The narrative of realism and myth in Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano and Michael Cimino's The Sicilian

Abstract

The following paper takes its cue from Gregory Lucente's analysis of the process of narrativization of historical figures, which often involves a series of dynamic relations at various levels and in varying degrees between components of realistic and mythic discourse, rather than the discrete functioning of either one or the other.1 In his analysis of such a process Lucente writes:

Briefly, then, mythic components are those repeating elements of narrative which approach an existence apart from the specificity of space and time, which at their core involve unified and idealized figures, and which establish and depend upon a relationship of unquestioning belief. By contrast, realistic components are made up of those elements that claim a clear and definite position in space and time (and so in culture), that involve figures whose relation to experience is not idealized, and that invite an attitude of analysis or even skepticism rather than immediate faith. Again, the central interest of literary aesthetics lies not in the discrete and thus distorted functioning of these two series of elements, but in the dynamics of their requisite interaction.