Portobello is “the barbaric joy of seeing a famous person fall”: Bellocchio and Gifuni explain why the Tortora trial is more relevant than ever

It arrives on HBO Max these days, but Marco Bellocchio and Fabrizio Gifuni have been talking about Portobello to the press for some time. The series, previewed last autumn in Venice with its first two episodes, immediately established itself as one of those titles destined to reopen a discussion that was never truly closed: not only about Enzo Tortora, but about the Italy that first consecrated him and then overwhelmed him.

In their discussions with journalists, they did not shy away from the most uncomfortable questions. Does it still make sense to revisit Tortora today, when the country has changed and that television Italy seems so distant? For Bellocchio, the answer lies in the idea of a “wound” that concerns not only the past, but the relationship between the judiciary, the press, and public opinion, then as now. And in recounting the genesis of the project, the director also hints at something else: RAI was reportedly approached several times for an adaptation that would have the flavor of a reparative gesture, but Portobello only really took off when the American HBO decided to make it the trailblazer for its own original production.

In Venice, moreover, the point was not just productive but political. Bellocchio insisted that the interest does not stem from nostalgia for an unrepeatable television era, nor from the desire to reopen a media trial, but from a precise choice of perspective: to start from prison, from the letters, from the private man before the public icon. It is there, he explained, that identification is triggered and the story ceases to be news and becomes cinema.

Gifuni, for his part, brought the discussion back to an Italy that changed face between 1977 and 1983, the years when Portobello aired and then abruptly stopped. A country undergoing profound transformations, where the fall of a beloved personality also reveals something darker: that “barbaric joy” – as he called it – of witnessing the fall of a famous man. A collective mechanism that continues to repeat itself, with other faces and other tools, and which makes the miniseries more relevant than ever.

If Tortora is the mirror of an Italy that seems to no longer exist, then the series takes on the task of showing its continuities. Not only the judicial error, recognized and corrected in subsequent years, but the decisive role of the press, public opinion ready to transform an investigation into a moral condemnation, the thin line between justice and spectacle. It is on this ridge that Portobello finds its relevance.

Where did the idea of telling Tortora's story in “Portobello” come from?

Marco Bellocchio - The first spark was a book that came to me from Francesca Scoppelliti: Letters to Francesca, that is, the letters that Enzo Tortora wrote from prison to his partner. It struck me, even though I didn't yet have the desire to make something out of it. I called her because I wanted to talk to her, I felt close to her. When you write and work on a character, an inevitable identification is triggered: especially in a completely innocent man who ends up in prison. Not so much at the moment of celebrity, of glory: it must be admitted that we, as left-wing intellectuals, also looked at a pop and gentle character like Tortora with a certain detachment. But it was from there, from prison, that his story attracted our attention. Certain things need their time: unfortunately, filming is expensive and you have to work quickly, while in writing and editing, the more time there is, the better.

What was your relationship with Tortora then, and what surprised you the most?

Marco Bellocchio - I was already living in Rome when he was arrested. At the time we were involved in many things, he and I were ideological but in different directions. Tortora was as far as possible from me, but I felt his presence through various people. Twenty-eight million Italians watched Portobello: it was a unique success, perhaps never achieved, perhaps only by football. The astonishment for me was not so much the arrest itself, as the “sniffing out”, that is, entering a dramaturgical order: in the first two episodes we leave a doubt that corresponds to a datum of reality that I felt then. You had the doubt that something must have been there, it was too sensational.

Did the Tortora family have a say during the production?

Marco Bellocchio - Enzo's daughter saw the two episodes once they were finished and was more than correct: generous. No interference, absolutely none: both she and Francesca Scoppelliti saw what we had created afterwards and were not intrusive. There was no censorship.

And what about RAI? It doesn't make a great impression...

Marco Bellocchio - Regarding the relationship with RAI, I prefer the producers to answer. I can say that it was a choice to work with HBO/Max, they strongly wanted Portobello to be the first Italian production. RAI will have the series later as a second window: so, in some way, there was a sort of collaboration.

What guided you, as an interpreter, in telling Tortora's story within a changing Italy?

Fabrizio Gifuni – It is a wound that has left a deep mark on Italian society. In the background there is a country that is changing face: Portobello begins in May 1977 and abruptly stops in 1983: in those six years Italy passes from one historical era to another, with many overlaps. I was eighteen, I was taking my high school diploma when Tortora was arrested: thanks to Radio Radicale I listened to the trials in the evening and became passionate, also because shortly thereafter I would become a law student. Working with Marco and everyone else allowed me to discover so much that I didn't know.

What struck you at the time, enough to make you follow the trial?

Fabrizio Gifuni - I wondered why such a popular figure had accumulated an underlying feeling of antipathy for the total freedom with which he took positions. Portobello began after seven years of exile from TV, after being removed in 1962. He fought for the liberalization of television, wrote for Il Monello and “Albo TV”, saying things that made people jump out of their seats. And then there is a universal factor: the barbaric joy of seeing a famous person fall, but behind it there are many layers. From an acting point of view, it is a wonderful and impossible game to put oneself in another's body.

How do you “keep your distance” from the character without falling into imitation?

Fabrizio Gifuni - With Moro we even joked about it: he is a character who has accompanied me for many years, even in the theater, and sometimes from the outside (without me realizing it) the confusion could be fueled by a certain way of speaking; my daughters pointed it out to me. Here, jokes aside, there was, as always, a time of maturation. I try to start from an internal emotional datum: if it grows and matures, then the body also begins to change. I never start from the mask, from the attempt to imitate him, nor from an obsessive attention to mimetic data. But you are dealing with another body, another way of speaking and feeling: it is fascinating to try to be in there. I listened a lot, saw a lot, read a lot. Sometimes what you read ignites stronger fantasies than images: it's an inverse process. It's a strange job: at a certain point you have to do a somersault like children, pretend to be someone else, continue this reckless game with imagined lives or real lives like this one.

You haven't always been so closely involved in current events, in recent Italian history. When did the “turning point” in your career towards Italian cases and the reconstruction of facts occur?

Marco Bellocchio - Within human limits, I think we change. There are possibilities for change that depend on the relationships you have, the things that happen, history. Talking about “Italian cases” was possible because one learns many things and manages to connect; in the figure of Moro, of Tortora, also in Rapito. These are images that leave you with a personal feeling, but no longer directly autobiographical. And then there is freedom, very difficult to conquer: defending it is part of being artists.

We have stated the facts, but in every situation there are dark areas and there you have to take a risk by writing and filming, because history doesn't tell us about them. For example: the scene of the auditions, the crying girl, comes from an audition seen by Andy Warhol, with an immobile girl who then starts crying around the eighth or ninth minute. It is a cynical dimension of Tortora: the idea that time can damage success. We will understand it later: how suffering and pain acquire sensitivity for him.