“And the reason for the contention would have no basis
if one only took into account what he is now”
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar II.i.10.34
RAI on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Raul Gardini (Ravenna June 7, 1933-Milan July 23, 1993) aired, in first vision and in prime time, the docufilm “Raul Gardini”. It was interesting to note how the actor who played the entrepreneur from Romagna did not have the physicality of a diver1, his straight gaze, his speech as clear as an elderly man expressing himself rhetorically, his gaze turned to the sky, full of himself. The interpreter wasn’t from Romagna, never mind, but he recited in a dialectal tone, forcing his accent and gestures. The discrepancy between the actor and Gardini was evident when a scene from the television fiction was immediately followed by a period film. The difference was somewhat excessive. If the intent was to anchor the script to the facts, the outcome was counterproductive. A diversity not only aesthetic but of personality. And it was a documentary film where the representation had to concern the character and events related to him. It could be added that the acting of some actors was mediocre, that the story, certainly very complicated, was not reconstructed clearly and above all an unpleasant, irrelevant portrayal of Gardini was offered. That tragedy deserved a worthy performance and one wonders what could have contributed to such a flawed staging, at least in my eyes.
In the June issue of last year Mondoperaio published an article of mine: Raul Gardini–story of an outsider2with which I tried to briefly reconstruct that story, to give it a reading, but in my writing I neglected a fundamental issue: envy.
Envy for a handsome and intelligent man, brilliant, with a beautiful family, an America’s Cup navigator, who had achieved unparalleled wealth and success. The envy that harbored and harbors, at least unconsciously, in the hearts of provincials with dubious careers, in bourgeois without polish, in those many who lived and still live secure in their positions; like Shakespeare’s Brutus3 they knew and know that the Gardini must be hindered in time, put in a dull light.
Envy is a feeling as strong as it is perennial, not without consequences in acting, in remembering. For this reason, in writing historical and political analyses, the moods that permeate the events should never be overlooked.
One can say with Nietzsche that envy has in itself the desire to lower the supposed superiority of others to a lower level. Envy was once recognized as such: there is no popular tradition that does not place it at the center of the interpretation of adverse phenomena and that does not spare itself in superstitious formulas and colorful amulets. In our times it does not find a punctual reprobation, it is seen as a natural spring that pushes towards an egalitarian society; a sort of mimetic rivalry that leads to desire what the other loves. Instead, it is a destructive element, because it is bitterness for the success of others, subtle and perverse enjoyment of one’s failure4.
Those homegrown politicians who didn’t care about a national, and internationally important, chemical pole, many commentators, some moralists in robes, some subjects who opposed Gardini’s entrepreneurial activity were, and remain, also envious. I had overlooked it even though nowadays the phenomenon, the capital vice, of envy should be more easily enucleable: we had a mass party founded on envy towards Mario Draghi.