Rocco and His Brothers

While Federico Fellini took the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1960 for La dolce vita, his equally famous colleague Luchino Visconti was firming up his opus magnum Rocco and His Brothers for its premiere at Venice. This brilliant, emotionally taut drama, with its organically blended elements of neorealism, focuses its attention on the Parondi family; after the death of the father, they leave their native Lucania in the poor Italian south for the industrial, vibrant hub of Milan, where the oldest sibling Vincenzo has settled in to wait for his mother and four brothers Simone, Rocco, Ciro and Luca. As if the enticements and snares of the alien northern metropolis weren’t enough to test familial solidarity, the boys then make the acquaintance of Nadia, the coquettish girl of loose morals from next door. The film, which drew the eye of the censors and, over a decade later, had a fundamental influence on the early work of Scorsese and Coppola, boasts a glittering cast featuring Annie Girardot, Renato Salvatori, and Alain Delon as the supremely humble idealist Rocco.