Fifty years of Italian cinema (1955)

41 legend of Hollywood. Without this legend, the launching of an actor or the success of a film could not have been achieved through the traditional methods of publicity. Thus Hollywood became the Mecca of a new and fanatic cult of believers. The purveyors of the printed word helped the illusion along. The newspapers and periodicals were far from insensible to the blandishments of publicity budgets fattened by the hand of Hollywood, and saw to it that the mirage of Movieland and its ephemeral glories were thoroughly glamorized. Only those naive people who stubbornly believe that Europeans are really mature, thoughtful and not susceptible to mass suggestion are astonished to discover that such propaganda could have the same success on this side of the Atlantic as in the United States. By inocolating the collective consciousness of the two continents with the movie virus in its most virulent and epidemic form, tenacious American publicity created its own instrument — a new type of journalism. In Italy too, between 1925 and 1930, something of this sort happened. Here too, motion pictures brought into being a new type of popular illustrated journalism. Yet there was a tinge of cultural challenge in this new journalistic experience. It was during this period that an editor, unknown at that time but today famous as a motion picture director, started a series of rotogravure publications delaling primarily with film-making. Alessandro Blasetti, then an unknown director whose work was largely improvisation, made a film called Sole (Sun) which, both in inspiration and technique, was totally different from the traditional Italian cinema. Shortly afterwards, a review and cultural club called II convegno was founded under the direction of Enzo Ferrieri, thus giving a start to film criticism and creating the first Italian Film Society Private initiative was responsible for this activity, for there was no help from government funds. To the Milanese Convegno goes credit for publishing the first intelligent and organic essay in Italy on the aesthetics of the motion picture, the work of Antonello Gerbi. From 1930 to 1942 the Italian cinema was not Fascist. The regime, satisfied by the propaganda emanating from the Istituto Luce through its news magazines and its steady stream of newsreels, never laid its heavy hand on the work of the producers or directors. In general, the burdens of Fascism were taken with the proverbial grain of salt by the film-makers. Thus, out of more than five hundred feature films produced during these dozen years, those which were one hundred percent fascist in content may be counted on the fingers of one hand. Gerbi published his essay on the aesthetics of the film in 1926. Alessandro Blasetti made his film, Sun, in 1928. He was a newcomer to the film scene, with a different approach to his art and a strong determination to make his influence felt. So he was hailed for his film and encouraged. Perhaps Sun was over-rated far beyond the mediocre work it really was. Yet because it was truly a revolutionary event, tolling the deathknell for the old type of film which had failed so miserably, the praise accorded Blasetti's film was justified. Men of culture, who were showing a growing interest in the cinema, found in this film a new world of promise. But Sun did not lead to other glories — it was a meteor, not a sun, and the film-making activities of Blasetti took another direction. Perhaps in the distant future, some film historian may see in this film the forerunner of today's neo-realistic films.