Sorrentino controversially interweaved black comedy and operatic melodrama to craft his arresting and devious portrait of the ruthlessly corrupt and cynical Giulio Andreotti, whose long-term rule normalized an openly transactional relationship in Italy between the government and the Mafia. Il Divo openly channels the epic crime films of Coppola and Francesco Rosi to unfurl the larger tapestry of internecine feuds and selfish gambits woven during Andreotti’s extended tenure. Toni Servillo stars, once again, transformed now into a neurotic and enigmatically wooden hunched figure, spouting Latin aphorisms that are either wise or ridiculous, while knowingly allowing the worst abuses of power by colleagues whose vices and weaknesses are everywhere apparent. A kind of sinister optical illusion, the eponymous “Il Divo”—one of many names for the invincible Andreotti—becomes, in Sorrentino’s films, an emblem of abusive and addictive power, evidencing the ease with which fear can be sharpened as a political sword.