«Director in Boots». The Posture of Alessandro Blasetti

Blasetti was known as «the director in boots»: he was to be found in this footwear on set, photographed, and portrayed wearing boots by caricaturists. This article shows how Blasetti’s choice of footwear can be seen as contributing to the diffusion of his own specific posture. Blasetti constructed his identity as a filmmaker not only via his camerawork and editing, but also through the way he posed for his magazine audience. The «vigourous» style that critics of the time interpreted in his films was part of a model of virility that the director also embodied by wearing these boots, which recalled his military past, his adherence to fascism and his vision of the role of director in cinema’s mode of production.