Rocco and his Brothers (Visconti) 1960
BFI Blu Ray & Ultra HD
The rupture of the family is a persistent theme in Visconti’s films. It has been called disintegration but that sounds a bit too final for me, especially in relation to Rocco and his Brothers. Like The Leopard, The Dammed and Susana there is a decline and tragedy of a social unit’s identity; its anguished sense of class struggle and loss of power, usually from an aristocratic or working class perspective. In Rocco and his Brothers migrants from the south of Italy settle in the north where integration proves to be an uneasy mixed blessing. The benefits of the South’s rising materialism are unable to suppress the family’s anger, frustration and resentment over their earlier Northern experience of social acceptance, poor education and poverty. Visconti’s epic slow-burner of a film allows the hurts, inflicted in rural Lucania, to fester until they explode in industrial Milan.
After the death of their father, the Parondi family leaves to travel to the north. The widowed mother Rosaria and her four sons Rocco, Simone, Ciro and Luca are hoping to stay with the fifth son Vincenzo but the family of Vincenzo’s fiancée, Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale impressive in a minor role) reject them and they’re forced to squat in the basement of a run down estate. A neighbour informs them that this is the first step for claiming social housing as once evicted the authorities then have to house them.
Although emotionally restrained by the tough maternal Rosaria, the three adult brothers drift from her influence. Simone becomes an effective if stolid boxer; Rocco an incompetent delivery man for a laundry / dry cleaners and Ciro secures work on the car production line of the Alfa Romeo factory. The relationship of Rocco, Simone and Nadia, a prostitute they are both sexually involved with, becomes the film’s fore-grounded story. The consequences of this entanglement prove fraught with jealousy, sacrifice and shattered love.
In 1960 the violence of Rocco and his Brothers proved to be very controversial. Today it’s not so much a matter of content or style but for me Visconti’s artistic decision making. Certainly the sequence where Simone and his gang attack Rocco and Nadia, resulting in the rape of Nadia and a fight between the brothers, is disturbing but not gratuitous violence. It’s in character and crucial to the story but you do question this moment as it triggers later scenes that rush into melodrama, always a problematic territory, yet here albeit good melodrama.
Visconti was of course famed for his work in the opera house. His high musical sweep power and theatrical flourish does translate into intense cinematic excitement yet can be pushed too far. Not necessarily in the rape / fight sequence but Simone’s later killing of Nadia has the actress Annie Giradot adopting, before she’s knifed, a crucifixion pose that’s jarring. It’s Visconti being indulgent: signalling Carmen the opera with religious overtones. And on learning of Simone’s crime this grand Italian opera tone and demeanour is on show, intense wailing and remorse
If you’re not an opera lover, then such moments may feel absurdly melodramatic. Allowing for reservations, about modern staging, I do enjoy opera, but Visconti’s melodramatics and music-like remonstrations feel both testing and exhilarating. However Visconti is too well versed in gritty neo-realism to not mess up. For in the emotional peaks of Rocco and his Brothers Visconti remains swift, sharp, and economical in execution. He doesn’t linger in a world of operatic excess (unlike Death and Venice, The Dammed and Ludwig where a slow and obvious decadence and destruction sabotage his elaborate productions.)
Too push the music analogy further one of the films most touching moments is akin to chamber music. Nadia, who’s left Simone and is just out of prison, meets Rocco after finishing his military service. They chat in a coffee bar and Nadia (Annie Giradot being beautifully affecting) is attracted to the forgiving and generous nature of Rocco (Alain Delon is brilliant displaying saintly patience). Over a year before Nadia, in her car, had said to Rocco that she felt the whole world was like a one-way street. Now as she’s fallen in love with Rocco a promise of reciprocal love offers her freedom and a redemptive way out of her character’s fatal street-consciousness. Rocco and his Brothers is cited for high voltage drama and less for its quiet intimacy. I love this brief and touching encounter. It’s one of the most sensitively directed and tenderly acted scenes in post war Italian cinema.
The performance of Renata Salvatori as Simone is as unforgettable as Delon’s. He’s a tremendous presence, superbly conveying world weariness and a life crushed by early disappointments. Not only through his confrontations with Nadia and Delon but within the boxing ring: for Rocco and his Brothers is also a boxing movie, where Rocco triumphs as a boxing champion and Simone fails, not so much as a boxer, but badly as a victim of obscure suffering.
If now I don’t consider Rocco and his Brothers a great Visconti film (Its operatic staging leaves me ambivalent) it’s mostly really excellent: particularly for Visconti’s social observation, group and crowd formations (leaning towards Rossellini); with a big cityscape atmosphere hugely aided by the magnificent black and white photography of Giuseppe Rotunno alongside the fine music of Nina Rota. And the BFI have produced a glowing 4k Ultra HD version with impressive disc extras.
Alan Price©2026
Rocco and his Brothers (Visconti) 1960
BFI Blu Ray & Ultra HD
The rupture of the family is a persistent theme in Visconti’s films. It has been called disintegration but that sounds a bit too final for me, especially in relation to Rocco and his Brothers. Like The Leopard, The Dammed and Susana there is a decline and tragedy of a social unit’s identity; its anguished sense of class struggle and loss of power, usually from an aristocratic or working class perspective. In Rocco and his Brothers migrants from the south of Italy settle in the north where integration proves to be an uneasy mixed blessing. The benefits of the South’s rising materialism are unable to suppress the family’s anger, frustration and resentment over their earlier Northern experience of social acceptance, poor education and poverty. Visconti’s epic slow-burner of a film allows the hurts, inflicted in rural Lucania, to fester until they explode in industrial Milan.
After the death of their father, the Parondi family leaves to travel to the north. The widowed mother Rosaria and her four sons Rocco, Simone, Ciro and Luca are hoping to stay with the fifth son Vincenzo but the family of Vincenzo’s fiancée, Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale impressive in a minor role) reject them and they’re forced to squat in the basement of a run down estate. A neighbour informs them that this is the first step for claiming social housing as once evicted the authorities then have to house them.
Although emotionally restrained by the tough maternal Rosaria, the three adult brothers drift from her influence. Simone becomes an effective if stolid boxer; Rocco an incompetent delivery man for a laundry / dry cleaners and Ciro secures work on the car production line of the Alfa Romeo factory. The relationship of Rocco, Simone and Nadia, a prostitute they are both sexually involved with, becomes the film’s fore-grounded story. The consequences of this entanglement prove fraught with jealousy, sacrifice and shattered love.
In 1960 the violence of Rocco and his Brothers proved to be very controversial. Today it’s not so much a matter of content or style but for me Visconti’s artistic decision making. Certainly the sequence where Simone and his gang attack Rocco and Nadia, resulting in the rape of Nadia and a fight between the brothers, is disturbing but not gratuitous violence. It’s in character and crucial to the story but you do question this moment as it triggers later scenes that rush into melodrama, always a problematic territory, yet here albeit good melodrama.
Visconti was of course famed for his work in the opera house. His high musical sweep power and theatrical flourish does translate into intense cinematic excitement yet can be pushed too far. Not necessarily in the rape / fight sequence but Simone’s later killing of Nadia has the actress Annie Giradot adopting, before she’s knifed, a crucifixion pose that’s jarring. It’s Visconti being indulgent: signalling Carmen the opera with religious overtones. And on learning of Simone’s crime this grand Italian opera tone and demeanour is on show, intense wailing and remorse
If you’re not an opera lover, then such moments may feel absurdly melodramatic. Allowing for reservations, about modern staging, I do enjoy opera, but Visconti’s melodramatics and music-like remonstrations feel both testing and exhilarating. However Visconti is too well versed in gritty neo-realism to not mess up. For in the emotional peaks of Rocco and his Brothers Visconti remains swift, sharp, and economical in execution. He doesn’t linger in a world of operatic excess (unlike Death and Venice, The Dammed and Ludwig where a slow and obvious decadence and destruction sabotage his elaborate productions.)
Too push the music analogy further one of the films most touching moments is akin to chamber music. Nadia, who’s left Simone and is just out of prison, meets Rocco after finishing his military service. They chat in a coffee bar and Nadia (Annie Giradot being beautifully affecting) is attracted to the forgiving and generous nature of Rocco (Alain Delon is brilliant displaying saintly patience). Over a year before Nadia, in her car, had said to Rocco that she felt the whole world was like a one-way street. Now as she’s fallen in love with Rocco a promise of reciprocal love offers her freedom and a redemptive way out of her character’s fatal street-consciousness. Rocco and his Brothers is cited for high voltage drama and less for its quiet intimacy. I love this brief and touching encounter. It’s one of the most sensitively directed and tenderly acted scenes in post war Italian cinema.
The performance of Renata Salvatori as Simone is as unforgettable as Delon’s. He’s a tremendous presence, superbly conveying world weariness and a life crushed by early disappointments. Not only through his confrontations with Nadia and Delon but within the boxing ring: for Rocco and his Brothers is also a boxing movie, where Rocco triumphs as a boxing champion and Simone fails, not so much as a boxer, but badly as a victim of obscure suffering.
If now I don’t consider Rocco and his Brothers a great Visconti film (Its operatic staging leaves me ambivalent) it’s mostly really excellent: particularly for Visconti’s social observation, group and crowd formations (leaning towards Rossellini); with a big cityscape atmosphere hugely aided by the magnificent black and white photography of Giuseppe Rotunno alongside the fine music of Nina Rota. And the BFI have produced a glowing 4k Ultra HD version with impressive disc extras.
Alan Price©2026
By Alan Price • added recently on London Grip, film, film archive • Tags: Alan Price, film, film archive