TCM Comments Salvatore Giuliano (1962)

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:10]back with uh writer, director, actor Bill her. Bill, you've been a great friend at TCM. Thanks for being here.

[00:00:16]>> Oh yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:00:17]>> First film, Polish film from An Vita, Canal from 1957. Up next, Franchesco Rosi, 1962. Salvatoreé Juliano. That's the name of the film. It is the name of a real life very famous Italian Sicilian, not quite a gangster, bandit.

[00:00:32]>> Bandits. Yeah. Kind of like Robin Hoody.

[00:00:33]>> Yeah. Except with more killing of innocent people.

[00:00:36]>> Yeah. Killing. If Robin Hood murdered everybody, >> Robin Hood had killed more people who never wronged him. Then >> Harold Flynn just started going after everybody with his sword. And yeah, >> but this is a very unusual. First of all, it has stayed with me now. It's been 48 hours or so since I've seen it.

[00:00:54]I basically watched it twice. I watched it again with the criterion com uh commentary. I actually watched them contemporaneously. I would watch some of it and go back watch that part again with the commentary to help me understand it. Um uh this film is not just a a nonlinear story. It it sort of it it has it shows enormous hostility.

[00:01:16]>> Yeah. Well, you could see Francisco Rosie like you could tell his influences. I read that he really liked American movies like American noir and even like Fred astera movies and things like that. But then he was also incredibly influenced by the French and the French new wave and French movies.

[00:01:32]And to me what I thought was interesting it was kind of like this weird uh it was like some like someone somehow shooting a dossier or something where it was like um it's it kind of is documentary style. It's not. There's these scenes that are very parts of it are unquestionably seem like documentary.

[00:01:52]>> Yeah. It also just feels like point of view is so important in this movie. What he chooses to show and when and how he wants to tell it to you. It is kind of like research in front of you. You're trying to like piece together what the story was. And to me it worked because the history of Sicily and everything kind of happening here is like with a lot of countries is really confusing, you know, and it's kind of a mess how you're trying to understand who's what and who's this. So he he tries to show that to you that's not this straight line or something.

[00:02:23]>> Yeah. And it's unclear this guy. Is he a is he a mobster? He's not your he's not a typical idea of a mobster. You also barely see him in the movie.

[00:02:31]>> Well, that's the other idea is that he he starts off and that's I mean yeah the start of the film is his dead body, >> right?

[00:02:39]>> They found the body of Salvator.

[00:02:41]>> He was shot and killed in 1950 and there's been wild speculation and no good answer for how he got killed. It's not a crazy conspiracy theory to say whatever happened it was not as the police presented it.

[00:02:52]>> Yeah. So it is this kind of like you know citizen can type of thing of like okay this guy died now who was this guy right >> the film making in it is extraordinary and specifically the way he staged things. There's an amazing scene of these guys out in front of a jail at night. The framing of it. It's the same DP as 8 and a half. Every frame is just gorgeous and very simple. It's very composed and beautiful. And then I kind of like the mystery of like, well, who's this guy? And the fact that the main character, it'd be like doing a movie about Robin Hood, but I'm like, I'm never really You're never going to meet Robin Hood. You're going to see Robin Hood from like a far.

[00:03:29]>> That's right. Yeah.

[00:03:30]>> You know, but you're never going to meet him. Yeah. You'll see his coat and people talking about him, which I thought was really interesting. But to me, it's just the sweep of it, seeing the film making, the artistry, the editing. To me, that's like an experience. It kind of overwhelms you in the right way.

[00:03:44]>> It's really an interesting movie to look at. No question.

[00:03:47]>> It's only one of Scorsese's all-time favorite movies, which I found out reading about it. So, clearly, it's good. Don't listen to Ben.

[00:03:54]>> Ben has like some weird interest. It's a weird issue with nonlinear. He's like, "It's nonlinear." Clearly, >> I'm like the I I drove all the way out to Burbank for this >> to be It doesn't go in order.

[00:04:09]>> Yeah. I these Chris Nolan movies just went backwards the whole movie.

[00:04:16]>> Momento, what is happening?

[00:04:19]>> Uh, here it is. Uh, from 1962, courtesy of Bill Aer.

[00:04:24]>> Sorry. Salvator Juliano back with doer. All right, Salvator Giuliano. Um I mean right up till the end there like the big finish is the murder of a guy who wasn't that important.

[00:04:50]>> Yeah, maybe he was the guy that you know he definitely was the guy he was a bet.

[00:04:54]He was the guy that kind of >> was the mafia guy who who who set everybody up.

[00:04:58]>> Yeah. Yeah. And he talked uh >> he talked to the cops. Yeah. He worked out the deal.

[00:05:02]>> Um the Frank Wolf character and turning on him and stuff. But what I mean I just love that image of a guy laying there and all the the shadows of all the heads looking over. It's like this is continuing. I just >> and just and you know it's like a weekend bazaar and then everybody's together and then the shots rang out and they all separate.

[00:05:18]>> It's so amazing just the the way he set that up. I I don't know. I just very kind of moved by especially that courtroom sequence. The editing of that is just amazing. And that one closeup of the one defendant where he's selling everybody out and over his shoulder out of focus is the >> the other guys >> other guys and how he names how they react.

[00:05:36]>> I thought that was like it's like they're getting shot like they genule.

[00:05:39]>> I love stuff like that.

[00:05:41]>> Yeah. your show Barry, which was this great drama and comedy hybrid, was also sort of explosively and shockingly violent at times. And I was struck by the killing that we just talked about at the end of the film of the guy who had sort of set up the deal to have Salvator Giuliano killed. We don't see any guns there. It's all what we hear. And even in the massacre, right, which is what the trial is about, that big mass, that's all true. They killed 15 to 20 people killed in that massacre. We don't see anybody shooting. It's just the sound and the panic.

[00:06:13]>> Yeah, >> it's really effective.

[00:06:14]>> It's very effective. And it's kind of like what does it matter? You know, it just matters these people are dead. Or even Salvator Juliano, how he's killed.

[00:06:21]You're with the guys outside and they come in and there he's on the bed and they're like, okay, well, what do we do with this?

[00:06:26]>> Isn't there some value in just denying people expectation? Yeah.

[00:06:30]>> Right.

[00:06:31]>> And here he's like, it doesn't matter.

[00:06:32]What you care about is that they're going to be dead people and there's panic.

[00:06:36]>> Yeah.

[00:06:36]>> Um I don't know. I think it's interesting. I >> Yeah. No, I I mean, that's part of the reason I love the movie. so much is that he's just kind of showing you that's what I mean like the point of view of it. It's it's like my point of view for this is going to be with those people down there hearing shots and being in the panic of that. My point of view of the assassination of Salvatoria Giulianiana is going to be outside with the conspirators hearing the shot and it's like I wonder why he did that. I don't know but it's interesting to me.

[00:07:03]It makes me lean in more you know.

[00:07:04]>> Totally. Yeah. And they of course don't know. I mean, we know who got shot because we know he dies the first minute of the film, but they can't possibly know whether that's Salvator shooting.

[00:07:15]>> And then when you see and then also you see them staging his body and that he ch the way that is uh choreographed where he's just having the people moving around and that he just stays on it.

[00:07:26]It's kind of like they're, you know, making this piece of art or something.

[00:07:31]you know, they're they're literally posing him and putting him in a certain way and then the body at the end kind of looks like Salvator Giuliano and like what does that mean? And and so sometimes I like these films because it doesn't necessarily have to all come up as some big, you know, answer. It's like the more you watch them, the more engrossing they are.

[00:07:49]>> Yeah, Bill, this is great. Thanks for >> Thanks for bringing these in.

[00:07:52]>> Thanks.

[00:07:53]>> Uh Bill's done for the Bill's done for the night. Thank God. Uh, but the movies uh continue here on TCM and as always they're uncut uh and commercial free.

[00:08:06]Next on TCM, the strange love of Martha Ivers, then Born to Kill, and later Dillinger. TCM breaks the bank tonight.