Salvatore Giuliano

Started by SoNowThen, April 28, 2004, 03:23:30 PM

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SoNowThen

April 28, 2004, 03:23:30 PM
I decided to put this solely on its own, rather than have a Rosi director thread or a Everything Else Cinema thing, I guess because I doubt many (if any) have seen this on anything other than the new dvd.

Anyway, whadda great flick. I watched it a few weeks ago and I was trying to think of what I'd post about it, and I came up with "well, if you thought Z or JFK were interesting, you'll like this"... and then I read a review that pretty much said exactly that, so...

I really don't have anything too deep to say about it other than its charm really lies in the unfolding of a rather complex narrative, but the joy is in the fact that it really becomes MORE muddled as it goes (like life, you could say, or even for that matter "truth"). If I had to pick one thing that is a standout, it's Gianni Di Venanzo's cinematography. Every single fucking movie I have ever seen this guy dp, regardless of the quality of everything else, blows me away. There's something about his black and white photography (not to take anything away from Juliet of the Spirits, which looked great), and his framing. Basically, this guy shot everything that was decent from mid 50's - early 60's Italian film. Maybe not everything, but it sure seems like it. And he's well represented here, cos Criterion got SUCH A NICE LOOKING PICTURE. Sound is a little muddy, but what the hell, it's old...

So I know a few of us were eagerly awaiting this disc. Who got it? Who's watched it? Any thoughts?
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

godardian

#1
April 29, 2004, 05:29:40 PM
I got it, I watched it, I agree with your thoughts. It was very good. It was very fractured, and the style was pleasurably misleading; it was presented very "just the facts," and then those facts were undermined and refracted until you just didn't know what was what. But great fun to go through those subversions.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.
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