Rocco and His Brothers

(Rocco e i suoi fratelli)

Luchino Visconti
Italy, France, 1960

Digital Restoration

featuring

Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, Katina Paxinou,

At once lyrical and brutal, this family saga is fatalist film noir expressed through a purity of vision; like the saintly Rocco (Alain Delon) himself, it takes a lot of violence to daunt Visconti’s love. Rocco is a character like Dostoyevsky’s Prince Mishkin, or Robert Bresson’s Balthazar. He is the anomaly among the five sons of a poor but canny widow (Katina Paxinou) who brings her family from the south to Milan, where they “arrive like an earthquake,” unprepared for the strains of urban living. The film develops in five episodes, one devoted to each brother, but the structure is as complex as their lives are intertwined.

Judy Bloch
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Luchino Visconti
  • Suso Cecchi D'Amico
  • Pasquale Festa Campanile
  • Massimo Franciosa
  • Enrico Medioli
Based On

  • Il ponte della Ghisolfa by Giovanni Testori

Cinematographer
  • Giuseppe Rotunno
Language
  • Italian
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 177 mins
Source
  • Milestone
Additional Info
  • Restored by Cineteca di Bologna in association with Titanus, TF1 Droits Audiovisuels, and the Film Foundation. Restoration funding by Gucci and the Film Foundation.