Salvatore Giuliano

On 5 July, 1950, Sicilian ‘bandit king’ Salvatore Giuliano is found dead in the backyard of a house in Castelvetrano. A separatist who had fought for an independent Sicily, Guiliano ended his days as a highwayman. Francesco Rosi employs a documentary style to reconstruct the biography of this supposed popular hero. “It’s no accident that SALVATORE GIULIANO is a major Italian film, for Visconti was Rosi’s mentor. But the pupil mistrusts dramatic construction more than the teacher. Rosi’s penchant for documentary connects him to the master’s early work but distances him from Visconti’s later films. (Uwe Nettelbeck, Die Zeit, 12.7.1962)