The Painterly, Anti-Fascist Cinema of Guglielmo Baldassini: Independent film developing and tinting and toning as a creative and political choice
Guglielmo Baldassini (1885-1945) was born in Genoa and moved to Milan in the early 1900s to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera; after being expelled from the Academy his work began to appear in various national and international exhibitions. He was a painter and etcher, and also devoted himself to photography and filmmaking in the Pathé-Baby format. In some cases his photograph and film settings were also used for paintings and prints. In the early 1920s he married Laura Lupato, and their children Luciano and Marisa were born in 1923 and 1927. The success of those years was interrupted by the appearance of his painting La Marcia su Roma (The March on Rome), which represented a flock of sheep on the Viale Monza in Milan. Baldassini’s opposition to fascism consigned him to the margins of the art world, and he was forced to give up creature comforts – he sold his camera and etching plates – and applied himself to printing calendars, business cards, and ex-libris bookplates. He died impoverished in Milan in 1945.
The body of Baldassini’s work in Bologna’s Home Movies collection consists of 95 reels shot between 1926 and the beginning of the 1930s. The main subjects are his family, Milan, and seascapes and mountain views. The composition of frames and distribution of figures in relation to background objects and situations is always particularly harmonious, and the images selected here have truly original visual qualities. The characteristics of the films are determined by both the camera (first operated with a crank, then spring-loaded) and the process of development, carried out manually by Baldassini himself. The image is also affected by the decay of the emulsion, caused by time, techniques and chemicals used to personalize, correct, or transform the material. Views of the Navigli (historic canals) in Milan before they were filled in, the breaking waves of the Ligurian sea, and private moments of daily life re-emerge from the 1920s, conveying phantasmagorical images that become protean matter formed by memory and dreams. Baldassini’s hypnotic visions are the result of a process of home-made developing, toning and tinting of the films.
The reason Baldassini developed  his 9.5mm reversal films independently probably lies in his unequivocally anti-fascist political stance, which led him to refuse inserting the mandatory Fascist logo on opening and closing frames, as imposed by the Pathé-Baby Italia company on all developing  laboratories in Italy.
This programme of 14 Pathé-Baby films is curated by Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna, as part of Home Movies 100. Gugliemo Baldassini’s 9.5mm films have been preserved in collaboration with the UNIUD La camera ottica film lab, Gorizia, and digitized by Home Movies.

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SOTTO LA NEVE. MILANO. 30-1-[1]927 [Under the Snow, Milan. 30-1-[1]927)] (IT 1927)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 30.01.1927. copia/copy: DCP, 2’50” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); did./titles: ITA. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

Snow alters the landscape, transforming it; nitric acid transfigures it.

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IN GIRO PER MILANO [Strolling in Milan] (IT 1927)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 02.1927. copia/copy: DCP, 3′ (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); did./titles: ITA. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

In the gardens – ducks – snow – at the Castello Sforzesco.

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[L’ARRIVO DEL PRINCIPE EREDITARIO UMBERTO] [The Arrival of Crown Prince Umberto] (IT 1927)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 02.1927. copia/copy: DCP, 2′ (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

The same subject is seen twice, once in a positive print, then using reversible stock.

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MONTE ROSA E BATTESIMO MARISA [Monte Rosa and Marisa’s Baptism] (IT 1927)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 11.1927. copia/copy: DCP, 2’45” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

A grown-up’s grimace on the Monte Rosa glacier, a child’s grimace in a family group.

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[SUI BASTIONI, NEVE AI GIARDINI] [At the Bastion, Snow in the Gardens] (IT 1927)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: Natale/Christmas 1927. copia/copy: DCP, 2’35” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

Luciano enjoys himself with an umbrella after rainfall. The park’s landscape is transformed under the snow, leading to a striking change of tonality.

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[RITRATTI CRAQUELÉS] [Craquelure Portraits] (IT 1928)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 01.1928. copia/copy: DCP, 3’40” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

A painterly self-portrait of the family (Luciano and Marisa) at home and in the gardens. The craquelure effect caused by the varied temperatures of film-developing chemicals acts in the same way that time affects the surface of Old Master paintings.

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AL CASTELLO [At the Castle] (IT 1928)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 02.01.1928. copia/copy: DCP, 2’50” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); did./title: ITA. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

Between the cannons at the Castello and the descent into its gardens, Luciano passes through ancient doorways that seem to activate spatial-temporal portals of pure light. Perhaps this was caused by a miscalculated treatment of the nitric acid?

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[ABBAZIE E TRENI] [Abbeys and Trains] (IT 1928)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 02.1928. copia/copy: DCP, 3’15” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

Fountains and city monuments seen before leaving Milan for the countryside and its avenues of plane trees and elms, leading to the Abbey of Chiaravalle. At a nearby railway junction, steam locomotives pull long freight trains.

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[VILLAGGIO INDIANO A MILANO] [Indian Village in Milan] (IT 1928)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 25.05.1928. copia/copy: DCP, 2’10” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

These images relate to exoticism and document a reconstruction of daily life in a village in India, complete with elephants at work. The images have the merit of transporting us to distant places, but the presence of the Milan gas tank reveals that this is a large open-air installation. A dominant purple tone seems in perfect harmony with the subject.

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[MARISA A 80 GIORNI] [Marisa at 80 Days Old] (IT 1928)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 04.08.1928. copia/copy: DCP, 2’50” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); did./title: ITA. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

A close-up of a baby girl in swaddling clothes is a loving gesture by a sympathetic father. In apparent contrast with the effects of a not entirely successful reversal development, the gesture seems to be reciprocated by the expressiveness and affection directed by the face of the little girl at the funny-looking man behind the camera. Luciano is also seen playing at a fountain at the end.

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[AI GIARDINI DEI BASTIONI] [At the Bastion Gardens] (IT 1928)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 14.10.1928. copia/copy: DCP, 2’30” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

A family film with Rina and Marisa, dappled by the assault of nitric acid, with shades of colour emerging and enhancing figures sometimes to the point of abstraction.

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[BALLO SOLARIZZATO] [Solarized Dancing] (IT 1929)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 07-08.1929. copia/copy: DCP, 2’30” (da/from 9.5mm, 20 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

A large tree is cut down, followed by a crowded picnic with the slicing of watermelon, a gramophone, and outdoor dancing. The light used during development has solarized the outlines of objects and people, producing a three-dimensional effect.

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IN CASA [At Home] (IT 1927)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: 02.1927. copia/copy: DCP, 2’10” (da/from 9.5mm, 15 m.); did./title: ITA. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

The treatment of light is one of the challenges facing painters, photographers, and filmmakers alike. Guglielmo Baldassini loves to get involved.

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[PAESAGGI MARINI E ONDE SU SCOGLI] [Seascapes and Waves on Reefs] (IT, c.1925-c.1935)
regia/dir: Gugliemo Baldassini. riprese/filmed: fine anni ’20-primi anni ’30/late 1920s-early 1930s. copia/copy: DCP, c. 5′ (da/from 9.5mm); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: Home Movies – Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia, Bologna.

Selections from a 100-metre reel shot by Baldassini in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Ligurian seascapes and reefs struck by the waves of a rough sea, calm backlit beaches, and Romantic images of rocks tinted in aniline cyan-blue simulate the colour of the sea. Ghostly images shift from documentation to imagination. Baldassini’s hypnotic visions are like a record of observation and a study of waves, recalling the proto-cinema of Albert Londe and Étienne-Jules Marey, probably serving the artist as preparatory studies for printmaking and oil painting.

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