Godard. Truffaut. Chabrol. Rohmer. Rivette. Resnais. Decent filmmakers all, but, when one looks closely, more interesting for their influences than for their influence.(Ah ben là je suis VRAIMENT d'accord...au moins un qui a tout compris) 

But the Italians, oh, the Italians. Bava. Fellini. Rossellini. De Sica. Bertolucci. Visconti. I think it is safe to say that, without the films of these incredible innovators, American movies would have rotted away into nothing. It was the post WWII Italian neorealist movement, and its heady brew of Marxism and melodrama, that inflamed the imaginations of filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, and led them, especially in Coppola's case, to use many of the same personnel on their own productions. Vittorio Storaro. Giuseppe Rotunno. Nino Rota. Ferdinando Scarfiotti. Danilo Donati. Where would the great American films of the seventies be without the contributions of these astoundingly talented artists and technicians?

Rocco and His Brothers is a jaw-dropping work, so ferociously brilliant that it takes your breath away. As a Visconti fan, I have been waiting to watch it for years. Yet, despite my eagerness, the DVD sat on top of the television for two weeks before I finally popped it in.Curiously,I had the same reaction to The Leopard another Visconti masterwork, a couple of years ago. As I get older, I find it harder and harder to abandon myself to a work of art. Great works of art force one to give oneself over to them completely, suspend judgment, accept them unconditionally. When one is young and unformed, the process is easy; as one gets older, and the carapace of personality hardens, the process becomes more difficult. There is a good reason for this; the effort is often not worth while; one comes out of the experience diminished, drained, let down.

Rocco and His Brothers holds no such disappointment. It is a vast, capacious work, complex, generous, passionate, and intensely moving. The talent on display here defies analysis: Alain Delon is luminous as the saintly Rocco; Katina Paxinou achieves Shakespearean grandeur as the Parondi family matriarch; Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography is starkly beautiful; and Nino Rota's music is heartbreaking. I do not want to give too much of this film away, but I must point out that, contrary to what some reviews on this site have to say, this film is not just about the corruption that big city life brings to a peasant family. Rocco may be a saint, but his all-forgiving nature drives much of the tragedy that unfolds. It is Ciro, the compassionate but just brother, and successful entrant into Milan's urban proletariat, who will lead the family into an uncertain but perhaps hopeful future.

Let me just finish by pointing out how wonderful it is to see a movie that ends with a meaningful and distinctive final shot. You don't see much of that anymore.

WOW! Terrific Epic Scale Family Drama, Visconti's Best!

The fight between two of the brothers in the slums of the city is one of the most harrowing and touching scenes ever in cinema history. This is the kind of fight which actually means something. When they hit each other you feel it down to the core of your being, not just watching mindless brutality like you would in some brainless movie.

The cast is uniformly good with standouts from Katina Paxinou as the long suffering mother, Annie Girardot as the doomed prostitute who is the catalyst of the story, and especially Alain Delon who is blessed with a cinematic beauty which adds poetry to everyone of his close-ups. The one actor who really surprised me was Renato Salvatori as the violent brother Simone. His gradual and completely believable change from sweet young man to violent brute is incredible to watch.

This film satisfies every true movie lovers dream.To visit a place you don't know,with characters who fascinate you, and are framed in a true CINEMATIC style, that succeeds on every level.GO SEE THIS MOVIE!! I will add my voice to those who cry out for the DVD release of this true classic.

A masterpiece with a terrible legacy...

Author: Benoît A. Racine (benoit-3) from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
13 March 2006
I could kick myself for not having seen this film before now (on French Ontario television, in the shortened 168 minute French version). It is a wonderful Italian family epic explaining, in Marxist terms, the effect on a southern rural family of a move to the big northern city of Milan. The contrast between a violent brother (Simone) and his saintly counterpart (Rocco) gives rise to the tragedy which everybody else must pay for.

The film has a great theme, great direction, great acting and a truly memorable and heart-rending score by Nino Rota. It reaches the heights of Shakespearean drama and of course outdoes it in realism. But what I discovered by seeing this film so late is that it is also partly responsible for the seedier aspects of the careers of Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola who naturally tried to emulate their hero Visconti by adapting his themes to American reality. This has unfortunately had the side-effect of creating a monster of a melodrama called "The Godfather" which became an ode to violence and organized crime and a boxing-themed film like "Raging Bull" which further contributed to lower the bar of graphic violence on the screen.

Hell, Coppola even borrowed the services of Nino Rota for the film and its sequel... I admire "Rocco" but I still think the world would have been better off without "The Godfather" and "Raging Bull" (among other violent films of the second part of the last century). "Rocco" is available on DVD in America in its cut 168 minute Italian version in non-anamorphic widescreen (1.66:1) with English subtitles, which is unfortunate for us Francophones as the French version is just as legitimate as the Italian one and features Delon's, Girardot's, Salvatori's and Hanin's real voices. It deserves an uncut edition and the full Criterion treatment.

a true masterwork

Author: daflauta from Brazil
31 March 2006
State-of-the-art directing, acting (Katina Paxinou, Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Renato Salvatore), photography, superb musical score. A film to bring any sensitive and open mind to tears near the end. The destruction of a family order, jealousy, betrayal between brothers and the saintliness of Rocco, always ready to forgive, thinking more about his family than himself. All this in black and white! I hope film directors will never give away this format.

By the way, I would like to know whether the plaque in Rosaria's new apartment (when Rocco's back from the army) reads "Pafundi" instead of "Parondi" on purpose (why?) or was it a flaw? I also would like to know which language do some characters spoke on stage(I think it's french), namely Rocco and Ginetta. I am watching a Russian edition whose dubbing is disastrous. Thanks to the ease of DVD players I could choose the Italian soundtrack and disable subtitles...