How to Join the Dots Between Mussolini and the U.S. Capitol Riot in Venice’s ‘The March on Rome’
variety.comLeo Barraclough International Features Editor 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,’” he says.
Cousins was also shocked by a line in Trump’s inauguration speech: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” Cousins says: “I thought, wow, ‘carnage.’ The Obama era was lots of things, but it wasn’t carnage.” He adds: “The thing about fascism is its direction of travel.
Read more on variety.com
