Re-envisioning Neapolitan fairy tales: Genre blending and local–global tensions in Il racconto dei racconti (2015) and Gatta Cenerentola (2017)

This article brings into dialogue Il racconto dei racconti ( Tale of Tales ) (2015), directed by Matteo Garrone, and Gatta Cenerentola ( Cinderella the Cat ) (2017), directed by Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri and Dario Sansone. Both cinematic productions drew from Giambattista Basile’s collection of Neapolitan fairy tales Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille ( The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones ) (1634–36). By interrogating the Neapolitanness – or lack thereof – of these renditions of Basile’s tales, I explore their genre-blending strategies and the local-global tensions that emerge in the metamorphosis of seventeenth-century Neapolitan fairy tales for the twenty-first-century big screen. As my analysis of these reorientations will show, both films intend to reclaim Lo cunto de li cunti as a landmark of the Neapolitan fairy-tale tradition while engaging in distinctive ways with the visionary aesthetics and entertaining possibilities afforded by the fairy-tale genre.