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Credits
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Summary
The Parondi family leave their home in southern Italy to try to make a better life in
the northern town of Milan. The mother, Rosaria, is accompanied by her four sons,
Rocco, Simone, Ciro and Luca, and hopes to stay with her eldest son, Vincenzo, who is
already settled in Milan. The family’s unexpected arrival coincides with Vincenzo’s
engagement to Ginetta, and does not please Vincenzo’s prospective future in-laws.
Once the family have found accommodation, the sons set about trying to find work.
Luca does odd jobs, Ciro studies for a diploma which will get him a job in a car factory,
Rocco works in a dry-cleaning shop and Simone begins to pursue a promising career as a
boxer. Just when things appear to be going well, it all starts to go wrong.
Once he realises that Rocco has stolen his girlfriend, Nadia (a former prostitute), Simone
is consumed by jealousy and starts to rebel. In a heroic bid to keep the family
together, Rocco surrenders Nadia to Simone, but by this stage the harm has been done.
Simone’s character has taken an irreversible turn for the worse...
Review
In Rocco and His Brothers, Luchino Visconti brilliantly succeeds in marrying the
two styles which best define his cinematic form: the grim neorealism of her earliest works
and the grand operatic vision of his subsequent film melodramas. Whilst the scale
of the film, with its great set pieces, perhaps robs it of the poignancy and intimacy
that one finds in the films of Visconti’s contemporaries (notably Rossellini and De Sica),
its masterful direction, magnificently orchestrated performances and achingly poetic photography
makes it a masterpiece by almost any other criterion.
The film not only speaks volumes for its director’s intensely held preoccupation with the poor and the working classes, through the authenticity of the Parondi family, but also reaffirms his standing as a man with a boundless creative flair and daring. This is illustrated by the film’s two most notorious scenes: the rape and subsequent murder of Nadia. Although the two scenes are filmed in a very stylised way, they still have the power to shock, and not just because of the naked brutality we see. What makes these scenes so traumatic is the impact we anticipate they will have on the relationship between the brothers. Like an irreplaceable vase knocked from a high shelf, we await the inevitable smash with an agonising sense of dread and helplessness. The film features French actor Alain Delon in the role which catapulted him from comparative obscurity to international celebrity (even if he was dubbed by an Italian actor). With Visconti’s support, Delon became one of the most popular and best-paid actors in Europe at the time, and it must be said that it is in Visconti’s films that Delon gives probably his best screen performances. Cast alongside Alain Delon in Rocco and His Brothers is Renato Salvatori, whose intense, disturbing portrayal of the "son who goes wrong" gives the film its tortured humanity and harrowing tragic dimension. French actress Annie Girardot is sublime as the femme fatale Nadia whilst Katina Paxinou turns in a large-than-life performance of the stereotypical Italian mother. Rocco and His Brothers is a sprawling work which attempts to follow an episodic format (one section for each of the five brothers), but in a rather half-hearted manner. Despite this, and its gruelling three-hour runtime, the film is an absorbing work which has little difficulty holding our attention, and each of the main characters are so lovingly drawn that you end up feeling something for each of them. The film’s central theme is how the brothers develop after their arrival in Milan. Although they came from the same womb and were brought up together, the five brothers are destined to turn out differently - it is just a question of probability. It is as likely that one should turn out like Rocco, a selfless idealist, as another should end up like Simone, a cynical self-centred thug. In its portrayal of the best and worst in human nature, Rocco and His Brothers is both cruel and honest. The corruption of a good man by impulses he cannot control is made all the more poignant when set aside the kindness of the younger brother who is prepared to do anything to save him, particularly when it is so obvious that he will fail. © James Travers 2003 Buy DVDs of World Cinema masterpieces...
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