New Mussolini hit show ‘too controversial’ for US audiences, director Joe Wright says

By Lucia Caporalini

Can history be too controversial for a modern audience? British director Joe Wright thinks so. 

Wright, known for directing Oscar-winning period dramas like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (2005), ‘Atonement’ (2007), and the Winston Churchill biopic ‘The Darkest Hour’ (2017), is no stranger to controversial characters. 

Yet his latest endeavour, ‘M – Son of the Century’, an eight-part TV series focusing on the early political career of Italian dictator and fascist Duce Benito Mussolini, is yet to be distributed in the United States because no streaming service has offered to pick it up.

Too controversial for streaming

Wright revealed that one streaming service told him the project was too controversial for them to distribute. 

Speaking to CNN, he explained: “[This] means that fascism, or antifascism, 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 me and many others.”

“When did antifascism become controversial? That really shocked me, because our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers fought, defending us against fascism.” 

“Is their sacrifice also controversial?” Wright said to the Financial Times in a separate interview.

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Mussolini’s rise to power

The show originally premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year, and it was released in January in Europe by Sky. 

‘M’ is based on the first volume of five novels written by Italian journalist Antonio Scurati and follows Mussolini’s ascendance to power between 1919 and 1925. 

Both the book and the show were a success – the novel sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide, and it won the prestigious Premio Strega award in Italy.

“The reason why I started writing on Mussolini all those years ago was because I felt an urgent need to break what I call the victim paradigm,” Scurati said to the Guardian. 

“I am fully convinced that Italy and Europe will never fully come to terms with fascism if we neglect to address a fundamental fact: we were fascists. All of us were seduced.”

“We have to feel accountable for that chapter in our history,” he explained. 

Divided opinions in Italy

The show’s main protagonist, Italian actor Luca Marinelli, also shared his point of view on the matter. 

Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, the actor remarked: “[The message the series wants to convey is] that it’s essential to know your history. By this, I mean each of us has to make an effort to learn our history, what we learn in school, and what we can learn on our own.”

“Our country was ravaged for 20 years by fascists. It’s important to know these things; it’s important to know and recognise history not just as what has already been but also in the ways it can happen again in the present.”

The comments divided opinions in his home nation, Italy, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government has often been put side by side with Mussolini’s era of power. 

Marinelli stressed that the most difficult aspect of interpreting Mussolini was getting acquainted with him as a person.

“It was painful because I had to suspend any kind of judgment to be able to get close to him. I am an antifascist, deeply so, and I come from an antifascist family,” he explained.

In one pivotal scene, Mussolini looks into the camera and expresses the desire to ‘make Italy great again’ in a clear reference to US President Donald Trump’s famous slogan. 

“There were many references [to modern-day politics] in the script initially, but a lot of them were cut out. That’s the only one that stayed in.” 

“I think it’s really important [it did], because it references the present,” Marinelli explained. 

Perhaps that is what is stopping many streaming services from taking a position. 

“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 pretty lost, we’re working in the dark,” Wright affirmed.

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