Rocco And His Brothers 1960

 Rocco and His Brothers 1960

A masterpiece by Luchino Visconti. The film opens with a recently widowed mother intensely played by Katina Paxinou arriving by train from the poor southern part of Italy with her four sons to make a better life for them in the north..A fifth son, the oldest is already in Milan and is at his fiancee's (played by the young Claudia Cardinale) house celebrating their upcoming marriage when his family barges in unannounced and causes a ruckus. This is  first of many altercations that we live through during Visconti's nearly 3 hour melodramatic epic saga of a family's struggle to adjust and move on and up with their lives in this strange new place. Its not an easy move or movie, and the 5 sons of different ages suffer throughout with major lasting scars.

Operatic and intense the film is broken into 5 chapters or acts one for each son, but the focus of the film is on two of them, Rocco played by the the young and beautiful Alain Delon at the beginning of his career and Renato Salvatori as Simone the troubled, intense but loveable son and their vivid but violent relationship with the prostitute Nadia played by Annie Girardot who is the force and pulse of the film. Girardot is extraordinary. Vulnerable, passionate and destructive, this is a great performance. 

Based on several sources by Visconti and stitched together by him and several collaborators, the  film is realistic but also expressionistic and melodramatic with much of the action taking place in the gritty world of boxing with glances into the dirty scenes and people that inhabit it. The world of boxing especially in the work outs are graceful and homoerotic  which is a strand that runs through the film. Simone is bitten by boxing because he sees it as a way out of the poverty and despair, and a way to get his anger out which is always with him. He does well at first until he falls into bad gambling debts, drinking, and an occasional pay for play homo tryst.

Rocco is steady and he is soon drafted into the army but also gets involved with the boxing world when he comes home from his service. The dark stream (steam)  running through the film is Nadia who takes up first with Simone in a terrible love hate sadistic masochist relationship and then with Rocco which is at first more light and romantic but still troubled and at times its hard to watch these three incomplete flawed people struggling to reach out. There are 3 scenes involving Nadia that are scorching and always reduce me to uncontrollable sobbing.

Much of the beauty of the film (and it is beautiful) is due in large part to the lush black and white cinematography by the great film artist Giuseppe Rotunno who places the characters amid the streets of Milan in light,dark and grime and in parks, near lakes, in boxing arenas, in over stuffed apartments and in the piled on housing projects in which "arias" take place both indoors and out. 

The score is by the great Nino Rota and the newish restoration and blu ray release of the film is a gift from the gods. The film faced some censorship problems in Italy but the few cuts which were ludicrous have been restored for the blu ray and dvd releases.

Because of the times the “gay” droppings are subtle but are there, a caressing hand against a male cheek, a hood with dyed blonde hair and a leopard skin motorcycle jacket, lingering looks at male boxers showering, an apartment loaded with homoerotic art. Visconti was a vivid complex director of films, operas and theatre pieces who had a strong liking for Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller's intense family dramas and directed productions of their works and both hover over and in “Rocco”.

Visconti was a strict Catholic and was also gay with no apologies. He was also part of the Italian aristocracy, a light communist (he was known as the red count) a collector of fine art and known for his affairs with many of his actors. Rocco opened in 1960 and was part of the foreign film explosion that was happening in America and especially in New York City including La Dolce Vita, Shoot The Piano Player, L'Aventura, Lola, The Virgin Spring and many others. Rocco received strong reviews including one from the usually stodgy Bosley Crowther of The Times. The best film, director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay of 1960.