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Film Info

Italy 2008 | 110 min. Director: Paolo Sorrentino
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Il divo

Synopsis

In Rome, at dawn, when everyone is sleeping, one man is awake.
That man is Giulio Andreotti.
He's awake because he has to work, write books, move in fashionable circles and, last but not least, pray.
Calm, crafty and inscrutable, Andreotti is synonym of power in Italy for over four decades. At the beginning of the Nineties, this impassive yet insinuating, ambiguous yet reassuring figure appears set to assume his seventh mandate as Prime Minister without arrogance and without humility.
Approaching seventy, Andreotti is a gerontocrat who, with all the attributes of God, is afraid of no one and does not know the meaning of awe, since he is accustomed to seeing it stamped on the faces of all his interlocutors. His satisfaction is muted, impalpable. For him, satisfaction is power, with which he has a symbiotic relationship. Power the way he likes it. Unwavering and immutable, from the outset. He emerges unscathed from everything: electoral battles, terrorist massacres, slanderous accusations.
He is untouched by it all, unchanging.
Until the strongest counter power in Italy, the Mafia, declares war on him. Then things change. Perhaps even for the enigmatic, immortal Andreotti. But the question is: do they really change or only appear to?
We can be sure of one thing: it is difficult to tarnish Andreotti, the man who knows the ways of the world better than any of us.

Cast & Crew

  • Director
    Paolo Sorrentino
  • Screenwriter
    Paolo Sorrentino
  • Director of photography
    Luca Bigazzi
  • Main Cast
    Toni Servillo (Giulio Andreotti), Anna Bonaiuto (Livia Andreotti)

Director's comment

Giulio Andreotti is the most important politician Italy has had in the last half- century. His fascination lies in his ambiguity, and he is so psychologically complex that everyone has been intrigued by him over the years. I've always wanted to make a film about Andreotti, but when I started reading up on him I found myself wading through literature that was so vast and contradictory, it made my head spin. For a long time I thought that all this "material" could never be funnelled into the essential structure that a film, with its rules, requires. Moreover, the image of Andreotti as the quintessence of ambiguity has not only been projected by scholars, reporters and Italians in general, but is also one that he himself has cultivated by invariably playing on and exploiting that ambiguity.
First, by saying that his favourite movie is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Then, as he wrote his urbane, ironical and reassuring best sellers, by dropping hints about his personal archive filled with names and secret doings that only he appeared to know about.
This constant duality between the mask of a normal, predictable man and a mysterious and dark private persona, has given rise to countless stories about Andreotti.
Such a huge amount of literature required the rare gift of synthesis. So I am going to quote two women who possess this gift to a far greater degree than myself or others.
One of them is Margaret Thatcher, who does not mince her words when describing Andreotti:
"He seemed to have a positive aversion to principle, even a conviction that a man of principle was doomed to be a figure of fun."
The other is Oriana Fallaci:
"He scares me, but why? This man received me most courteously, warmly. His wit made me roar with laughter. He certainly didn't look threatening. With those rounded shoulders as narrow as a child's. With those delicate hands and long, white Fingers, like candles. His always being on the defensive. Who's afraid of a sickly person, who's afraid of a tortoise? Only later, much later, did I realize that lt was precisely these things that made me scared. True power does not need arrogance, a long beard and a barking voice. True power strangles you with silk ribbons, charm and intelligence."
Of the thousands of statements I read, it was these two comments about the most influential man in Italy that revealed powerful core concepts on which a film could pivot.

Cast & Crew

Paolo Sorrentino
 Paolo Sorrentino
 Luca Bigazzi
 Toni Servillo (Giulio Andreotti), Anna Bonaiuto (Livia Andreotti)
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