Fifty years of Italian cinema (1955)

66 had been realized, it would have also been drenched in nostalgic atmosphere, delicate touches and accents. Blasetti has given us a highly colorful and pleasant series of interludes, but the final results are quite different from his avowed intention. His announced attempt to preserve the style of its writer in each episode was perhaps not the happiest idea. If anything, the style of Blasetti should have blended the stories into cohesion. In any case, one can find no true unified style at all in Times Gone By. With his almost inexhaustible activity and his more than inexhaustible enthusiasm, Blasetti has given much to the Italian cinema. Into the 20th Century, Blasetti carries the echoes of 19th century tradition of « civilization » and « progress ». He is animated by a warmth that springs straight from the people, free of cultural patterns, faithful to good craftsmanship. He has a deep love for humanity. Through many years of tenacious work his success is wellearned. A veteran of the old guard, Augusto Genina, gave us a good film in 1949 — Cielo sulla Palude (Sky Over the Marshes). It tells the story of Maria Goretti, murdered in 1902 when she was only twelve years old, who reappeared in various miraculous visions, and was finally beatified. The film ends with the death of Maria. Genina, faced with the problem of telling about a future saint, might have made her as one possessed. But the life of Maria was that of a sweet and smiling girl. She is offended by the advances of a scoundrel and resists him. He threatens her life, but she resists to her last breath. It is to Genina's credit that he has told her story — the story of her brief, earthly life — as a faithful chronicle of events. The role of Maria, played by a young peasant girl from the countryside near Rome, becomes real and believable from beginning to end. To have achieved such reality with an inexperienced actress was in itself no mean accomplishment, but in addition to this, the film has a beautiful visual background. The Pontine marshes at the end of the 19th century appear in the early part of the film in the barrenness of autumn and winter. The struggle of the peasants against earth and sky, to eke out a meagre sustenance from the marshes, has the rhythm of an ancient sorrow. Less successful was his next film, L'edera (Ivy) (1950), taken from Grazia Deledda's novel of the same name. Its transition to the screen was carried out with the greatest possible literary fidelity, even to the point of using some of the original dialogue in the book. It tells the story of Annesa, part servant, part adopted daughter, in the house of Don Paulu. He is a widower, and he makes Annesa his mistress. He is a weak man, and he becomes hopelessly involved in debt. The one man who can help him is a rich, miserly relative who hates himAnnesa, aware of this situation, attempting to help Don Paulu out of his predicament, commits a useless crime. To punish herself, she refuses Don Paulu's offer of marriage and decides to go away. Genina imposed a severe restraint on himself in telling this story — and thus lost much of the effectiveness that stories of crimes and redemption must have. As a result the film is sketchy and superficial. More uneven, but more significant, was Tre Stone firoibite (Three Forbidden Stories) (1952) — a trio of stories taken from events recorded in the daily papers. But the three stories