Abstract

Blasetti was known as «the director in boots»: he always worked in boots on set, was photographed wearing them, and portrayed in boots by caricaturists. This article shows how Blasetti's choice of footwear contributed 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 magazine audiences. 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 boots, therefore recalling his military past, his adherence to fascism and his vision of the role of the director in cinema's mode of production.