Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Film=5 Stars, DVD=3 Stars, November 13, 2001
The long-awaited DVD release of Visconti's great novel-like film is here. Sad to report, it is something of a disappointment.
The film itself looks quite good, transferred from a well-preserved source. But this is the 168-minute version of "Rocco e i suoi Fratelli"--12 minutes of the original 180 minutes have been cut. To be fair, this version has been the "standard" on VHS for some time, presumably Image derived it from the source of earlier releases. It is really unfortunate that a full-length print could not be used here. Moreover, there are zero extras on the disc: just a static, hastily-produced menu. The English-only subtitles are removable.Visconti's film is traditional. It is a contemporary of "Shoot the Piano Player", "L'Avventura" and "La Dolce Vita", yet it has virtually nothing in common with them. Watching "Rocco" is like reading a 19th century novel, with chapters devoted to the five brothers of the title. All characters are well-drawn, the film is beautifully shot, acting is often brilliant. There are many unforgettable moments in what feels like a vast, panoramic view of several years in one family's history. One element Visconti shares in this film with Antonioni is the great Italian theme of transition from the old world to the modern world. Characters are forced to accept change, change themselves, or perish. In spite of these limitations, the DVD is recommended. If you don't watch it, you will miss a powerful cinematic experience.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
SOUL MURDER, July 22, 2002
Luchino Visconti's Marxist take on the changing Italian society circa 1960 was one of the most controversial and influential movies of the early 60's. Like LA DOLCE VITA it caused a sensation in the US and made an instant, international star of Alain Delon. Visconti mixes Old Testament themes starting with the expulsion from Eden & Cain and Abel, throws in lots of Dostoyevsky & even some of Bunuel's VIRIDIANA. It's quite a stew but I never heard anyone say they were bored. As the mother Katina Paxinou who was Jean Simmons' vile governess in THE INHERITANCE chews up enough scenery for 10 movies. Annie Giradot playing a prostitute gives such a vibrant performance that you wonder why she appeared here in only 2 or 3 movies over the next 30 years. Alain Delon's Rocco is a beautiful Prince Myshkin but he's very bland. As Simone his immediate older brother Renato Salvatore exudes so much animal magnatism he may have you jumping out of your skin. When he seduces Rocco's middleaged employer (to rob her) half the audience wishes they were she. Giuseppe Rotunno's beautiful black & white cinematography often acts as a commentary on the action especially in the scenes of more than graphic violence. Nino Rota wrote the fine score.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Family affairs., April 23, 2002
By A Customer
Archetypal epic involving a Sicilian peasant family forced by poverty to move to the big city -- in this case, Milan. There, the mother and her four young sons join the oldest son, who's got a steady job and a steady girl. From this description thus far, you might feel inclined to pass on the movie because you've seen all this before . . . and you'd be right. Mario Puzo and -- later -- Francis Ford Coppola borrowed heavily from *Rocco and His Brothers* when they created their respective *Godfather* epics. Indeed, Rocco, his mother, his brothers, the prostitute, all begin as "types". There's a lot of "Mamma mia!" and hands raised in prayer; there's a lot of sweaty machismo; there's a lot of "amore". I think director Luchino Visconti had wanted to say something about proletarian post-War Italy with his stereotypical Porondi family. But he must have fell in love with them, because they burst free from their tedious Neo-Realist origins and become whole characters capable of change and inner growth. We are certainly grateful for that: all too often, the "realism" in Italian Neo-Realism becomes merely politics . . . and politics dates pretty quickly. Instead, Visconti lavishes his settings and characters with Dickensian detail to the point that by movie's end, they no longer seem like stereotypes, archetypes, or any other types. For a director noted for Neo-Realism, Visconti had a flair for bombastic grand tragedy and earthy good humor, which he's able to pull off so brilliantly in this movie because of the inexorable logic of the plot and the fastidious piling-upon-piling of detail and deep understanding of his creations. *Rocco and His Brothers* was an important movie for Visconti to make: from here, he dropped the pointy-headed dogmas of then-current Italian cinema, and, along with Fellini and others, struck out in a direction entirely his own, culminating in other masterworks like *The Damned* and *Death in Venice*. Sure, *Rocco* is a serious-minded social document, but it also has thoroughly engrossing melodramatics to spare . . . and that's what seems more important to us, 42 years later. [For the 2nd time in one month, I'm forced to gripe about "Image Entertainment"'s DVD presentation. Onerous enough is that there's no features, and the print is clearly from unrestored celluloid . . . but if what a reviewer below said is correct, 12 minutes are STILL missing from the movie, despite the claim on the box that it's fully restored and uncut. Can they get away with lying like this? Don't food products have to be truthful on their list of ingredients --? why are entertainment products any different? And why on earth do companies like Image and Fox-Lorber have a catalog of masterworks when they clearly have no interest in presenting them with the attention and care that they deserve? All that said, get the movie anyway, because who knows when a more scrupulous company will buy the rights and do Visconti's classic justice.]
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