row, to ensure the oath is honored. The festival has extended its schedule by four days to accommodate the demand, and the mayor of Venice has declared the oath a «temporary civic duty» for all able-bodied filmgoers.