Labyrinths as Figures

Abstract

Rosi’s groundbreaking trilogy Salvatore Giuliano, Il caso Mattei, and Lucky Luciano addresses the profound cultural and political transformations of postwar Italy. In Salvatore Giuliano (1962), which concerns the enigmatic death of the legendary folk hero, Rosi offers a complex portrait of Sicilian society violently ruled by the Mafia in collusion with the police and the state. Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair, 1972) investigates the suspicious death of one of the most influential figures in the postwar economic boom. Lucky Luciano (1973), the treacherous figure of organized crime, is at the center of Rosi’s inquiry into the Mafia’s labyrinthine web of political alliances. Deploying his own metodo dell'inchiesta (“method of inquiry”), Rosi digs beneath the surface of official accounts of these public scandals, unearthing an underlying pattern of corrupt and lethal connections. His open endings attest to his belief in the director’s ethical responsibility to create an actively engaged spectatorship.