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"Oh, it's like grand opera," says a character like a reviewer realizing this is not Rosi's journalistic anatomy. The stylistic key is from Francesco Hayez, though Christopher Lambert as Salvatore Giuliano might be Belmondo modeling for Antonello da Messina. Rapid impressions establish the camera's bariolage, a shootout with the carabinieri alongside Aspanu (John Turturro), a heroic pose glimpsed by a half-dressed duchess (Barbara Sukowa). Bread and land, grain smuggled in coffins for the former and systemic circles drawn on soil for the latter. A brigade of released prisoners for the Lord of the Mountains, cp. Leone's Duck, You Sucker!, the bandit as eagle or sun or conqueror. "Who says there's no fire from heaven in Sicily?" Epics of disillusionment are Michael Cimino's forte, emotive sweep and melancholy romanticism make for a dazzling historical fantasy. The outlaw's life is a murky one, unless he drops by a Palermo hot spot with his bride (Giulia Boschi) and the screen suddenly vibrates with musical élan. (The burst of swing is marvelously rhymed during the hillside wedding celebration, as Giuliano's minions vocalize Glenn Miller in an impromptu hoedown.) "Confounded and contradictory souls" are lamented by a limping scholar (Richard Bauer), additional philosophical commentary comes courtesy of the aesthete in the tower (Terence Stamp). "That's metaphysics, Aspanu." "That's horseshit, Giuliano." "That's life, gentlemen." Mediating desperado and state is the Mafia don (Joss Ackland), who manipulates him to uphold the rigid status quo while gazing upon his idealism with something like nostalgia. The most beautiful passage has the doomed protagonist silhouetted before a sunrise fitfully illuminated by the neon from a Madonna statue, a signature Cimino formulation of icon and man. "He invented himself, then we killed him." The closing image confirms Kazan's Viva Zapata! as the model. Cinematography by Alex Thomson. With Ray McAnally, Barry Miller, Andreas Katsulas, Michael Wincott, Ramon Bieri, Oliver Cotton, Joe Regalbuto, Richard Venture, and Aldo Ray.
--- Fernando F. Croce |