'He is an archetype of every populist leader to come'

As biopic 'Mussolini: Son of the Century' arrives, its director Joe Wright talks to Craig McLean about the importance of understanding the charismatic fascist behind the bloodshed

- Craig McLean

In the opening moments of Sky's new, eight-part biopic Mussolini: Son of the Century, we hear the man himself speak. "For 20 years you adored me and feared me, as a god. Then you madly hated me, you desecrated my corpse," intones Luca Marinelli, the actor playing the Italian fascist leader, over archive footage tracing the strongman’s rise and reign all the way to his execution by partisans in 1945. “Now, tell me, what was the point? Look around you... we’re still here.”

It’s an interesting moment in history to be broadcasting a sevenhour TV series about the ascent to power of the leader who, in inventing fascism in the 1920s, created a political ideology that would reverberate across that century – and beyond. Italy, where the series was shot, is led by its prime minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing group Brothers of Italy, while across Europe, populist leaders are on the rise. Some of those figures and parties, notably, have been heralded by Elon Musk, the man last seen on the global stage offering what many saw as a fascist salute.

Yet for the makers of the drama, that meant resolutely avoiding crude depictions of the chest-puffing dictator and instead drilling into the psychology behind the terror, caricature and cataclysmic bloodshed. In other words, they were determined to show what made his bloody reign possible.

“We had to show all the violence in fascism – but also Mussolini’s great power of seduction on people,” says Antonio Scurati, from whose bestselling, fact-based 2018 book the series is adapted. “So, Mussolini had to be a very evil character, but at the same time, human and similar to us. Because if you [only] make evil out of Mussolini, or [make him] a funny guy, you don’t understand him. It’s both things. He speaks to our deep consciousness, to our fears, to our desires. And at the same time, he is a violent and fearful dictator.”