Movie Screening
REMEMBERING FRANCESCO ROSI
The documentary-style Italian drama chronicles the rise and fall of Salvatore Giuliano, a real-life Mob chieftain who rose to prominence in post-WWII Sicily. The main character is almost unseen and his career is recalled in flashbacks after his assassination in 1950. With the help of his right-hand man and cousin Gaspare Pisciotta (Frank Wolff), Salvatore becomes a guerilla leader whose resistance to the corrupt politicians dominating his post-war nation leads to his popularity among the Sicilian peasant class.
As time passes, though, Salvatore becomes more of a criminal than a rebel, threatening Mafia income. Even Salvatore’s own devoted followers begin to doubt him, and when he orders the slaughter of communist supporters at a rally, a bloody shootout with police ensues. Salvatore Giuliano (1962) was such an effective anti-organized crime film that it inspired a real-life investigation into Mob activities in Sicily.
Director: Francesco Rosi
Italy, 1962, 125 minutes
Film in Italian with English subtitles
TRAILER (via Youtube)
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PHOTO ID REQUIRED
LOCATION
Embassy of Italy – Auditorium
3000 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington, DC 20008
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
July 5, 1950 – Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano’s bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano, a handgun and rifle by his side. Local and international press descend upon the scene, hoping to crack open the true story behind the death of this young man, who, at the age of twenty-seven, had already become Italy’s most wanted criminal and celebrated hero. Filming in the exact locations and enlisting a cast of native Sicilians once impacted by the real Giuliano, director Francesco Rosi harnessed the facts and myths surrounding the true story of the bandit’s death to create a startling exposé of Sicily and the tangled relations between its citizens, the Mafia, and government officials. A groundbreaking work of political filmmaking, Salvatore Giuliano established Rosi’s reputation and assured his place in cinema history.
FRANCESCO ROSI
From All Movie Guide: Distinguished Italian director Francesco Rosi is best known for the political films he made during the 1960s. He had his start assisting Luchino Visconti on La Terra Trema in 1947. Afterward, Rosi assisted other major directors, including Michelangelo Antonioni, and collaborated on film scripts until 1952 when he helmed Red Shirts. Taking the production over from director Goffredo Alessandrini, who had just quit, it turned out to be a solid, albeit rather average beginning. In 1958, Rosi made his real directorial debut with The Challenge. He made a splash on the international circuit four years later with Salvatore Giuliano, a neorealist biography of the Sicilian bandit. Its realism combined with none-too-subtle allegations of Mafia influence over the government caused controversy in Italy. That year, the film earned a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. His next film, Hands over the City (1963), contained similar themes to Giuliano while his 1965 film The Moment of Truth was an exploitation exposé of bullfighting. By the 1970s, Rosi’s films became considerably less topical and presented more conventional views of corruption in Italy. In the ’80s, Rosi’s style and focus again changed to even less inflammatory material based on literature. Rosi wrote and directed his last film, The Truce, in 1997; he died in 2015, at age 92.
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