Rocco and His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi fratelli)

Luchino Visconti directed the 1960 French-Italian drama Rocco and His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi fratelli). Shot in black and white, it ranks among the late masterpieces of Italian neorealism and sits in the middle of Visconti’s southern Italy trilogy. Nino Rota wrote the music; Titanus and Les Films Marceau produced the 177-minute film. The title blends Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers with the poet Rocco Scotellaro.

The Parondi family flee southern poverty for Milan. The widowed Rosaria struggles in the north with her five sons, Vincenzo, Simone, Rocco, Ciro and Luca. The film has five parts, one for each brother. Renato Salvatori plays the boxer Simone and Alain Delon plays Rocco, who follows him into the ring and rises fast; a woman, Nadia (Annie Girardot), sets them against each other. Katina Paxinou, Paolo Stoppa, Nino Castelnuovo and, in an early role, Claudia Cardinale also appear.

Visconti co-wrote the script with Suso Cecchi d’Amico and Pasquale Festa Campanile, from an episode of Giovanni Testori’s Il ponte della Ghisolfa. Italian critics were lukewarm, foreign ones warmer, and it won the Special Jury Prize at Venice. Francis Ford Coppola cites it as an inspiration for The Godfather. In 2008 it joined the list of 100 Italian films to be saved.