the concept of Matera being the first locality in Southern Italy to say fuck you to the Nazis during the occupation and engage in armed resistance and yet the son of their soil goes mask off at the Conclave after seeing his life flash before his eyes…………….. Pope Not-Francis visiting in 2022(?) and choosing to talk about welcoming migrants and refugees in the city with the highest percentage of foreign nationals in Basilicata currently while the son of their soil complains about the Islamic invasion from his seat in Venice…………….. hmmm. Thinking
back here since i've continued to Think and now need to talk about this in terms of the first point bc that's exactly it. that's it.
the more i (re)watch that speech in the auditorium the more i shake hands with Carlos Diehz #1 Benítesco understander/truther bc less of it in the moment is anger vs actual primal fear. obviously none of this should be coming out of his mouth anyway (death death electric chair etc) but there are certain moments you have to pause and squint at the screen for. two sentences in he sounds like he's running out of breath. he stutters. Krasinski(?) tries to get him to sit down and you'd think he'd been fucking hauled across the room the way he reacts. when he does sit down it looks like he's shaking, a bit, whenever the camera's up close on him. and it's such an interesting fucking choice acting-wise from Sergio, considering the screenplay originally describes Tedesco as '[lumbering] to his feet again hand raised like an Old Testament prophet, something horribly triumphant in his manner'—we don't see that. the bulk of the anger comes later, after Bellini goads him by saying he should be ashamed. the fear comes now. he's running on fumes from since the Sistine window blew out and the way he chooses to handle it is what costs him the papacy. (well. that and the fascism but if he had kept his mouth shut most folks wouldn't have found out about the extent of the fascism until he was Pius or some shit. God forbid.) and it is his brother cardinal, who looks like his patroness of Matera, his lady of Basilicata, his Nikopeia and Salute of Venice, who asks him what he knows of war when he has managed to convince himself they should be fighting one. absolutely fucking delicious give me ten more of these right now
Reblogging this to spread the information that Tedesco’s last name is also a name associated with Jewish ancestry.
Robert Harris you goddam genius
