Leading Italian automaker Fiat was founded by Giovanni's grandfather in 1899. Giovanni was born into great wealth in 1921. He lost his father Edoardo in 1935, when the latter was decapitated in a freak private plane accident.
Giovanni came of age during World War II, and fought for Italy against the Allies. He was wounded twice. After the war, the well-educated and sophisticated Giovanni was groomed to take over Fiat. But he preferred the life of a reckless billionaire playboy. He was seriously injured in a car accident fleeing the scene when his fianceé, a granddaughter of Winston Churchill, caught him in a compromising situation with a beautiful young socialite.
Giovanni nearly lost a leg, and spent months in the hospital. When he recovered, he became more responsible. He married, and began management of Fiat. Beginning in 1969, the Fiat factory was targeted by the radical left, which led to labor unrest. Leftwing groups terrorized the country, killing among others Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Giovanni was also on their hit list.
When the Fiat factory was disabled by strikers, Giovanni organized a counter-demonstration of 40,000 people, which broke the strike. Nonetheless, Fiat was obligated to sell 10% of the company to eccentric Libyan dictator Gaddafi. Giovanni also had to borrow money from leading Italian banker Mediobanca.
By the 1990s, Giovanni was able to free himself from both Gaddafi and Mediobanca. But the aging industrialist had difficulties finding a successor. His son Edoardo became a heroin addict and committed suicide. Giovanni's nephew was a better candidate, but he died of a brain tumor at age 33. Ultimately, control of Fiat passed to Giovanni's younger brother Umberto, but he died of lung cancer a year later. Giovanni also died of cancer, at age 81 in 2003.
How I felt about it. Such was the life of Giovanni Agnelli. As a young man, he enjoyed a fantasy existence of easy money, fast cars, and beautiful women. As a middle aged man, he ran Fiat responsibly during a troubled era of Arab oil embargos and leftwing terrorism. As an old man, he endured disappointments and increasing health concerns. Through it all, he was a hero in his hometown of Turin, Italy, where he was born and where he died, and the site of the largest Fiat factory.
As this review is written, the latest ballyhooed blockbuster is Black Widow, the cinematic equivalent of junk food. Agnelli is, instead, food for thought. Great wealth can buy a lot of things. It can buy glamor. It can buy power. But it certainly can't buy everything.
Giovanni does not seem like a man capable of self reflection. He believed in seizing the moment. But when he was stuck in a hospital bed for months with a leg held together by steel rods, he must have acknowledged that the playboy life was not working out for him. He transformed into a responsible capitalist, a man of considerable wealth and power but finally less interesting than his times.
He misunderstood his son. I wasn't there; perhaps Giovanni wasn't to blame for what happened to his Edoardo. But it must have been stressful to be his son, and be expected to fill the shoes of his larger-than-life father. He probably felt bullied, and unable to escape his responsibilities. Giovanni's daughter has had a better life, but expectations for her were more realistic.
As for the documentary itself, it's quite good. One wonders why Giovanni Agnelli, forgotten by all except in Turin, was chosen as a subject, but his life was certainly worthy of the effort.
Director Nick Hooker is fairly obscure. He is known mostly for another documentary, Everything is Copy, about director and screenwriter Nora Ephron. I haven't seen that movie, but it can't imagine it would be as fascinating, given that she was the filmmaker for such unendurable fare as Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail.