Review of Rocco And His Brothers (2 Discs)

Introduction

An impoverished Italian family from the south set about to improve their lives by leaving their farm behind and moving up north to settle into the very industralised and corrupt Milan. Life is different up here and it changes them. It`s evident especially in the relationship between the five brothers and their mother. The film has titlecards for all the brothers: Simone, Vincenzo, Rocco, Ciro and Luca (Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Spiros Focas, Rocco Vidolazzi, Max Cartier) which lends an almost operatic air to the proceedings.

All manner of things come in between the family including jobs, women and more notably a beautiful prostitute called Nadia (Annie Giradot) who has quite an effect on Simone and Rocco leading to violent scenes near the end.

Video

The film looks wider than 4:3 and is perhaps framed at 1.66:1, unenhanced for widescreen televisions. Rocco was made in black and white with the transfer surprisingly clear and free of grime for something made in 1960. There are some scenes where it seemed a little too dark to see much of what was happening, but it was very easy on the eyes and a pleasure to watch.

Audio

There`s just a Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack here so it`s all about the dialogue. It sounded a little tinny to me in places and could have done with some balancing, but otherwise I didn`t have any other problem with it. The Italian was clear and undistorted.

Features

Rocco is presented on two discs, with disc two housing the supplements. Both discs feature the same still and melancholy piece of music playing which can put you on a downer before you`ve even started watching the film! Chapter selection is the only option available on disc one. It`s in Italian with English subtitles and there aren`t any other subtitled languages.

Disc two has a 60 minute Visconti documentary together with biographies of the main players, trailer and a cast gallery. The menu system here is not very good as I had little or no player control while watching the documentary, trailer or gallery. I couldn`t stop playing or return to the main menu during the documentary or trailer. Very annoying. Anyway, onto the documentary. I have to admit that I found this hard going since none of it is in English (okay a tiny miniscule amount with Burt Lancaster) which means I had to concentrate to watch it and understand what was being said. After about 25 minutes however I got bored and couldn`t watch the rest of it. The problem is with the format which is dull with people doing a lot of talking and not a great deal of anything else.

Lastly there`s the booklet which covers bios for the main players. This is identical to the onscreen text version on disc two and thankfully this is a lot easier to read than onscreen. I would have preferred reading more about Visconti himself from printed notes, so it looks like it`s up to me to do some of my own reading.

Conclusion

I wasn`t sure if I would be prepared for a 3 hour Italian black and white movie with subtitles. But within five minutes of the film, I was hooked. Everything from the framing to the dialogue and the acting here is nothing short of sublime. Visconti really has made something appealing in this film and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I could identify with the family setting, the closeness of the brothers and their mother and thought that it had all been captured very well. You can see the steady decline in the family once they move to Milan and where once was a proud and strong family, the fabric that initially holds them together starts to wear thin. I`m sure if I understood Italian I`d pick up more from the dialogue than the subtitles giving me more authenticity.

This is the uncut 180 minute version of the film which doesn`t mean anything to me since I hadn`t seen the previous version and don`t know the cuts. It could have been around the rape scene or any of the other violent scenes but that`s me being speculative.

This is the first Visconti film that I`ve seen and I`d like to see more of his work. There seems to be something very personal about Rocco and His Brothers which I found appealing and I enjoyed the film more the second time I watched it. I would urge anyone, who hankers after something more than what Hollywood has to offer, to seek out this film. Don`t let the 180 minute runtime put you off, it`s worth seeing. Recommended.