Right at the beginning of The March On Rome, a special screening in the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival, Mark Cousins draws our collective gaze to a piece of graffiti saying that cinema is the most powerful weapon of all. It isn’t clear — to me, anyway — whether that joyful proclamation dates back to 1922, when Benito Mussolini led a Fascist march from Naples to Rome, or to some other eruption of historical optimism. Cinema isn’t as powerful as all that — if it were, Fascism would have been clobbered to a pulp by Chaplin, Lubitsch and all the other filmmakers who lampooned its vainglorious leaders. But images do matter. They certainly mattered to Italian Fascism.
Mussolini was hellbent on taking over Italy “with love if possible, by force if necessary,” a neat phrase much repeated in Cousins’ film essay. He marched on Rome as an invader. Meanwhile,...
Mussolini was hellbent on taking over Italy “with love if possible, by force if necessary,” a neat phrase much repeated in Cousins’ film essay. He marched on Rome as an invader. Meanwhile,...
- 8/31/2022
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
In “The March on Rome,” which world premieres in the Venice Days sidebar of Venice Film Festival Wednesday, Northern Irish-Scottish filmmaker Mark Cousins tracks the ascent of fascism in Italy in the 1920s, and its fall-out across 1930s Europe. He also draws a dotted line from those events to the storming of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in January 2021.
The documentary, illustrated with archive footage and Cousins’ characteristic cinematic analysis, starts with Donald Trump defending his decision to retweet a quote from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” Later in the film, Cousins inserts footage of Trump supporters attacking the Capitol, hoping to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
The issue of the Mussolini quote made a strong impression on Cousins at the time. “I remember seeing that thing on TV and thinking, ‘Wow, he’s actually not denouncing Mussolini,...
The documentary, illustrated with archive footage and Cousins’ characteristic cinematic analysis, starts with Donald Trump defending his decision to retweet a quote from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini: “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” Later in the film, Cousins inserts footage of Trump supporters attacking the Capitol, hoping to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
The issue of the Mussolini quote made a strong impression on Cousins at the time. “I remember seeing that thing on TV and thinking, ‘Wow, he’s actually not denouncing Mussolini,...
- 8/30/2022
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Fascism – its roots, legacy and contemporary manifestations – is a leitmotif running throughout the 79th Venice Film Festival as Italy marks the centenary of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s fateful power grab in 1922, in an era when totalitarian leaders are once again on the rise.
Northern Irish, Edinburgh-based filmmaker Mark Cousin’s essay documentary March On Rome – which opens parallel section Giornate degli Autori on Wednesday (August 31) – offers an insightful cinematic primer into the events leading up to Mussolini’s forced appointment as Italian prime minister on October 31, 1922.
Opening with an extract of an interview with Donald Trump in which he openly quotes Mussolini, the film also provocatively connects the actions of latter-day populist leaders with the legacy of Italian fascism.
The infamous 1922 March on Rome grew out of a fascist rally in Naples on October 24 at which Mussolini declared: “Either the government will be given to us, or we will...
Northern Irish, Edinburgh-based filmmaker Mark Cousin’s essay documentary March On Rome – which opens parallel section Giornate degli Autori on Wednesday (August 31) – offers an insightful cinematic primer into the events leading up to Mussolini’s forced appointment as Italian prime minister on October 31, 1922.
Opening with an extract of an interview with Donald Trump in which he openly quotes Mussolini, the film also provocatively connects the actions of latter-day populist leaders with the legacy of Italian fascism.
The infamous 1922 March on Rome grew out of a fascist rally in Naples on October 24 at which Mussolini declared: “Either the government will be given to us, or we will...
- 8/30/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Award winning film director and historian Mark Cousins (“The Story of Film: A New Generation”) is at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios making a doc titled “March on Rome” that will explore the roots of fascism by analyzing films, photographs, and other documents found in Italian archives.
The high-profile documentary — pegged to the centennial of the infamous late October 1922 insurrection by which Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy — will take its cue from the Fascist propaganda film “A Noi” by director Umberto Paradisi, produced in 1923 as an official Fascist party document celebrating the March on Rome.
Italian writer and director Tony Saccucci (“The Duce’s Boxer”), who originated the project and did meticulous research for it, serves as a co-writer with Cousins. Saccuci cross-checked Paradisi’s film with other sources of the time to reveal details of the pic that provide a completely new take on the history of those dramatic days,...
The high-profile documentary — pegged to the centennial of the infamous late October 1922 insurrection by which Benito Mussolini came to power in Italy — will take its cue from the Fascist propaganda film “A Noi” by director Umberto Paradisi, produced in 1923 as an official Fascist party document celebrating the March on Rome.
Italian writer and director Tony Saccucci (“The Duce’s Boxer”), who originated the project and did meticulous research for it, serves as a co-writer with Cousins. Saccuci cross-checked Paradisi’s film with other sources of the time to reveal details of the pic that provide a completely new take on the history of those dramatic days,...
- 2/9/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
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