The Sicilian

The Sicilian (1987)

Timing: 1:56 (116 min)

5.1/10
120

6.2/10
1722

5.4/10
5800

All about film

Video 2

Photo 16

Actors and characters

Release date

1987-10-07

Country

United States

Production

20th Century Fox, Gladden Entertainment

Genre

Drama, Crime, Thriller

Budget

$9 000 000

Revenue

$5 406 879

Website

Director

Michael Cimino

Actors

Christophe Lambert, Terence Stamp, Joss Ackland, John Turturro, Richard Bauer, Barbara Sukowa, Giulia Boschi, Danilo Mattei, Claudio Collovà, Michael Wincott
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Bruce McNall, Joann Carelli, Michael Cimino

Operator

Alex Thomson

Composer

David Mansfield

Artist

Audition

Editing

Françoise Bonnot
All team (15)

• The full version runs for 146 minutes.
• Once filming was completed, Michael Cimino (1939-2016) began editing the footage. He didn't tell anyone how it was progressing until, several months later, he announced that he was finished and presented what he called the final version of the film, lasting 150 minutes. However, his contract stipulated that he was allowed to release a director's cut of up to 120 minutes. Cimino stated that it was simply impossible to cut anything further and insisted that producers David Begelman (1921-1995) and Bruce McNall present the resulting film to 20th Century Fox, the film's distributor in the United States. Before the screening began, the studio executives told Begelman and McNall that the film's length would limit the number of showings per day in theaters and that the film absolutely had to be cut. The producers relayed the studio's request to Cimino, who exploded, saying he had already cut it down for six months and that it was simply impossible to cut it any further. When the producers said there must be some way to shorten the film to the required length, Cimino replied sarcastically, “Cut it, you say? Well, if you say so!” A few days later, the director provided a new version of the film from which he had cut all the action scenes. According to McNall, “According to the script, the wedding scene was supposed to be followed by a scene of an attack on the wedding. But what Cimino brought was the wedding, and immediately following it, a scene in the hospital where all these people in formal wear were being treated for their injuries. He cut out all the shooting.” Begelman didn't even wait for the screening to end; he immediately called Cimino, who simply replied that since his contract specified a film length of 120 minutes, what he had provided should be satisfactory.
• Some changes to the script were made by Gore Vidal (1925-2012), but they went unnoticed. Vidal sued screenwriter Steve Shagan (1927-2015) and the Writers Guild of America, and eventually won the case.