We go back in time to a portrait of the
early 20th century and the warning signs of fascism.
A new series, Mussolini, Son of the Century, follows the
rise to power of the Italian dictator.
It examines the thuggery and manipulation that made him Illinois
duche.
Here's a clip from the trailer.
The eight part series is directed by Joe Wright, who's
best known for acclaimed films like Atonement and Darkest Hour,
and he joins us now live from Los Angeles.
Joe Wright, welcome to the program.
It's an amazingly well, first, an amazing series and secondly,
incredibly timely.
I, I want to ask you just to talk to
me from the beginning because as a journalist, I was
obviously, you know, taken by how you open it with
a young, well, 35 year old.
Mussolini is now starting his own paper.
And, you know, he used to be a socialist.
Tell me why you started with that and what was
the significance of that move?
The show goes from 1919 to 1925.
So it's about the birth of fascism.
And for me personally, hearing the word fascism bandied about
over the past eight years, I wanted to understand its
etymology and, and really get to grips with what the
word meant.
And what did you figure out?
I mean, it's it's obviously that that you see in
many autocratic or dictatorial regimes, even now, that one of
the first targets is a Free Press.
And I thought that was interesting.
But I also thought what was interesting, you had him
basically saying, you know, the people need a strong man
with a simple idea.
You know, I will feed on their anger and their
hate is what what you know what I was struck
by.
Tell me about that.
Well, I think what we discovered was that Mussolini used
the legitimate concerns of a discontented people and twisted them
to become an authoritarian or autocratic rule.
So that was something that we became very interested in.
And we're going to play one of the clips that
we have.
You have him this, the style of the filming is
very much Mussolini talks directly to the camera a lot,
and we're going to play this clip and talk about
it.
Peril futuro la vanguardia la rivolucion orchi nashe Illinois fascism
El fascisma una creatura bellissima fata dicione de dia de
corajo de cambiamento que con crista a million, million.
So Joe, who is he talking to when he turns
to the camera?
What was that device about?
He's talking to us and he's talking to the viewers
at home directly.
The idea was to try and get as close to
him as possible to try and understand him as a
as a human being.
And at the beginning of the show, he he has
control of the narrative, which I think is something very
important to this kind of leader and all leaders maybe.
And, and then as the show progresses, he loses control
of that narrative.
And I've also, you know, read and seen the way
you portrayed him.
You know, he is a horrible person with horrible politics,
but he has a certain charisma or a certain humor.
And you note, and of course, you did Darkest Hour
about Churchill during the Darkest Hour.
And, and you know, that Churchill found, you know, he
did have some humor about him.
I found that part of his, you know, character development
interesting.
Well, Mussolini managed to seduce an entire nation and, and
much of the world, even Churchill was writing to him,
congratulating him and so on.
So I felt it was important to understand how he
managed to do that and to at times seduce the
audience of the show.
But then, you know, whip the the carpet from underneath
them and and have them apply some some critical distance.
Do you see that it has any question why that
was seduced?
Yeah, yeah, no.
And, and do you feel that the fact that it's
coming out now and, you know, there's such a huge
political upheaval going on around the world that it has
relevance today?
I personally do, very much so.
But my job was to try and understand fascism and
its roots and causes and to understand Mussolini and then
allow the audience to discover those parallels for themselves.
There's almost no English in there.
It's, I mean, I don't know.
Did you start by deciding to do it in all
Italian?
Was it something you decided to do?
How?
How did that happen?
No, originally we had the dialogue in Italian and and
then the direct address to camera in English.
But as we were in rehearsals and pre production, Georgia
Maloney came to power and the next day I went
in and said I felt that I wanted every single
Italian to be able to understand every single word of
what he was saying.
And what reaction has this had in in Italy?
I know I think it was premiered at the Italian
or the Venice Film Festival.
What reaction has it had there?
It's had an extraordinary action and I, I feel like
Italy has never really come to terms with its fascist
past and, and, and perhaps present.
So it's, it's really been quite a shock to the
Italian people and, and establishment and there's been a, a
lot of conversation.
It's been on the front page of every newspaper for
some time now.
So Georgie Maloney and her Brothers of Italy party were
elected in 20/20/22.
I mean, she's become pretty much a very successful Prime
Minister at home.
She works nicely with her, you know, international partners, but
also she has had a very distinct effect, according to
Italian journalists, on the freedom of the Free Press there,
the free and independent press there.
And, and as you know, there's going to be very
important elections in Germany and the Afd, which is the
very far right party there, is making very strong gains.
What I mean, does it surprise you that this is
happening now?
It shocks me that it's happening now, but perhaps doesn't
surprise me.
I mean, I remember when I was scouting locations in
2016 for Darkest Hour just prior to the Brexit vote
and looking around at the state of the north of
England and the state that people are in and the,
the, the, the expression of austerity that was happening there.
And I and I felt that we were headed into
some very difficult times.
And actually, you you say also that you describe seeing
and hearing in Italy that some people look back on
the Mussolini era with kind of rose tinted glasses.
But I want to ask you then, why?
Yeah.
Why do you think that it's had so much trouble
getting a distributor in the United States?
I mean, you you wrote one streamer told you the
project was too controversial for them to pick up.
What?
What does that mean?
It means that fascism or anti fascism is now a
controversial topic and that the entertainment industry is becoming more
and more apolitical, more and more centrist.
And that is of great concern to to me and
many others.
And where do you hope it will be picked up?
What is the I know it's on Sky here in
in the UK.
It's shown in Italy as well.
How do you do you have plans for a broader,
you know, broader distribution?
Yeah, we're in negotiations now and I think it might
be picked up by a European based company that has
a lot of reach in in the States.
I think it's a really important show for people in
America to be able to watch.
If we don't learn from history, then we're then we're
pretty lost.
Then we're working in the dark.
It's interesting that you've done these, you know, historical dramas
as well as some of the wonderful.
Dramas, Pride and Prejudice, a tournament, etcetera.
It's very dark.
I mean, it's shot very darkly.
It's very dark heavy in a way, despite the flashes
of of, you know, sort of character acting, so to
speak.
How do you get through that?
I mean, it's eight parts of of this terrible part
of our history.
It was a fairly brutal piece to make, but I
had the amazing Luca Marianelli playing Mussolini and we became
very close and we became kind of brothers in arms
really.
I think one of the things I discovered about fascism
is, is that it's sort of the politicisation of a
toxic masculinity.
And, and so we really sort of investigated that and,
and tried to come to terms with what that, what
that really meant.
But I'm surrounded by great people, My editor, Valerio Benelli
and, and many others who we supported each other.
You know, there was a there was a camaraderie in
this journey into the the heart of darkness.