Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960)
Of all the fine films I saw at The New York Film Festival, my favorite was Rocco and His Brothers. Recently restored in digital 4K, this black-and-white Italian melodrama focuses on a family who moves from the countryside to Milan after the patriarch’s death. The story is broken into segments, each focusing on one of the five brothers: Luca (Rocca Vidolazzi), Ciro (Max Cartier), Rocco (Alain Delon), Simone (Renata Salvatori), and Vincenzo (Spiros Focás). Yet the women of the story are, perhaps, even more important than the men. The strong matriarch (Katina Paxinou) remains a solid foundation for the family throughout the film, unchanging except for her mounting grief—first she loses her husband, and then her family begins to fall apart as she sits at the sidelines doing the only thing she knows to do, love them unconditionally. To her, it is never the sons’ fault for anything; it is the corrupting influence of the city life, or, more specifically, the whore Nadia (Annie Girardot).
Nadia is, perhaps, the most psychologically interesting character. In a film that often reduces people to caricatures for purposes of the operatic plot, she remains complex and, oftentimes, unreadable until the tragic end. For a time, she flirts with and pursues a relationship with Simone before dumping him and disappearing. Later, she reappears at a chance meeting with Rocco. The two briefly find solace in each other, but happiness is fleeting in this dark film. Simone, consumed with jealousy, springs a trap for the star-crossed lovers and, in a terrible sequence, rapes Nadia while Rocco, restrained by Simone’s cronies, can only helplessly watch.
But, rather than resulting in a vicious blood feud, Rocco’s love for his family leads him to betray Nadia, telling her to return to Simone who has greater need of her. We see Rocco repress his hate, throw away his love, and eventually give up control over his life, as he commits to an extended boxing contract to pay off debts incurred by Simone’s reckless spending.
It is, at once, easy and exhausting to lose oneself in the operatic melodrama of this three-hour epic. Scenes early on of the family joyfully looking out their windows at the falling snow, excited at both the prospect of work and the sheer delight of seeing snow fall in the dark of morning, are difficult to watch without smiling at the cinematic wonder of it all. These early moments of hopeful promise effect the tragedy of the later scenes of rape, repressed rage, and murder, making them even harder to watch, burdened as we are with memory. How are we to begin piecing together the film when we are busy piecing together our fractured hearts? I would venture to say that the film is about the roles of family and love in a modern society that provides for the physical well-being of its citizens but neglects its moral duties. However, to reduce such a lush film to a single sentence is a crime. This is a film that deserves to be experienced, as Martin Scorsese says, “in all its fearsome beauty and power.”
Author Biography
Adam Reece is a senior at Hendrix College majoring in English-Literary Studies. He recently received the “Kenneth Story Best Senior Thesis Award” for his work on Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, and will be graduating with distinction.
Mentor Biography
Kristi McKim is an Associate Professor of English and Chair of Film Studies at Hendrix College, where she was awarded the Charles S. and Lucile Esmon Shivley Odyssey Professorship, honored as the 2014-15 United Methodist Exemplary Professor, and nominated for the CASE U.S. Professors of the Year Award. Her publications include the books Love in the Time of Cinema (2011) and Cinema as Weather: Stylistic Screens and Atmospheric Change (2013), in addition to pieces in Camera Obscura, Studies in French Cinema, Senses of Cinema, Film International, The Cine-Files, and Film-Philosophy.
Department Overview
Hendrix College offers a major in English with an emphasis in Film Studies and a minor in Film Studies. This growing program within an intimate and rigorous liberal arts college environment includes a variety of courses in the history and theory of film and media, alongside co-curricular experiences (such as this trip to the New York Film Festival) generously made possible through the Hendrix-Odyssey Program. Extracurricular film-related groups include Hendrix Film Society and Hendrix Filmmakers.
Film Details
Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
Italy/France
Director Luchino Visconti
Runtime 177 minutes
Follow this link to read the introduction to this set of reviews: https://www.filmmattersmagazine.com/2016/05/21/2015-new-york-film-festival-introduction/
