''Salvatore Giuliano'' is a 1962
Italian film directed by
Francesco Rosi
Francesco Rosi (; 15 November 1922 – 10 January 2015) was an Italian film director. His film '' The Mattei Affair'' won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to ha ...
. Shot in a
neo-realist documentary, non-linear style, it follows the lives of those involved with the famous Sicilian bandit
Salvatore Giuliano. Giuliano is mostly off-screen during the film and appears most notably as a corpse.
Reception
Derek Malcolm
Derek Elliston Michael Malcolm (born 12 May 1932) is an English film critic.
Son of J. Douglas Malcolm (died 1967) and Dorothy Vera (died 1964; née Elliston-Taylor), Malcolm was educated at Eton College and Merton College, Oxford. As a child h ...
called it "almost certainly the best film about the social and political forces that have shaped
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
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, that benighted island."
Gino Moliterno argued that "Rosi's highly original strategy in this landmark film is to aim at neither an "objective" journalistic documentary nor a fictional recreation but to employ as wide a range of disparate formal and stylistic elements as necessary to conduct a committed search for the truth that becomes, in a sense, its own narrative."
David Gurevich said that "Rosi marries the neo-realist, black-and-white, populist aesthetic to the mad media circus of ''
La Dolce Vita
''La Dolce Vita'' (; Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life"Kezich, 203) is a 1960 satirical comedy-drama film directed and co-written (with Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello Rondi) by Federico Fellini. The film stars Marcello ...
'', tosses in some minimalist alienation from
Antonioni, makes the film jump back and forth in time without any markers (so that you realize you're back in the present only a few minutes after you're already in a sequence), and makes his despair so infectious that we would probably be disappointed to know the truth."
Terrence Rafferty
Terrence Rafferty is a film critic who wrote regularly for ''The New Yorker'' during the 1990s. His writing has also appeared in '' Slate'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''The Village Voice'', ''The Nation'', and ''The New York Times''. For a number ...
noted that "''Salvatore Giuliano'' manages to sustain an almost impossible balance of immediacy and reflection: it's such an exciting piece of filmmaking that you might not realize until the end that its dominant tone is contemplative, even melancholy."
Director
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...
listed ''Salvatore Giuliano'' as one of his twelve favorite films of all time.
Cast
*
Salvo Randone
Salvatore "Salvo" Randone (25 September 1906 – 6 March 1991) was an Italian theatrical, television and film actor.
Born in Syracuse, Sicily, Randone debuted on stage in mid-1920s and, after some years in which he played roles of little w ...
as President of Viterbo Assize Court
*
Frank Wolff as
Gaspare Pisciotta
Gaspare Pisciotta (Montelepre, 5 March 1924 – Palermo, 9 February 1954) was a companion of the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, and considered to be the co-leader of his outlaw band. He is also the Judas in Giuliano's legend as he b ...
* Director
Francesco Rosi
Francesco Rosi (; 15 November 1922 – 10 January 2015) was an Italian film director. His film '' The Mattei Affair'' won the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Rosi's films, especially those of the 1960s and 1970s, often appeared to ha ...
provided narration in the Italian version.
[
* Most of the other cast members were non-professional locals.][
Known uncredited cast members:]
* Pietro Cammarata as Salvatore Giuliano
* Sennuccio Benelli as Reporter
* Giuseppe Calandra as Minor Official
* Max Cartier as Francesco
* Fernando Cicero as Bandit
* Bruno Ukmar as Spy
* Cosimo Torino as Frank Mannino
* Federico Zardi as Pisciotta’s Defense Counsel
* The Citizens of Castelvetrano
Castelvetrano ( scn, Castiḍḍuvitranu) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Trapani, Sicily, southern Italy. The archeological site of Selinunte is located within the municipal territory.
The municipality borders with Campobello d ...
, Montelepre
Montelepre (; scn, Muncilebbri) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo, Sicily, Italy. It is known for having been the native city of Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, of architect Rosario Candela, as well as the ances ...
, and Palermo, Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
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, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
as Themselves
Crew
* Director: Francesco Rosi
* Writing credits:
** Suso Cecchi d'Amico
** Enzo Provenzale
** Franceso Rosi
** Franco Solinas
* Producer: Franco Cristaldi
Awards
*Silver Bear for Best Director
The Silver Bear for Best Director (german: Silberner Bär/Bester Regie) is an award presented annually at the Berlin International Film Festival since 1956. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury ...
, 1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...
*Silver Ribbon Award for Best Cinematography, 1963
*Silver Ribbon Award for Best Director, 1963
*Silver Ribbon Award for Best Score, 1963
See also
*'' Salvatore Giuliano'', a 1986 Italian opera by Lorenzo Ferrero
*'' The Sicilian'', a novel by Mario Puzo
Mario Francis Puzo (; ; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably '' The Godfather'' (1969), whi ...
based on the life of Salvatore Giuliano
* ''The Sicilian'', a film based on the novel, directed by Michael Cimino
Michael Antonio Cimino ( ; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American filmmaker. One of the " New Hollywood" directors, Cimino achieved fame with ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Bes ...
References
Bibliography
*Gesù Sebastiano (a cura di), ''Francesco Rosi'', Giuseppe Maimone Editore, Catania 1993
*Kezich Tullio e Sebastiano Gesù (a cura di), ''Salvatore Giuliano'', Giuseppe Maimone Editore, Catania 1993
* Annarita Curcio, ''Salvatore Giuliano: una parabola storica'', https://www.doppiozero.com/materiali/salvatore-giuliano-una-parabola-storica
External links
*
*
''Salvatore Giuliano''
an essay by Michel Ciment
Michel Ciment (; born 26 May 1938 in Paris) is a French film critic and the editor of the cinema magazine '' Positif''.
Ciment is a Chevalier of the Order of Merit, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters, a ...
at the Criterion Collection
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salvatore Giuliano (Film)
1962 films
1960s Italian-language films
Sicilian-language films
Italian crime films
1962 crime drama films
Political drama films
Films about the Sicilian Mafia
Italian docudrama films
Films set in the 1940s
Films set in the 1950s
Biographical films about Italian bandits
Films set in Sicily
Films directed by Francesco Rosi
Films with screenplays by Suso Cecchi d'Amico
Lux Film films
Films scored by Piero Piccioni
Salvatore Giuliano
1960s Italian films