Cast: Salvo Randone, Frank Wolff, Pietro Cammarata, Sennuccio Benelli, Giuseppe Calandra, Max Cartier, Fernando Cicero, Bruno Ukmar, Cosimo Tonino, Federico Zardi, Francesco Rosi (voice). Screenplay: Francesco Rosi, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Enzo Provenzale, Franco Solinas. Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo. Production design: Sergio Canevari, Carlo Egidi. Film editing: Mario Serandrei. Music: Piero Piccioni.
Francesco Rosi's docudrama Salvatore Giuliano is remarkable for not making the title character, a charismatic Sicilian Robin Hood, the focus of the film. Instead, Giuliano, played by a non-professional actor, Pietro Cammarata, is seen only in long shots and in death. The film is about the milieu, post-war Sicily, rather than the man. Rosi, who serves as voiceover narrator in the few moments of the film that try to make it more comprehensible to those not versed in the biographical and historical backstory, is concerned not to make Giuliano into a glamorous figure. Instead he wants us to feel caught up in the political currents, with a masterly use of crowds massing and meeting. Only two figures stand out from these crowds: Gaspare Pisciotta (Frank Wolff), who followed and betrayed Giuliano, and the judge (Salvo Randone) presiding over the trial of Pisciotta and his accomplices. Even the most melodramatic moments in the film, as when Giuliano's mother (an uncredited performer chosen from the local people where the film was made) weeps and fondles her son's corpse, are viewed with detachment. Yet the film works with a masterly display of technique, especially Mario Serandrei's editing and Gianni Di Venanzo's views of the Siciilian landscape. It's a film that asks you to do your homework, but it rewards you for it.
