This article explores how Martone's seemingly traditional period biopic of nineteenth-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi challenges the conventions of the genre, and could be read, instead, as an interesting case of cinematic adaptation on at least three different levels. I propose that Il giovane favoloso (Leopardi) is a film that, as a biopic, can be understood as an adaptation of a life experience ‐ an adaptation that, in its cinematic construction, expresses an awareness of the biopic as a film genre that can only perform a representational version of a life. Secondarily, Leopardi is a film that engages with an array of cinematic strategies to 'give body' to Leopardi's lyrical texts, turning his lines into a sensorial experience. Finally, it is a film that not only 'translates' specific literary texts in images but also expresses the overall development of Leopardi's poetics into a distinctly cinematic syntax.