Alessandro Blasetti’s Producer’s and Critic’s Game. Repositioning from the Fascist Regime to the Post-war Period

Abstract

Alessandro Blasetti’s career reaches a turning point in 1942: at the end of the year Quattro passi fra le nuvole is released. The film is retrospectively considered a forerunner of Neorealism. Since then, Blasetti focuses on realistic dramas in humble settings e.g., Nessuno torna indietro (1944), up to the partisan resistance themed Un giorno nella vita (1946). However, from the late 30s to the first half of 1942, Blasetti works mainly on historical films, such as Ettore Fieramosca (1938), Un’avventura di Salvator Rosa (1939), La corona di ferro (1941) and La cena delle beffe (1942). As a result of this productive repositioning, how does Blasetti change his critical posture to reconfigure himself within the field? The paper aims to retrace Blasetti’s works in parallel with his public statements on the press to find fluctuations and shifts. To do so, the author uses the concepts of producer’s game and critic’s game derived from Altman’s genre theory, together with some of Bourdieu’s tools. Blasetti’s repositioning takes place within a context of drastic political and cultural changes, from the first signs of the Second World War to the Postwar period, from the fascist Regime to Neorealism.