It had all the makings of the greatest film ever made; one part Citizen Kane to three parts Girls Gone Wild on Tour. That’s right: the Silvio Berlusconi biopic. Needless to say, the Berlusconi story is dripping with blockbuster potential – there’s money, power, sex, corruption, sex, cruise ship singing, more sex and a bit where our hero gets smacked around the head with a little metal church. In the right hands, a Berlusconi biopic could be a genuinely compelling watch.
Tragically, though, it may never happen. Depsite reports in the Italian and US press that Berlusconi was planning to produce his own film, his spokesman has denied it to our man in Rome. But there’s no way we can ignore the thought of what might materialise if Berlusconi did actually mark the 18-year anniversary of his political career with a film.
First and foremost, it means anyone expecting a diorama of scandal, stupidity and sex – basically a remake of Nanni Moretti’s vicious Il Caimano – would be better off looking elsewhere. But if it’s a one-sided, self-congratulatory ode to the heroism of a self-made man you’re after – a filmed version of An Italian Life, the hefty biography that Berlusconi backed and gave away for free six years ago – then it looks as though your dreams might come true.
Y Silvio Berlusconi Expect a scene where Silvio Berlusconi discovers how emotionally profound his AC Milan anthem is. Photograph: Christophe Karaba/EPA ou could expect to weep as Mamma Berlusconi (played by a leggy supermodel in a bikini), looks down at her newborn baby, all muscly and sporting a thick mane of hair, and praises God himself for gifting her with such a powerful and charismatic child. And then weep again when Berlusconi discovers that the AC Milan anthem he wrote is the most emotionally profound piece of music ever created. And then weep again as you realise that all traces of the fraud, bribery, abuse of office and sex allegations made against him over the course of the last 20 years have been completely whitewashed in favour of a 20-minute montage of a topless Berlusconi riding a tiger up a mountain and then punching out a bear on the summit.
The burning questions now, though, are these: who would direct this biopic, and who should star? If it’s Hollywood talent that he’s after, Berlusconi has a wealth of directors to choose from. Ever since actors realised that the quickest way to win an Oscar was to portray a real-life person, directors have been tripping over themselves to churn out one soggy, pointlessly sympathetic biopic after another.
Perhaps someone should point Berlusconi in the direction of Phyllida Lloyd, who managed to turn Margaret Thatcher into little more than a dotty old auntie in The Iron Lady. Even Oliver Stone managed to make a fat drunk like Jim Morrison come across as a quasi-mystic shaman figure in The Doors. Maybe Berlusconi could hit him up.
And as for who’ll play Berlusconi in the biopic, surely it’s a choice between Jean-Claude Van Damme and absolutely nobody else.
Despite all his legal difficulties, Berlusconi remains one of the richest and most powerful men in Italy. If he wants to make a film about his life, you can all but guarantee that it’ll happen. And, intentionally or not, it’s bound to be brilliant. – source The Guardian