There are stories that cannot be told because they are part of us, they are inextricably linked to our daily experience as men, citizens of the world or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say as "consumers" for the story I am about to tell you.
It is the story of one of the most famous commercial brands in the world, one of the greatest business models that has ever existed today.
Take a wild guess...
Many people will have thought about Facebook, others about Coca Cola, but no... someone has surely sketched out the most obvious answer: Mc Donald's.
One of the most particular and eccentric directors of recent years wanted to sign a very classic film, what today we would call biopic and that would try to take us to the dawn of the great M to discover the reasons, insights, joys and sorrows behind the greatest commercial success of the post-war period.
John Lee Hanckock uses the histrionics of Michael Keaton to tell a story in his own way that adds myth and aversion to the symbol par excellence of junk food on the one hand and feeling at home on the other.
Also as far as its genesis and its primordial development McDonald's is not what it may seem but it hides a lot of passion and as many deceptions within it.
The title of the film is eloquent but very cryptic and misleading: The founder.
Who's hiding behind McDonald's, who will be Mr. McDonald who many years ago started the "fairy tale" of the great M?
The answer is not simple and indeed for many people there might not be a sure answer to a very direct, immediate and banal question.
If for Facebook you could indicate Mark Zuckerberg and for Ferrari the great Enzo for McDonald's you will find that answer is not possible.
Hanckock was therefore effective in the choice of the title and diabolical in putting Michael Keaton's winning face on the cover. Whoever approached the film had the strange certainty that it was the character played by Keaton who was the founder of the great American company. But was it?
Keaton plays the businessman Ray Kroc, a bold and dreamy character who goes from one idea to another in search of the winning one that can turn him around.
It would take an almost fortuitous encounter with two brothers who owned a revolutionary fast food restaurant for the time to change his life and perspective.
Those brothers were the brothers Dick and Mac McDonald and had recently renovated their restaurant and invented the so-called "espresso method", a method thanks to which they were able to prepare a sandwich with hamburgers in 30 seconds and non-stop.
A Copernican revolution at a time when in a drive you could wait dozens and dozens of minutes before receiving your sandwich and often the waitresses got lost among a thousand orders confusing ingredients, customers, machines and tables in the most general chaos.
Kroc came up with the idea to expand that business and make it a franchise. The brothers had already tried but with very little success because of their strong vocation for quality and strict respect for the original recipes. That's why the 2 humble and ingenious brothers had preferred to stay open with a single restaurant, earning a lot but without being greedy.
It was Kroc who dissuaded them and pushed them again towards the adventure of the franchise by taking charge of the organization and quality control.
Their agreement included collaboration but that the last word was always addressed to the brothers, on any change or novelty.
After an initial idyllic period of strong expansion Kroc began to become greedy and his mania for omnipotence soon led him to break the relationship and corner the brothers with ruthless moves and without any respect towards the founders of the espresso method and owners of the name and symbol that we all know today.
A fascinating story without doubt, but also a very disturbing and sad one that casts new shadows on a company that today inspires and nourishes entire generations, to the detriment of food wellbeing and the health of increasingly obese and diabetic customers.
At the end of the story, therefore, I ask you: who is the founder of McDonald's?
