Before winning the Golden Lion for his 1963 real estate
drama Hands Over the City and later the Palme d’Or in 1972 for The
Mattei Affair, Italian neorealist maestro Francesco Rosi first cut his
teeth into his 1958 drama The Challenge which won a special jury prize
at the Venice Film Festival. Gathering
steam as an urgent politically oriented provocateur, Rosi a year later directed
The Magliari which won the Italian Silver Ribbon Award for Best
Cinematography. However it was not until
1962 when Rosi really made his imprint known with the elliptical neorealist
docudrama crime epic Salvatore Giuliano.
Loosely based on the real-life criminal exploits and subsequent
incarceration and eventual death of the Sicilian bandit of the same name, the
Silver Bear winning saga released through The Criterion Collection on DVD and their
streaming platform is less of a character study as the titular bandit himself
is rarely seen if at all onscreen and more about the overarching impact his life
had on Sicily itself. As Radiance Films
is about to release Rosi’s 1976 Italian crime drama Illustrious Corpses on
home video, there seems to be renewed interest in the director’s oeuvre
pointing to Salvatore Giuliano as the neorealist filmmaker’s first real
game changer.
At the start of the film in the blazing summer of 1950, the titular Sicilian outlaw and local folk hero lies dead in a pool of his own blood, gunned down laying face down in an open courtyard in Castelvetrano with his weaponry beside his body. As press and photojournalists zero in hoping to either solve the mystery or get a piece of the bandit himself, the film begins a cross-cutting nonlinear journey back and forth between past and present showing the highlights of the bandit’s exploits.
At the start of the film in the blazing summer of 1950, the titular Sicilian outlaw and local folk hero lies dead in a pool of his own blood, gunned down laying face down in an open courtyard in Castelvetrano with his weaponry beside his body. As press and photojournalists zero in hoping to either solve the mystery or get a piece of the bandit himself, the film begins a cross-cutting nonlinear journey back and forth between past and present showing the highlights of the bandit’s exploits.
Jumping back to 1943 following
the shooting of a policeman up into the formation of his gang in 1945 before
being declared part of the military arm of the separatist party fighting for
Sicily’s independence, the film despite being populated with many characters played
by non-professional actors feels less like conventional storytelling and closer
to something like The Battle of Algiers where we stand back from afar
regarding the chaos unfolding. Giuliano’s
popularity as a folk hero is at its height until after the 1947 Portella della
Ginestra massacre involving the gunning down of supporters of the Communist and
Socialist movements. Soon member by
member, Giuliano’s forces switch sides though the film itself calls into
question whether or not Giuliano was responsible or if it was orchestrated by
the Mafia and members of the cabinet.
With its gritty and frequently handheld cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo of the Sicilian countryside and mountain rocks, searing and increasingly evocative original score by recurring Rosi collaborator Piero Piccioni, elliptical and fragmented editing by Mario Serandrei and writer-director Francesco Rosi’s astute guidance of the cast of non-professional actors, Salvatore Giuliano again is disinterested in figuring out who the infamous bandit really was and more about the ongoing interplay between authorities, separatists and the mob.
With its gritty and frequently handheld cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo of the Sicilian countryside and mountain rocks, searing and increasingly evocative original score by recurring Rosi collaborator Piero Piccioni, elliptical and fragmented editing by Mario Serandrei and writer-director Francesco Rosi’s astute guidance of the cast of non-professional actors, Salvatore Giuliano again is disinterested in figuring out who the infamous bandit really was and more about the ongoing interplay between authorities, separatists and the mob.
From its stunningly choreographed battles filmed on the real locations
where the crime lord reigned to its deft mixture of cinema verite filmmaking
and neorealist docudrama, Rosi’s saga unfolds in a curious tightrope walk
between objective and subjective perspectives.
Trained on the situation rather than the man with many sequences of
ensemble cast members portraying military raids and arrest roundups, Salvatore
Giuliano is not so much about the one man than the urban legend that was
weaponized with the intent of sociopolitical reform of the country.
Well received by Italian film critics despite being denied acceptance into the Venice Film Festival, Salvatore Giuliano went on to become one of the most successful Italian films of 1962 and further paved the way for Rosi in what would or wouldn’t become Hands Over the City or his bull fighting drama The Moment of Truth. In 1984, The Godfather novelist Mario Puzo published The Sicilian chronicling in more biographical detail the life of Salvatore Giuliano and three years later the disgraced but still active Michael Cimino turned it into a film of the same name. While that film fared poorly with critics and audiences and since gained a minor cult following amid the now defunct Z Channel’s reappraisal of Cimino’s work, the Francesco Rosi film continues to endure as a quintessential example of Italian neorealist true crime cinema as well as political cinema.
Well received by Italian film critics despite being denied acceptance into the Venice Film Festival, Salvatore Giuliano went on to become one of the most successful Italian films of 1962 and further paved the way for Rosi in what would or wouldn’t become Hands Over the City or his bull fighting drama The Moment of Truth. In 1984, The Godfather novelist Mario Puzo published The Sicilian chronicling in more biographical detail the life of Salvatore Giuliano and three years later the disgraced but still active Michael Cimino turned it into a film of the same name. While that film fared poorly with critics and audiences and since gained a minor cult following amid the now defunct Z Channel’s reappraisal of Cimino’s work, the Francesco Rosi film continues to endure as a quintessential example of Italian neorealist true crime cinema as well as political cinema.
In the US Janus
Films still retains the rights to the film while Arrow Video in the UK released
a now out-of-print Blu-ray edition.
Criterion DVD fans are inclined to hang onto their copies until a newer
Blu-ray or 4K edition is announced here.
In any case, whatever approach you take to viewing the film, Salvatore
Giuliano represents the great Francesco Rosi perhaps at his freshest and
still most urgent even after Illustrious Corpses or Three Brothers.
--Andrew Kotwicki