It was one of the biggest scandals in the history of Italian television, says Marco Bellocchio to TT.
He is behind the TV series that tells the story of Tortora's case: how he was sentenced to ten years in prison on false charges but was also exonerated a few years before his death. It is also a story about how Italian television, like the world around it, has changed since the 1980s when the series takes place.
In the broad entertainment program "Portobello", which gave its name to the HBO series, contestants tried, among other things, to get a silent parrot to talk.
A fox
The now 87-year-old director Bellocchio is one of the foxes of Italian film production. He broke through in 1965 with “Fists in the Pocket”, and has since been noted for the controversial “The Devil in the Body” and for “Memories of My Mother”. In 2022 he directed his first television series, “Esterno notte”, about the kidnapping and murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
You would think that young people today would have no memory of the TV show “Portobello” and of Enzo, but they do. They remember or have heard about the presenter and the shock that morning when it was announced that he had been arrested.
The TV show “Portobello” was broadcast at a time when we had a TV monopoly and everyone watched it. It set the bar for what TV shows looked like in Italy at that time. It was a time when people started to move more and more from political content to more pure entertainment, more game shows.
“Slumped”
Bellocchio tells of how state-run RAI made “fantastic cultural programs, which could contain everything.” Then came commercial television, which opened the doors to a new world.
RAI bowed down and lowered itself to the level of its competitors. Today it is impossible to imagine the programs that were made at that time. RAI produced entertainment but also had a public service mission. Today everything is flat, he says.
But there is also something else that is different from the 1980s, says Marco Bellocchio. The false accusations certainly ruined Enzo Tortora's reputation, but it took longer for them to reach the public.
Today, things move faster. The Internet or AI can ruin your reputation in five seconds.
Gunnar Rehlin/TT
Facts: Marco Bellocchio
TT
Age: 85 years.
Family: Wife Francesca Calvelli, three children.
Lives: In Rome.
Profession: Director, producer, screenwriter.
Previous films: "Fists in the Pocket", "In the Name of the Father", "The Devil in the Body", "Henry IV", "Blood of my blood", "Memories of my mother", "Kidnapped".
Current: With "Portobello" which premieres on HBO Max on Feb. 20.
