New series recreates the life of Benito Mussolini, founder of fascism

Once the dictator Benito Mussolini He was young, skinny, and black hair. Over time, he only had black soul. But already young he had the inflamed verba, it was vehement, histrionic, fed up charismatic, manager, liar and arrogant. He painted it Marco Bellocchio in “Vincere”, and paint it now Joe Wright in “Mussolini, son of the century”the italo-gylo-francia series starring Luca Marinellithat MUBI presents in a few days.

Wright He is the director of “The darkest hours”portrait of Winston Churchill during the II War. But this new work is very different, not only in the character’s painting but in style, modern, agitated and effective, in order to capture young audiences. “I want to attract attention to the danger of populisms, and also the danger of toxic masculinity,” he said when the presentation of the series at the Venice Festival last year (ironies in history, that festival was founded by himself Mussolini93 years ago.

Based on the novel biography of Antonio Scurati, The 8 -chapter series covers since 1919, with the appearance of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (basically veteran war resentment), until the murder of the socialist deputy Giacomo Mattei in 1925, of which Mussolini became publicly responsible moral and political, but not responsible criminal. There, the expansion of powers would be affirmed, the greatest persecution of opponents, and what Aristotle had already defined centuries earlier as an Oclocracy, the turba government under the command of a leader.

The changing looks

At the beginning, cinema sympathized with Mussolini. Thus Il Duce is photographed in the American comedy “Chasing Through Europe” (D. Butler & A. Werner1929, a couple walks through the old continent registering picturesque things). And it appears as El Salvador de la Patria in Italian films of propaganda intention, such as “Camicia Nera” (Giovachino Forzano1933, history of humble people who culminates with half an hour of routes, dikes, workers’ homes and other relevant works of the first government), “Vecchia Guardia” (Alessandro Blasetti1935, exaltation of the march on Rome) and, in some way, “Escipion the African” (Carmine Gallone1937, where the hero of the Roman Empire, embodied by Annibale Ninchi, is equal to Mussolini).

At that time the dictator had a good relationship with the world of cinema. He created the Venice Festival in 1932, the immense cinecittá in 1937, a large state -owned company included, and even participated in the scripts of “Villafranca “ (1934, romance with the background of a treaty between French, Sardos and Austrohungaros to distribute the Italian Peninsula), “Hunder Tage” (Franz Wenzler1935) and “Campo Di Maggio” (G. Forzano1935). Let’s clarify, these two films were filmed simultaneously and tell the same story, only that in tongues and with different actors: the history of the 100 days of Napoleon from his escape from the island of Elba to the defeat in Waterloo and his sad end, when the compatriots themselves delivered it to their enemies. Would you suspect Mussolini That he was also going to end like this, and even worse?

Already in 1940 Charles Chaplin He made fun of him, and above all of Hitlerin “The great dictator”with a couple of scenes played between the same Chaplin and the comedian Jack Oakie. In 1943, ironies of life, the Nazis invaded Cinecittá and made it jail and barracks, and then the Americans bombarded her to end them. The Venice Festival had been suspended, and after the war other stories would arise.

There are many, and very good, about the times of fascism, such as “Paisá”, “Rome open city” (Both by Roberto Rossellini), “The march on Rome” (this time as satire, with Vittorio Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi), “The Garden of the Finzi-Contini” (Vittorio de Sica), “The night of San Lorenzo” (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani), “The private lives” (Marco Tulio Giordana, original title “Sanguepazzo” but very long. But there are few, where someone embodies Mussolini.

Only in the 1970s his figure begins to recreate, in titles such as “The Matteotti crime” (Florestano Vancini, 1973, Mario Adorf interpreted with happy histrionism), “Mussolini, last act” (Carlo Lizzani, 1974, with Rod Steiger, here was just seen in 1983), the comedy “White Telephone”, also called “The race of a maiden” (Dino Risi, 1976, Agostina Belli to the meeting of Dino Baldazzi). In jocular images, it would be remembered by the unparalleled “Amarcord” by Federico Fellini, 1976. Curiously, Fellini and Mussolini were born in the same Paese, Emilia Romagna, and both were great fantasy, only one was a good person.

Then the first television series would come, “Mussolini. The Untold Story”, 1985, with George Scott, actor better remembered by “Patton”, excellent biopic of the American hero of the II War. Something unexpected, very personal, “Tea with Mussolini” (Franco Zeffirelli, 1999, very refined English ladies supporting ugly times in Venice, with Maggie Smith. Judy Dench, and Claudio Spadaro as the undesirable). Also “The poet and spy” (Gianluca Jodice2020, the distinguished Gabrielle D’Annunzio controlled by the regime). Before, in 2009, the aforementioned “Vincere”, by Bellocchiowhere Mussolini, exalted and selfish, to affirm his political career denies the existence of a natural child and sends the mother to the asylum. Filippo Tini composed that monster, and also the middle idiot.

And it’s not a novel, this was really confirmed by Fabrizio Laurenti with the documentary “Mussolini’s secret”2005. Laurenti later made “Il Corpo del Duce”, 2011, a disturbing visit to the little mausoleum where fans still congregate. Before going to the coffin, that body was quite veiled. As will be remembered, Mussolini and his lover Clara Petacci They tried to escape the allies but were trapped by the partisans, beaten, shot and hanged down. Something similar happened to Ceacecu and Madam, and the Lebanese Khadoffi.

For its part, Vittorio Mussolinithe recognized son, took her cheap. As a young man was a motorist, war pilot in Spain and Ethiopia, critic and producer of good films, then married Argentina daughter of Italians Orsola Buvolihe lived with her in Buenos Aires, frequented the Colón Theater, and around 1970 he went to die in Rome. But that is another story, which may appear in the fourth volume of the biography that continues writing Scurati (The first three are already edited in Spanish).