«La ragazza controcorrente». Attorialità e divismo di Elsa Martinelli

This article examines the figure of Elsa Martinelli from both an acting and a star-studies perspective, interrogating the role her image played within the cultural industry of the second half of the twentieth century. As a morphological antithesis to the "maggiorata", Martinelli introduced into cinema (not only Italian cinema) a female model grounded more in the idea of style than in that of the body, drawing on her long and successful career in fashion. Through the analysis of statements, interviews, and a selection of films in which she starred – from "La risaia" (R. Matarazzo, 1956) to "La calda pelle" ("De l’amour", J. Aurel, 1964) – the essay explores the relationship between acting idiolect and star persona, showing how the actress’s body is frequently framed more as an iconic surface than as a narrative vector. What emerges is a form of ambiguous modernity: while, on the one hand, Martinelli embodies a free, emancipated, and modern woman, capable of eluding traditional models of eroticism and maternity, on the other hand her self-determination remains inscribed within a predominantly male regime of the gaze, which limits her full symbolic agency.