Francesco Rosi’s crusading endeavour about the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano’s story is an outstanding effort of a non-fictional theme which reckons of an intricate structure and its interpretation of events shot in a neo-realist documentary. An implausible flair of the non-linear cinematic investigation was made in the ’60s when radical Italian cinema was an impasse. Rosi’s extraordinary pictorial conscience cross over neorealism, which was then limited to the everyday essentials into a revelation of the exceptional prevalent political questions.
Francesco Rosi is called conscience of Italian cinema- A Sicilian himself, Rosi’s grip and lenient awareness of the grain of Sicily in its interwoven social and political forces that shaped the career of this bandit. Besides the noxious coalition of the catholic church, the Mafia and power centers around it is restored to enchanting cinematic visuals of this intense political affairs, revealing deceit and corruption during the binding end of World War II until Giuliano’s violent death in 1950 is the theme of the film.
This film is produced in the splendour days of long-gone neorealism. The extent of the craving desire and openness adopted after the liberation from fascism- Many Italian moviemakers indicate this as a very subjective cinema, unsettled with informal experimentation rebooting the unwavering politics of Italy. In many ways, Salvatore Giuliano produces the effect of true-to-life documentations. The film establishes extensive research into those official court records and historic, broadsheet, and journalistic reports adjoining the story. The misperception of these reports and records is preserved by the splintered structure of the film’s storyline and chronicles.
The film’s opening is an incident following the death of Salvatore Giuliano at his compound of Castelventrano, Sicily, 1950. The city officials reading the reports of his death (Giuliano is only seen as a corpse). An investigation of how his bullet-riddled body ended up at Palermo’s town square and who’s guilty of the crime is ignored. The search is a clueless impression, and Rosi’s instinctive method of filmmaking positions his audience so close to the brilliant ploy and ovate into unfolding study. Though, not as the appendages of crime, but of a whole way of life surrounding narratives of Sicily going in back and forth.
In the transition of WWII defeat, Italy is further dented when the separatist groups like MIS and EVIS play the power struggle. They wage a low-level insurrection against the Italian government. Further Allies fortified to keep fascist control alongside the Mafia at bay coincide the rise of the Italian Communist Party and also the spell of Giuliano, the bandit spread his rule of supremacy in the neighbourhood of Sicilian hamlet. The phase is when Salvatore Giuliano instigates the gorilla attack on the policemen. The stint of his widespread acceptance among the local peasants coincides with the Communist election victory in 1946, which triggered the Portella della Ginestra massacre by Giuliano. The instance marks the dark period of killing communist supporters mercilessly by the gangsters and bandits.
The intention of Giuliano’s communist massacre and his outward view of Sicily to move away from the Italian control is undoubtedly a conflicting quid. The movie exposes the interim Italian government uses Giuliano to suppress the opposition. However, conserve reasonable denial of the tyranny, and Sicily became autonomous in 1947. Giuliano’s greedy bargain with Mafia money brings more doubts about being a criminal than a rebel.
The audience is ought for the severe twist of forth. Giuliano’s lieutenants are rounded up following his death. The conspiracy deepens, and interesting angle of Pisciotta, who happens to be his lieutenant and cousin, claims to be in touch with the government authorities for three years along with the Mafia, a pact of convenience that safeguarded the landowners and their interests. The nexus to eliminate Giuliano’s influence triggering to his death.
Entrancingly the omerta code serves both Mafia conceit and authorities in the plot. When all else fails, the eyewitnesses are silenced. Rosi steadily reserves perilous facts. The climax is a sharp cinematic portrait of how sometimes it takes a wrong turn of history’s uncertainties defines the various sources of power linked more often inferred by the contrast of an image and are laid out with classic clarity.
Yet it’s anything of emotional empathy with the class of dirt-poor Sicilians, the characters played by non-professional locals and with his defenders far-reaching the mountainous terrain of Sicily is eye-catching. The cloaked Giuliano from his enemies in clear-cut black and white stretch is stunningly shot by Gianni Di Venanzo.
Appropriate to the style having its roots in neorealism- Rosi builds up an innate portrait beyond a mesmerizing document of a turbulent period in Italian politics. Salvatore Giuliano isn’t so much about the title character as it is about his death and impact. The film is scanned delicately and dissects the malignancy at the heart of Italian state power. Giuliano, however, remains folklore, and the nearest we get to a conventional figure is Pisciotta, who emerges from the background only as the film reaches its final stretch.
My note will remain unjust without mentioning the screenwriter Franco Solinas, a topmost architect of two important movies of all times Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers” and “Salvatore Giuliano.” All we know that The Battle of Algiers accomplished so fiercely to summarise a slice of history. Rosi mastered the tone of an almost impossible balance of imminence and reflection of history not so far. Distinctly this remains an exciting piece of filmmaking that you might not realize until the end that its dominant tone is pensive, even melancholic.
An unbounded nostalgic fervour of what looks like a golden period and Rosi will always be remembered as the master of the cine-investigation’ and an influence on several generations of artists, including the likes of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Roberto Saviano, and Paolo Sorrentino.
Film Crew
Directed by Francesco Rosi
Produced by Franco Cristaldi
Written by Franceso Rosi; Suso Cecchi d’Amico; Enzo Provenzale & Franco Solinas
Cast: Salvo Randone and Frank Wolff
Music by Piero Piccioni
Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo
Edited by Mario Serandrei
Release year: 1962
Run time of 123 minutes
Country: Italy
Language: Italian
