10 Most Fascinating Films Produced By Brutal Governments
4. Scipione L'africano
Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini once said “film is the most powerful weapon”. And so it would prove to be for his dictatorship which prized the power of propaganda, portraying ‘il duce’ (the leader) as an interminably strong, dedicated and wise figure as opposed to the buffoonish cartoon character he so often proved himself to be.
As well as glorifying their leader, Mussolini’s Blackshirt regime sought to use cinema for that other crucial Fascist goal: raising pride in one’s race. The Italian Fascists often modelled themselves on Rome which they saw as the height of Italian civilisation. Even their symbol, the Fasces (a bundle of rods that lends its name to “Fascism”), was a Roman one.
To this end Mussolini’s government produced the film Scipione l’africano in 1937, depicting one of Rome’s proudest victories. In the early 200s BC, the Roman Scipio crushed one of Rome’s most formidable enemies ever, the Carthaginian Hannibal.
Mussolini spared no expense in putting one of Rome’s finest hours on celluloid, producing 6,000 extras for enormous battle scenes, culled from the Italian army who, following the production of the film, were sent to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
The film’s depiction of proud Italians crushing an African force was then used as effective propaganda to raise support for Fascist Italy’s invasion of African countries like Ethiopia, which went disastrously for the Italians