Gunther's Millions (2023) s01e03 Episode Script

1
I wrote seven book of my life.
So, this one was my best book.
[in Italian] I'll read the introduction
in Italian.
[classical music]
"Since he was born,
Fabrizio Corona
seemed to possess divine powers."
"Despite himself, he is always
at the center of Italian history."
"He knows everything about everyone."
"He accumulates contacts
and becomes a post-modern Robin Hood."
[in English] I am gonna be Robin Hood,
the new Robin Hood.
I take from the rich guy,
but I give it to me, not to the people.
Understand?
[in Italian] Anyway, people are only gonna
watch this show for this interview.
[laughs]
[dramatic music]
[Maurizio, in English]
My mother passed away in 2011.
The last year were,
unfortunately, were a bit difficult.
There was a moment
when I felt very lonely.
Not alone, but lonely, it is worse.
And she suffered
because she anticipated my sufferings.
She understood that
I would have had difficulties, problems.
She was right.
[in Italian] It's very difficult
to do research on happiness and joy.
[in English] And so we started again,
and we took
the experiment to a higher level.
[laid-back music]
[man]
No, no, no, it's okay, and it looks great.
It doesn't not when I'm blond.
I don't know why.
[man] All right, whenever you're ready.
[Aurelien] So, how is this different
from The Burgundians?
Okay.
In Italy, Maurizio formed
a new group called The Magnificent 5.
But this time, it's on another level,
bringing in celebrities.
[crowds cheering]
[Fabrizio] Three, two, one!
If I go in America,
I'm going to be more famous than Trump.
[Lee]
When the Italian experiment started,
they needed me behind the scenes
making sure that everyone got along.
One guy was so cool-looking,
he's like very tattooed up,
and he had this walk about him,
and I was like, "Wow, this guy's great."
Everywhere we go together,
like, girls are like fainting.
People are freaking out.
And we walk past a newsstand,
and he's on the cover
of every salacious magazine.
[man singing in Italian]
And I'm like, "Who are you?"
Like, "What's going on?"
[phone line ringing]
[man, on phone] Oui?
[Fabrizio, in Italian]
It takes this fucking long to answer?
I'm filming something for America,
and I can't tape
because four assholes are playing music.
What do you want me to do?
How the hell is this possible?
Apologize to the Americans, fuck!
[Lee, in English]
His name is Fabrizio Corona.
He's an Italian Charlie Sheen.
- [man] You're on house arrest right now?
- Yeah.
You cannot go out, you cannot do anything.
- No. But I can fuck.
- How?
The thing is,
I don't have to call the girl.
The girl come.
Famous, not famous
I don't know why, but they come.
[Emanuel, in Italian] Fabrizio became
famous building a gossip media company.
But this gossip business
created several problems for him
because he was sued
for blackmail and extortion
related to the gossip he reported.
[indistinct shouting]
[Fabrizio]
I received a 14-year jail sentence.
But I was able to get out
after two and a half years.
The life that Maurizio
wanted to show is the life that I live.
I fuck from morning to night,
I had no inhibitions.
He wanted people who would be famous
in their respective fields,
so, famous, rich,
promiscuous, beautiful people.
I mean, that's basically
how Kim Kardashian got her start.
No?
- [man, in English] You know about Miami?
- Yeah. I've been in Miami a lot of time.
I've been unique.
Who lives in the room of Madonna?
I'm Cristina Mian,
I'm ex-partner of Maurizio Mian,
and member of The Magnificent 5.
I met him in 2003 with Gunther.
Later, he tell me,
"If you want, if you like,
you can try to be in my group."
And I say, "Oh, nice."
I love it because, all my life,
I do film and music
and I do the dancing.
And he say,
"Wow, we can try together."
[in Italian] We would be a group of five,
sometimes six.
It didn't matter
because it wasn't really a closed group.
There were various houses.
The people who tried to be part
of The Magnificent 5 were interchangeable.
Every so often,
he would film us and collect information.
He wanted to build something even bigger,
something to get the whole world talking.
An experiment in which he wanted
to put a little bit of everything into.
It was a science experiment
he wanted to present in a commercial way.
So, Maurizio made a video presentation
of the scientific project.
[announcer, in English]
Five guys with a dog and a scientist,
called to be an experiment,
a Edo Disk to change their lives,
to be famous,
capitalized children,
rich lovers.
The Gunther's Five.
[Matteo] In the first experiment
in the Madonna house,
we've made progress,
but we are not satisfied with that.
So, we identified five factors,
which were the simplification
of the initial commandments.
These represented
a top level of human existence
to which anyone would like to ascend.
[Maurizio] Happiness is a serious thing.
There are people that, unfortunately,
may not be predisposed to have,
you know, the qualities to fill the
to fill the Edo Disk.
[Aurelien] So, what's an Edo Disk?
Arrive a call from Maurizio
that wants an object,
something that show
our improvement in the five fields
that was the project.
[in Italian] My name is Emanuel Cirinei,
and I was one of the members
of The Magnificent 5.
I have decided to promote and demonstrate
that this behavioral model,
hedonistic and scientific,
is able to change our life.
[in English]
Now it's time for a revolution ♪
[in Italian] I had the initial idea
of making a necklace,
which I represented
as a diamond divided into five faces.
Each color represents one of the aspects.
It gives you an idea
of how things are going.
[Matteo, in English] The necklace
was controlled by the scientists,
and it gave periodic feedback
of how the participation was going.
As a member of the group
was enacting one of these qualities,
it would light up,
almost like a video game,
to like full strength.
[in Italian] So eventually,
based on an evaluation,
you could increase or decrease your status
to show it to the other members
of The Magnificent 5.
The ultimate goal was to have each member
perfect every quality of this necklace
to reach the utopia of happiness.
[Lee] In Buddhism, Buddha achieved
Um, how do they call it?
You know what I'm saying.
It was sort of a visualization
of our own Enlightenment.
The first, physicality, is what it is.
We're gonna prefer fit, attractive people.
It gets the message out easier.
[camera shutters click]
The second variable was spectacularity.
It's like the fanciful nature of someone,
like the way they present.
[crowd screaming excitedly]
Another one was popularity.
So, anything related to happiness
must make you visible.
[all cheer]
[Lee] The fourth variable was wealth.
[in Italian] He had promised to give us
a million euros each
to build our business.
Thank you, Gunther, thank you.
Thanks, my love.
The presence of that dog gave us security,
like having
an American Express Platinum credit card
with no limit, no expiration date.
[dog whining]
- [man] Uh-oh.
- Chanel.
[Aurelien] Pretty sure I know the answer,
but you call her Chanel because
Because it's the most luxury brand
in the world.
Number five is sexuality.
The sexuality
was the most controversial one.
The purpose is to increase
the quantity of sexual activity.
[in Italian] I don't know any women
who've met Fabrizio
and haven't been with Fabrizio.
[Aurelien, in English]
So, what does that mean on your end?
[Fabrizio, in Italian] Maurizio had this
second wife who, at the time,
bossed him around
because she was still beautiful
and because he was still in love with her.
We were kidding around,
he was making jokes,
then I went to the bathroom.
She took me up to the bathroom,
and she gave me a blowjob in the bathroom.
I went downstairs, everyone's happy.
- [Aurelien, in English] Was it Cristina?
- Yes.
[Aurelien] So, you had
Maurizio's wife
gave you a blowjob in the bathroom?
Of course.
- [Aurelien] Was it part of the experiment?
- [laughs]
Good. Clever question.
[Aurelien]
What did you feel about Cristina
having a sexual relationship
with Fabrizio?
It's perfectly normal.
[Aurelien] So you never felt any type
Any jealousy? No, no.
With the many defects I have,
I have also this one,
that I am not jealous.
[laughs] I'm not.
The concept of couple,
marriage, boyfriends,
is all old words that should disappear.
It's too important to have joy with sex.
And also the Spice Girls told this.
- [Aurelien] The Spice Girls?
- Yes.
If you wanna be my lover ♪
You gotta get with my friends ♪
Make it last forever ♪
Friendship never ends ♪
Yes. They said to do sex
with whomever you want,
whenever you want and, uh
Spice Girls, 1996.
[Stefano, in Italian]
My first meeting with Maurizio
took place with a mutual friend who said,
"Stefano, I must introduce you
to Professor Maurizio Mian
because you certainly have affinities
and might develop interesting projects."
I immediately saw that, for this project,
he had a vision that was very strong.
Looking at the documents,
I thought, "This guy's crazier than me."
In a good way, of course.
The Gunther Model, in some ways,
is an evolution of the Maslow model.
By satisfying certain needs,
an individual person
can achieve total happiness.
[Maurizio]
My friend Gunther had a very high score.
But unfortunately,
he was sick with depression,
severe depression.
All aspects related to happiness
for those who are sick,
who are not healthy, are distorted.
For him,
happiness had always been a huge problem,
and a great aspiration.
[Ed, in English] After Maurizio
moved his experiment to Italy,
we still stayed friends.
He would keep me abreast
of what was happening,
and it took a while to realize
the journey that Maurizio was creating.
Uh, I don't want to say cult or religion,
but it had its commandments
and it had its, um, ideologies.
You know,
but he was always about the science.
So, that's kind of where I saw, okay,
this is a human social experiment.
This is uncharted territory.
A boy went back to Napoli ♪
Because he missed the scenery ♪
But wait a minute ♪
Something's wrong ♪
[baby cries]
I don't know if Maurizio
was creating a cult
more than he was
trying to create a superhuman race.
Hey, mambo ♪
Mambo Italiano ♪
[Matteo] Inside of the experiment,
something very different was happening
which was planned mating.
[in Italian] Maurizio's idea was to
put together genetically perfect people,
talented, intelligent,
physically perfect, perfect in everything
that could procreate and have children.
[Lee, in English] So, the idea was
that the next generation start from these
five perfectly happy,
and scientifically proven happy,
individuals.
It was literally
like the next human being.
We are going into difficult subjects.
We are going into, you know
When you speak about the
When you speak about making, you know
To generate children from experiments,
this is a hard game.
[Matteo] The ideal group of happy people
would give birth to a progeny of people
being born from the very beginning
inside this happy environment.
Yeah. Yeah.
We are actually hoping for
a new strain of human, of human beings.
[Aurelien]
I mean, this was a pretty unusual idea.
How would you explain this to people?
I can't really. I mean
that's his thoughts, not mine, but
okay.
My initial hesitation was,
"Wait a second, this is going
a little bit too master race for me."
You know, you're this beautiful bug,
and let's see if you mate
with the other beautiful bug,
and let's see
if we get another butterfly out of that.
And it was kind of scary territory.
Very scary territory.
[in Italian] It's a very delicate subject.
[in English] We are, you know,
inviting person, persons,
for experiment to, you know,
that's the Lebensborn method.
But that was Himmler. That was Nazi.
You understand? So, we did, effectively
We did suggest people to,
you know, meet with each other,
but for scientific purposes,
not for social purposes of Nazi.
[stammers]
We have done something of the kind.
[Maurizio, in Italian]
Our original attempt
was to build a model
of people who in some way
could represent the perfect model.
- [camera shutters clicking]
- [crowd cheering]
[in English] We would create
the first generation, the generation zero,
of truly happy people.
People who do not need to be taught
how to be happy because they are born
from happy parents in a happy,
supportive environment.
[in Italian] This was also a little bit
Gunther's concept.
He had, let's say, this idea
that it was right for beautiful young men
to find and mate with beautiful girls
to the achievement of certain results.
We tried to fulfill what was a last wish,
Gunther's dream.
[Fabrizio]
He paid five losers to fuck each other.
Pretending to be rich,
to reach perfection of the human model.
He wanted the pure breed of happiness,
all good-looking, rich,
and promiscuous young people
to create a new gene pool.
[dramatic music]
[Lee, in English]
The daughter thing, I was like,
"Whoa, this is getting
I wasn't there that kinky night."
You have to raise hands at the orgy
and be like, "Whose kid is this?"
Uh
[chuckles]
Uh
[in Italian] When I met Maurizio,
the first thing he showed me
and made clear was that he had a son,
that he was no longer with his partner,
a beautiful woman, Carla,
with whom I'm very good friends now
and I love very much.
After a friendship
that had already started,
and after various conversations
over months and months,
at a certain point, he said,
"Look, we are very close friends,
but with someone like you,
I would like to have a daughter."
I said, "Wow!"
[laughs]
"I never thought about that."
I also wanted to have a daughter,
and I said,
"Jesus, if I have a daughter with him,
then each one of us has their own life,
and why not?"
But I said to him,
"A daughter can't be made with words."
"We need to have a relationship."
Then, little by little,
from my friendship with Maurizio,
a romantic relationship began.
So, I said okay.
With the birth of our daughter,
this beautiful design was created
that this group of five can have children
and can prove
that the children who are raised by them
will be nothing but content and happy.
[piano music]
[whimpering]
[Maurizio, in English] It is a complicated
kind of experimentation.
This was a model.
How to procreate with the relationship
between parents and children.
More modern.
A new kind of family.
[Cristina, in Italian] It was a perfect
example with which we could demonstrate
that even a group of people
doing different things in life
come home in the evening
and just bring back
more interesting things
that can add to the background of a child.
I mean, for me, it's a plus.
It's more, not less. You understand?
Today she says, "Mom, I get it."
"Thank you for my perfect non-family."
[Aurelien, in English] When you had her,
you made an announcement to the media
that your daughter
was actually the daughter of Gunther.
[Matteo]
Part of the project was mediatic events,
and those were mostly provocative.
So, for example,
the fact that it was presented
that the dog had given birth to a girl.
The first child of the group.
Some local politician took it seriously.
They thought
there was something genetically
manipulative within this project.
[in Italian]
The Italian press was devastating.
[crowd shouting]
They tried to discredit,
to make fun of, Maurizio's ideas.
We worried the Vatican
could come for our baby and take her away.
[Maurizio, in English]
We could not push this idea,
a dog, you know, giving birth to a child.
We would have to determine
if some damage to the baby.
So, we left that part
for future experiments.
[Stefano, in Italian]
In the Gunther Project,
creating a new species, if you will.
There reached a point
where a certain threshold was crossed.
The threshold of morality.
This is what he promised us,
fame, freedom of sex, money.
All these grand promises
were absolutely not fulfilled.
In the end, there was nothing.
I didn't learn anything.
There wasn't even sex now
because we had basically become friends.
It was one
of the saddest moments of my life,
and happiness was very far away.
[in English] There were a lot of promise,
but at the end,
we don't do almost nothing.
It was like a brainwash.
- [Aurelien] Did he give you the euros?
- No.
[Maurizio, in Italian]
Some models went wrong.
It was an experiment
that was partly successful, partly not.
Building a perfect experiment
is practically impossible.
It's very difficult.
[in English] The problem with happiness
is, when you think you've found the key,
somebody else
has already changed the lock.
[Matteo] He bet everything on sexuality.
If you bet on wealth,
they do not last because they
you're just consuming that gift.
You expire after a short period.
Doesn't last.
[in Italian] We could have put out
some interesting stuff,
but we didn't succeed.
And then, that year, they arrested me.
So, that was also a problem.
[Aurelien, in English]
Why did it fail? What was the reason?
[Fabrizio, in Italian] I'm always honest
whenever I tell the truth, no bullshit.
I don't bullshit anyone, I tell the truth,
however uncomfortable it may be.
Maurizio is a visionary
who had brilliant ideas,
but didn't know
how to put them into practice.
He's very intelligent, he's very strange,
but maybe he could have done
a lot of things with the money he had.
Instead, during the past 15 years,
he's invested and spent money
on women and projects
but, in the end,
what he wanted never got done.
But if I did your job and interviewed him,
I would realize something doesn't add up.
[Stefano] Why has the achievement
of absolute happiness
become almost an obsession for Maurizio?
Because he probably doesn't have it.
Either he's lacking it in some way,
or it's not complete.
And so, he is trying to get it
in a scientific manner.
[in English] I So, how do I say this?
I can see the Countess
wanting a good master for her dogs,
but I cannot see the Countess
coming up with wearing a medallion
with five goals so that you can
actually mate with somebody else
to create even a more elevated species.
Did this whole thing
come from the Countess?
I don't know.
[Aurelien] So, what do you say
about all of these suspicions
that have been floating around
the Countess for all these years?
[in Italian] This is a question
that many have asked me for a long time.
[reporter, in English]
Does this Countess exist?
As far as I know, yes.
[news anchor] Then there's this man,
who holds a trust agreement
with Gunther's name on it.
We asked him if the trust was legit.
I think that it is, from what I know.
- [reporter] You think it is.
- From what I know, it is, yes.
[in Italian]
The media always reports things
Sometimes there is news
that is reported
in a slightly misleading way.
[reporter, in English] How do we believe
anything else you guys are telling us?
[sighs]
[news anchor 1] Did journalists
get suckered by a publicity stunt?
[news anchor 2]
They say there's no evidence to back up
Mian's story of a German Countess
who left millions to a dog.
[in Italian] Of course the Countess is
[in English] Is the Countess real?
- Did she even have a son named Gunther?
- [man] Yeah.
Is it okay that I said,
"Is the Countess real?"
[Aurelien]
Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people ask that.
Do you have any proof
the Countess existed?
No.
- No.
- No.
[in Italian] I heard of it,
but I don't know it exactly.
[in English] I haven't done any research
on the backstory, as it were.
Is it true, is it not?
[Aurelien] I don't know.
But we tried to look
for the death certificate.
We tried to look for any records.
We couldn't find any.
Isn't that kind of proof?
Well, I mean
[Aurelien] Why you came into play
in the first place?
That, I honestly don't.
It's something to do with, like,
Maurizio's family friend
or something, like.
[Ed] Was it an imagination
to resolve an emotional issue
of somebody who he lost as a friend?
Or was it just a tool to funnel money
so that you don't have to pay taxes on it?
[woman]
How does the Countess tie into that story?
I truly don't know.
I don't know
that the Countess ties in the story.
Did you clear with Maurizio this thing?
I'm a careful person.
Cut, please.
Do you want the real story
or do you want the story?
[Aurelien] Oh, there's a real and a fake?
So, you want the real story?
Okay.
So why they came out with this Countess,
I have no idea.
[Aurelien]
We have pictures of the Countess.
I know, but I have no idea
who came up with the Countess.
Maurizio invented the Countess.
[Aurelien] We have someone in Germany
that we hired to look for, you know,
death certificates, and we cannot
We couldn't find anything.
We looked at the universities
where the husband
of the Countess was a professor at,
we couldn't find any record,
so, I wanted to ask you the truth,
truthfully
[man] Cut.
[Aurelien] You wanna cut?
You wanna cut or you wanna
Cut. Cut.
[Maurizio]
She was not exactly Carlotta Liebenstein,
she was not exactly as I have, you know
Countess, like, you know.
She was not a Countess. She was a
An avatar. An avatar.
So there is no physical evidence
of this woman ever having existed?
The Countess never existed?
Is that what you're telling me? Wow.
[in Italian] This lady was the last one
of an important family.
To me, she was Aunt Carla.
I'm sorry, I'm getting a little emotional.
He was a great person,
and he was my good friend.
Gunther was much more open
about sexuality.
Gunther suffered from depression.
For him,
happiness had always been a huge problem.
He was a guy who was a bit crazy.
[in English] Why he made up this Countess
and the inheritance and the son?
You have to ask him. I'm not part of that.
[Aurelien] The woman on the pictures
that you gave us, who's that woman?
[Carla] One of his aunts.
[Aurelien] Why would you come up
with the story of the son, Gunther,
if the Countess
didn't exist in the first place?
[Maurizio]
He was maybe an extrapolation of myself.
[Aurelien]
The son of the Countess was depressed,
and he suffered with his depression.
[Maurizio] Me too.
[Cristina] I lived with him for 12 years
and I know
about his depression, everything.
I know.
[in Italian] Maurizio has always
suffered from depression,
in some moments more,
in some moments less, stronger, lighter.
From the tone of his voice,
I know exactly what state Maurizio is in.
I know exactly how he feels
and when he starts to go into depression,
and when he is in these situations,
I feel very sorry for him.
I know how much
people suffer from this thing.
I know because I have seen
these people, so
Uh
I don't wish it on anyone.
So
In the Mian project,
you have to dig deep
into a certain psychology.
You are missing a psychiatric analysis
of someone's project and its meaning.
The story is his problem
with his personality,
with his soul, and with his past.
[Matteo, in English]
The story of Gunther is emblematic
because it starts with pain.
It start with that person
committing suicide
and the Countess leaving
a great amount of money
with the idea
to give this legacy a meaning.
A project which would be
the future solution
to the prevention of unhappiness.
[Aurelien]
Why do you think Maurizio is so obsessed
with the pursuit of happiness?
Because he's sick.
Me, I'm sick too.
We are not people from happiness.
We are not people for serendipity.
[in Italian]
The detail that the Countess' son
was suffering from depression
could somehow be a projection
of Maurizio's frame of mind.
He is an alter ego.
[in Italian] I can recall
some cases in which patients, um
The details and all the characters
and narration of their life,
they rather resemble a novel,
that they need
to tell themselves a certain story
in order to endorse
a certain attitude for the future.
[Aurelien]
The son of the Countess loved Miami,
but you love Miami,
loved pop music, but you love pop music.
The truth is that she was not a Countess.
[Maurizio] No.
[Aurelien]
And didn't have a son named Gunther.
[Maurizio] No.
[Aurelien]
The son is you. It's your projection.
[Maurizio] Yes.
[Aurelien] We learned from Maurizio
that the son of the Countess
was a projection of himself.
Yes.
[in Italian] I hear about his suffering
now and then,
the times he chooses to tell me,
that he transmits to me,
"Stefano, today is not a good day."
And I know that he's inside that space.
And perhaps at that moment,
Maurizio becomes the son of the Countess.
But when has Maurizio
brought up this son of the Countess?
Excuse me, if I may ask.
[Aurelien, in English] All the time.
- All the
- [Aurelien] All the time.
With you?
[Aurelien] Yeah, with interviews, yeah.
Oh, I ask you because, for a long time,
for a long time,
I never hear from Maurizio
to talk about the son of Countess.
For a long time.
Uh, we was
[in Italian] We were more focused
on the project,
on being around the dog,
so there was a period
when he wanted to move on
and leave the son's story behind.
I'm surprised
that he's started talking about it again.
Evidently,
in the dark moments of his life,
when he doesn't feel well,
Maurizio goes back
to talking about this son of the Countess.
[in Italian] It means he feels down.
He feels a lot of down.
[Stefano, in Italian]
In Maurizio, we find in his figure,
the history of his family
and the expectations
the family probably had for him.
Maybe somewhere inside Maurizio,
this has left a deep mark.
[Cristina] The relationship
between Maurizio and his mother
was very love and hate.
It was a relationship between two people
who understood each other and didn't.
[Massimo] Maurizio was anything but
what his two parents wanted him to become.
They wanted him to be a scientist,
while he did not.
When his father died,
he escaped to America.
It unleashed hell. Quarrels upon quarrels.
At times I get very angry.
[interviewer] At whom?
What an indiscreet question.
I don't want to say.
[Massimo] She wanted him
to work hard to be active, alive,
and maybe not sink
into a moment of depression
that could also cause him damage.
If you could take one of our guests here
and bring them to Miami,
who would you take?
The one I would keep home is my mother.
[Maurizio, in English] My mother
was not recognized as she deserved,
all the things she did.
Great researcher,
the development of this company.
She was something
that should have been more well-known.
She deserved more.
[in Italian] We have five minutes left.
Maurizio, say something
to your mother here live
that you've never told her before.
I tried all I could,
amongst all the things
I could not get from scientific research,
is to replicate people.
My mother should be cloned.
Gosh.
[Maurizio] Because she's too good.
Mauri, you know what this seems to me?
- The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- Yeah.
[laughs]
[applause]
[Ed, in English] For Maurizio,
the Countess was that very important
mythology that made the story real,
and sometimes,
that's the best place to hide things,
is right in front of people's faces.
[Aurelien] So, I still don't understand.
If the Countess isn't real
and the son of the Countess didn't exist,
where did Gunther come from?
[classical music]
[man] One, take one. Okay?
[indistinct chatter]
[in Italian] My name is Antonella.
Gunther the dog was mine.
And this is where the story
of the millionaire dog started.
[intense string music]
[dramatic classical music]