Rocco and His Brothers

Luchino Visconti is a contradiction. He was an Italian aristocrat and a communist, and a celebrated opera director who directed Italy’s first neo-realist film (Ossessione, 1943). His filmography is split between gritty neo-realism and lavish operatic excess – two aspects of his character he never quite managed to reconcile save in this brilliant 1960 working-class opera.

The film tells the story of five brothers who – along with their mother – flee the desperate poverty of the rural Italian south towards the promise of a better life in industrial Milan in the north. Somewhat unconventionally broken into sections – one for each brother – the film gradually shows us the tragic and corruptive influence the city has on the family.

Successfully combining the melodramatic with urban realism, Visconti manages to re-frame the socio-political aspects of his earlier work within the thematic and emotional outline of his subsequent period.

That the film so successfully fuses these two forms is thanks to a uniformly strong cast – particularly Renato Salvatori, whose tortured intensity commands the screen – and the shimmering chiaroscuro cinematography, which visually sets the film apart from other neo-realist films and would later influence Scorsese’s Raging Bull.

At just under three hours, Rocco and His Brothers is undoubtedly an epic: a swooning family tragedy about the corruptive and de-humanising effects of capitalism and the personal desolation it can result in. By finally joining the operatic with the neo-realist, Visconti made the quintessential Italian film.

Extras

A variety of expansive extras including a 2003 French documentary about the film, an illuminating hour-long documentary about the life and work of Visconti, and interviews with Cardinale, Girardot and cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno.

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Released on Bly-ray by Eureka Entertainment. To order your copy, go to eurekavideo.co.uk