Rocco and His Brothers (BFI Film Classics) [Paperback]

Sam Rohdie (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0851703402 | ISBN-13: 978-0851703404 | Publication Date: September 1, 1993

Lubin Visconti was at the height of his powers when he directed Rocco and His Brothers in 1960. An epic of modern urban life, Rocco tells the story of a family of peasants uprooted from their village in southern Italy, and forced to battle for existence in the industrial metropolis of Milan.
Though fascinated by the social reality of modern Italy, Visconti had by this time thrown off the influence of the neorealist movement. He developed a style all his own, enriched by his experience of directing opera for the stage. As a result, the characters in Rocco are no longer held in check by the naturalistic conventions of neorealism. Instead, they erupt on the screen with all the emotional power of heightened melodrama.
The violent sexuality was too much for the Italian censors, who cut several scenes. Sam Rohdie's informed and perceptive analysis of the full, restored version reveals the film as one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian cinema.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: British Film Institute (September 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851703402
• ISBN-13: 978-0851703404
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #942,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars A useful companion to the film., August 29, 2002

By 

C. Burkhalter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rocco and His Brothers (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)

Rohdie's analysis of Visonti's masterpiece "Rocco and His Brothers" is another of the BFI's useful, concise, and fairly affordable book companions to classic films. Rohdie covers pretty much everything, touching on the roles of female characters in Visconti's films, industrial-era economic displacement in Italy, homosexual themes in "Rocco," the conflict of peasant vs. urban values in Visonti's Italy, Visconti's political loyalties, "Rocco" and Italian censorship, the balance of ideology and melodrama in "Rocco," Visconti and neo-realism, Visconti's many literary and theatrical influences etc., etc., etc. The main focus, or at least the one the book comes back to time and time again, is the theatrical elements of "Rocco," which makes sense, but Rohdie is pretty thorough, and his discussion covers a variety of topics.

Some interesting (and unrelated) facts from this book: Each of the film's five "chapters" were written by a different screenwriter, Visconti himself penning the final chapter. The migration of the film's Parondi family was not an exceptional one; over nine million Italians moved from the South to the North between 1955 and 1971. Commercial success eluded "Rocco" until the film began showing in smaller periphery cities, at which point the three-hour "Rocco" became Italy's second highest grossing movie of the year (behind the three-hour "La Dolce Vita"). An unfilmed prologue was written for the film, depicting the funeral of the Parondi father. And finally, here's an eyebrow-raising quote from Visconti on family values: "When the family doesn't exist, nothing any longer exists. Women can have careers, can be artists, but they need to place their duties of lover, wife, mother above everything else and thus recreate in all its integrity what had been until a century ago the solid structure of the family."

I absolutely adore "Rocco and His Brothers," so to me this book was an easy sell. I mostly enjoy the BFI series because each volume provides a very useful context for the film it discusses. Knowing what cultural, political, and personal events fill in the backdrop of a film's production is fascinating to me. For that purpose, this book is great. Of course there is also (as I listed above) a good deal of critical analysis of the film as well. The critical aspect suffers by trying to cover so many bases, but its a handy guide. And the extensive bibliography info is very nice.