A new mini-series on Benito Mussolini now out in Italy is already attracting controversy after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she won’t be making time to watch it.
ADVERTISEMENTA new series 'M. il Figlio del Secolo', based on the novel by Antonio Scurati and inspired by Benito Mussoliniis released today in Italy, an Italian-French co-production, under the aegis (among others) of Sky and Pathé.
Roman actor Luca Marinelli plays Mussolini, and it is directed by British filmmaker Joe Wright, who made ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (2005) and ‘The Darkest Hour’ (2017).
The miniseries traces in 8 episodes the rise of the dictator, from the foundation of the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919 (future PNF, National Fascist Party) to the speech of 3 January 1925, in which Mussolini admits responsibility for the murder of the socialist member of parliament Giacomo Matteotti. In between are the age of squadrismo (in which fascist groups became the protagonists of intimidation and violence throughout Italy) and the March on Rome in 1922, from which the first fascist government was born.
Scurati: the M. series and the controversy
This is the first series produced from a book by Scurati, specifically the first book in the series ‘M. Il figlio del secolo’, published by the author in 2018 and winner of the Witch prize the following year. Scurati turned M into a series of novels: the latest, ‘M. The Hour of Destiny‘, tells the story of Mussolini up to 1940, the year Italy entered World War II. It came out on in October last year.
Since then, Scurati has clashed several times with the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Last April, RAI (the state broadcaster whose top management is largely chosen by the government) decided to cancel one of his monologues scheduled to mark Italy’s annual Liberation Day on 25 April.
Rai executive Paolo Corsini had attributed the cancellation to reasons of remuneration, but an internal document published a few hours later denied this, speaking of ‘editorial reasons’. Scurati described the move as ‘government censorship’ because of the criticism in the monologue aimed at the Italian premier and her leadership group. Meloni had tried to close the matter by publishing the monologue on her social profiles, but this failed to calm the storm and sparked a strike by the RAI journalists’ union.
A thorny legacy
Production of the series has been a major talking point in Italy given its fascist background. Several of Mussolini’s heirs are in politics and defendhis political legacy. Many exponents and former exponents of the centre-right coalition that governs Italy have repeatedly set out to minimise the damage Mussolini caused to Italy and have doggedly refusedto distance themselves from Italy’s fascist past. Moreover, Mussolini’s great-grandson, Romano Floriani Mussolini, became a footballer, attracting further controversy for the Roman salute when celebrating his first goal in Serie B.
Earlier this week at the former headquarters of the Italian Social Movement (MSI) in Acca Larenzia in Rome, hundreds of people commemorated the murder of three neo-fascist militants in 1978 by giving the Roman salute. There now exists a ‘calendar’ of annual commemorationsof the years of ‘il Duce’.
Giorgia Meloni ‘M? I have other priorities”
Given the row sparked by the salute, the series, and a donation from her party to Acca Larenzia, the prime minister when questioned at her annual press conference replied: ‘Better to use it for that than make a fast food restaurant out of it’. When asked if she intended to watch the series, Meloni said:** ‘You’ll understand if I have other priorities, I haven’t watched series for more than two years’.
