2023-06-23 10:50:48
by Emilia Costantini
The lead actress of the 8-episode series Miss Fallaci, produced by Paramount+ in association with Minerva Pictures, which will air soon
My Oriana is the least known, still a girl who wants to make her way in a profession dominated, at the time, by men. She takes her destiny into her own hands: as a stubborn and restless Florentine she leaves for New York.
Miriam Leone Miss Fallaci: the internationally renowned Corriere della Sera journalist and writer, indeed, writer as she wanted to be defined, in the 8-episode series, produced by Paramount+, which will be broadcast on the homonymous platform. Co-produced by Minerva Pictures, directed by Luca Ribuoli, Giacomo Martelli and Alessandra Gonnella. We tell the story of the beginning of her brilliant career – resumes Leone, who also participated in the screenplay – when at the end of the 1950s the journalist manages to get from the then director of the European to send her to America, with the promise of succeeding to interview the most unattainable star: Marilyn Monroe. In reality, Oriana has no interest in film stars whom she considers “wax statues” -adds the actress-. She does not want to be relegated to the role usually assigned to journalists of covering fashion or cooking. Her aim is to deal with politics and, soon, she will also be able to become the first war correspondent.
Set between Milan, New York, Los Angeles, Rome, London and Florence, but mainly shot in Rome in the former De Paolis Studios in via Tiburtina, the story starts from a painful and lesser-known episode: the tormented relationship with fellow journalist Alfredo Pieroni (played by Maurizio Lastrico), spontaneous abortion, real or presumed suicide attempt, mixing alcohol and tranquilizers, and hospitalization in a psychiatric clinic. A traumatic experience of which he would write years later in a letter to a close friend, describing the beds with leather straps and the gratings on the windows. A toxic love with Pieroni – underlines Miriam Leone – which we have reconstructed by reading private correspondence. Oriana at that moment has the myth of the hero man, which she idealizes in him as the love of life and this surprised me: did she too suffer for love? How did she get in harness with this man who made her suffer? But after her hospitalization – she continues – of her, she spends a period of convalescence in Florence, in the house of her parents Edoardo (Giordano De Plano) and Tosca (Rosanna Gentili). A family of humble origins, hers, but very cultured of hers: as a child, she slept in a room full of books that she greedily devoured.
The memories alternate with various flashbacks. We see her again as a little girl (played by fourteen-year-old Vittoria Mangani) when she was a partisan relay, with the battle name Emilia, for her anti-fascist father, arrested and tortured by the black shirts. She hid her secret messages in her hair! But the curious coincidence – Leone reveals – that, when I was born, the nurse had made a mistake and, instead of my name, Miriam, had written Emilia on her birth certificate. The interview with Monroe never managed to do it and a previous narration of this failure was made in the short A cup of coffee with Marilyn, written, directed by Gonnella and starring Leone herself, which won the Silver Ribbon in 2020 . But, warns Miriam Leone, the journalist managed to interview Arthur Miller, then in 1958 she published The Seven Sins of Hollywood and later, in Los Angeles, she entered the most exclusive homes of the most famous actors, describing with irony and disenchantment the “factory of stars”. She was able to read in her interlocutor’s eyes and understand what she was hiding behind her.
In short, Oriana was a free thinker, ready to shoot the truth in the face without regard for anyone, because the truth resembles surgical instruments – she warned – it hurts, but it heals. A fighter, who has always fought, even against cancer, the alien, as she called him, who led her to her death in 2006. It wasn’t very easy to prepare for this character – explains Leone – because for the period we are facing in the series there are no videos of her at the time, while there are many later. Obviously I’ve read many books by her: Penelope alla Guerra a journey, like that of a female Ulysses. From Florence conquers the world: well done Oriana!
June 23, 2023 (change June 23, 2023 | 08:50)
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