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Scrape off the protagonist and exploratory impressions fill the void, the historical biopic becomes a modernist argument. (The foundation might be Viva Zapata!, Kazan returns the compliment in the early passages of America America.) An overhead shot of a sprawled corpse inaugurates the indagine, an amphitheater view of the eponymous legendary outlaw discarded in a Sicilian courtyard, Francesco Rosi looks backward and forward and sideways to piece the tale together. Italy after the war is a fractured state, the perfect time to mold Salvatore Giuliano from fugitive peasant to separatist colonel ("escapees and bandits" were once Garibaldi's tools, declares one politico.) Bogus amnesty segues into Mafia alliances, kidnapping and extortion, the "King of Montelepre" is a servant passed from one opportunist to the next, "squeeze the lemon and then throw it out." Around Giuliano's specter, Rosi assembles a methodical welter of interrogations and flashbacks and reconstructions, dossier pages scattered across a stark landscape. From Roman reporter to recruited shepherd to treacherous comrade, a purposefully incomplete perspective. The political and personal forces at play are raw, the scrutiny is analytical: High-angled vantages are recurrent, a long shot of a jeep zipping across the dirt road is splendidly upended as a rifle enters the foreground of the frame and a quick zoom surveys the crash in the distance. The military round-up (a tsunami of wailing women slamming against lines of carabinieri) and the May Day massacre (bodies and banners on a parched field) are fierce Eisenstein studies, Pisciotta and Don Nunzio in the desert anticipate Leone. "Even the smallest Italian town can be a museum." The coda underlines the unending need for inquiry, the search for veracity beyond the official story. Soderbergh in Che gives the style a valiant try. Cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |