Rocco and His Brothers
by Luchino Visconti
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Claudia Cardinale, Katina Paxinou, Renato SalvatoriDirector: Luchino Visconti
Writer: Luchino Visconti
Writer: Enrico Medioli
Writer: Giovanni Testori
Writer: Massimo Franciosa
Writer: Pasquale Festa Campanile
Writer: Suso Cecchi D'Amico
Writer: Vasco Pratolini
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 177 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-10-30
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Image Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Rocco and His Brothers
Movie Review: Family affairs.
Summary: 5 Stars
Archetypal epic involving a Sicilian peasant family forced by poverty to move to the big city -- in this case, Milan. There, the mother and her four young sons join the oldest son, who's got a steady job and a steady girl. From this description thus far, you might feel inclined to pass on the movie because you've seen all this before . . . and you'd be right. Mario Puzo and -- later -- Francis Ford Coppola borrowed heavily from *Rocco and His Brothers* when they created their respective *Godfather* epics. Indeed, Rocco, his mother, his brothers, the prostitute, all begin as "types". There's a lot of "Mamma mia!" and hands raised in prayer; there's a lot of sweaty machismo; there's a lot of "amore". I think director Luchino Visconti had wanted to say something about proletarian post-War Italy with his stereotypical Porondi family. But he must have fell in love with them, because they burst free from their tedious Neo-Realist origins and become whole characters capable of change and inner growth. We are certainly grateful for that: all too often, the "realism" in Italian Neo-Realism becomes merely politics . . . and politics dates pretty quickly. Instead, Visconti lavishes his settings and characters with Dickensian detail to the point that by movie's end, they no longer seem like stereotypes, archetypes, or any other types. For a director noted for Neo-Realism, Visconti had a flair for bombastic grand tragedy and earthy good humor, which he's able to pull off so brilliantly in this movie because of the inexorable logic of the plot and the fastidious piling-upon-piling of detail and deep understanding of his creations. *Rocco and His Brothers* was an important movie for Visconti to make: from here, he dropped the pointy-headed dogmas of then-current Italian cinema, and, along with Fellini and others, struck out in a direction entirely his own, culminating in other masterworks like *The Damned* and *Death in Venice*. Sure, *Rocco* is a serious-minded social document, but it also has thoroughly engrossing melodramatics to spare . . . and that's what seems more important to us, 42 years later. [For the 2nd time in one month, I'm forced to gripe about "Image Entertainment"'s DVD presentation. Onerous enough is that there's no features, and the print is clearly from unrestored celluloid . . . but if what a reviewer below said is correct, 12 minutes are STILL missing from the movie, despite the claim on the box that it's fully restored and uncut. Can they get away with lying like this? Don't food products have to be truthful on their list of ingredients --? why are entertainment products any different? And why on earth do companies like Image and Fox-Lorber have a catalog of masterworks when they clearly have no interest in presenting them with the attention and care that they deserve? All that said, get the movie anyway, because who knows when a more scrupulous company will buy the rights and do Visconti's classic justice.]
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