A new film tells the electrifying story of Italy's notorious ex-prime minister
Over a lifetime in Italian politics, Giulio Andreotti has been called many names. Between 1972 and 1992, he served an unprecedented seven terms as prime minister, an achievement which led the Roman press to brand him "Mr Italy" and, with a nod to Caesar, "Divo Giulio". More recently, as Il Divo, an enthralling new drama reminds us, the monikers bestowed upon him have been less respectful.
"Apart from the Punic Wars, I've been blamed for everything that's happened in Italy," intones Andreotti (in an impeccable portrayal by Toni Servillo), during the film's opening moments. "They've honoured me with several nicknames: the Hunchback, the Fox, Moloch, the Salamander, the Black Pope… Beelzebub. But I've never pressed charges."
The real Andreotti, now 90 years old and a life senator in the Italian parliament, is no stranger to criminal charges. In 2002, following a decade of hearings, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for ordering the 1979 murder of an Italian journalist said to have been about to expose his links with the mafia. A year later, the conviction was overturned in Italy's highest court of appeal. In 2003, a Sicilian appeals court also upheld the acquittal of Andreotti on a charge of association with the mafia but only on the grounds of expiration of statutory terms. The judges concluded that, prior to 1980 (too many years earlier to fall within the jurisdiction of the court), there had been "concrete collaboration" between Andreotti and Cosa Nostra. Suspicion, scandal and a host of unsavoury names have clung to him ever since.
Paolo Sorrentino's magisterial film, which picked up the Grand Jury prize at Cannes last year, depicts Andreotti as a fascinating enigma. "He is the greatest concentration of contradictions and ambiguities of any person I have ever come across," says Sorrentino, "and that makes him an ideal film character."
Sorrentino is not the first director to put a fictionalised version of Andreotti on screen. The character of Don Lucchesi in The Godfather: Part III was famously based on Andreotti. In that film, he came to a sticky end, stabbed in the throat with his own spectacles. In Sorrentino's film he appears small and sinister but unsquashable, like a cockroach. "I feel ambivalent towards Andreotti," says the director. "From a political point of view I am repelled by him. But from the human point of view there is something about him that I find very attractive."..
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
"Apart from the Punic Wars, I've been blamed for everything that's happened in Italy," intones Andreotti (in an impeccable portrayal by Toni Servillo), during the film's opening moments. "They've honoured me with several nicknames: the Hunchback, the Fox, Moloch, the Salamander, the Black Pope… Beelzebub. But I've never pressed charges."
The real Andreotti, now 90 years old and a life senator in the Italian parliament, is no stranger to criminal charges. In 2002, following a decade of hearings, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for ordering the 1979 murder of an Italian journalist said to have been about to expose his links with the mafia. A year later, the conviction was overturned in Italy's highest court of appeal. In 2003, a Sicilian appeals court also upheld the acquittal of Andreotti on a charge of association with the mafia but only on the grounds of expiration of statutory terms. The judges concluded that, prior to 1980 (too many years earlier to fall within the jurisdiction of the court), there had been "concrete collaboration" between Andreotti and Cosa Nostra. Suspicion, scandal and a host of unsavoury names have clung to him ever since.
Paolo Sorrentino's magisterial film, which picked up the Grand Jury prize at Cannes last year, depicts Andreotti as a fascinating enigma. "He is the greatest concentration of contradictions and ambiguities of any person I have ever come across," says Sorrentino, "and that makes him an ideal film character."
Sorrentino is not the first director to put a fictionalised version of Andreotti on screen. The character of Don Lucchesi in The Godfather: Part III was famously based on Andreotti. In that film, he came to a sticky end, stabbed in the throat with his own spectacles. In Sorrentino's film he appears small and sinister but unsquashable, like a cockroach. "I feel ambivalent towards Andreotti," says the director. "From a political point of view I am repelled by him. But from the human point of view there is something about him that I find very attractive."..