Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Memorable, crazy movie

I'll tell you why so serious

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Rocco and His Brothers, one of the greatest emotional experiences of all time, is a film of overwhelming ferocity and love. Luchino Visconti, the Italian director who helmed this masterwork, lays down the most naked essentials of the family drama, and stretches the potentially stagy narrative to a sprawling 3 hours of visceral understanding. The movie follows the silent rivalry of siblings in their transition to adulthood, taking time to carefully dissect the moral crises of each. Innocence is counterweighted by passion and love by jealousy. Visconti moves his camera in numerous long takes to, without monologue or melodramatic whines, detail the tragedy of a family fighting poverty, repression, and a loyalty to each other enforced by their protective and religious mother. The soundtrack by Nino Rota, which evokes his later masterwork The Godfather, underscores each moment of heartwrenching sincerity with organic passion and Italian prominence. The music never excesses and always excels, and never does it interrupt powerful moments; silence is used on numerous occasions to great impact. The actors Delon and Salvatori, at their undeniable best, are completely believable in their respective roles and are totally effective. Overall, this film is essentially every aspect of film extended to its highest possible quality. See it, prepare for a 3 hour runtime but don't expect to be disappointed.

Perhaps the greatest (or just only) neo-realistic soap opera? Neopra! Actually, it's operatic quality is what is great for it, and you can either dig into it or you can't. I did, but it takes some adjusting from those earlier neo-realistic scenes in the movie. It's like a fusion of Visconti's more grounded, Earthy material in his 1947 film La Terra Trema and the intense passion of his other more "actual" operatic movies like The Leopard and Senso, and the tragic dimensions (if not the restraint) of The White Nights.It has it all, though it's not a perfect film. It's messy and is so into its Italian-dramatic states that you can almost feel the theater shake with the vibrations of the Brothers' Mother crying and screaming. But it's got intense passion and is true to its high-stakes emotional nature. Only a few scenes really stand out as dated. Its violence is also quite vivid for a movie 50 years old; it got censored pretty much everywhere on original release, and the print I saw by chance at a revival house was "Presented" by Martin Scorsese. So it goes. Oh, and Alain Delon is wonderful, in case you were wondering.

I am a fan of Visconti movies. for the Barroco nuances and poetry of small things. for beauty of details and courage to present slices of a neorealism in which is mixed nostalgic crumbs of a world fall and need of new society definition. Rocco was first movie by him who I saw it. a film - bitter story. picture of a family, map of searches, touching drawing of a victory of city and the love as delicate web. and, sure, one of wonderful roles of Alain Delon. in fact, a gate, or only a window to a time who becomes ours. because story is universal. and the figure of poor mother - letter of a never ending poem , is remarkable. end of an age. seed of a new form of self definition for Italian cinema. but, very important, testimony, not about a period. but a state of soul. must see it !

I had never seen any movies by Italian director Luchino Visconti and boy... was I disappointed. Beyond some nice black and white photography and adequate camera work, I didn't see much else that even remotely justifies all the fuss. I hear Visconti was a great theatre director, but directing movies is a different matter. I had to check the IMDb.com site to verify the date this movie was made. Such overacting on the part of practically all the cast made me think of silent movies that were shot back in the twenties when the actors had to compensate for the absence of sound. I watched this movie with my wife and after two rather depressing hours we both broke into a fit of giggles, when right near the end, 'la mamma' opens her apartment's door and there is this close-up on Simone's face. I'm OK with stereotypes, but laying it on this thick is just ridiculous. I find it hard to believe anyone would come up with a film like this in... 1960, the same year Michelangelo Antonioni was filming l'Avventura -- not to mention all the dazzling inventions of the French Nouvelle Vague. The only thing that I truly enjoyed about 'Rocco' was Annie Girardot's performance. I had seen her in a couple of mediocre commercial French movies such as 'Elle fume pas..' and I felt she was a natural, one of these rare actors that command respect the minute they appear, but I certainly never imagined that given the chance, she could have been one of the greatest celluloid tragedians of all times. You may think that I am a little harsh with my four stars out of a possible ten, but if not for Annie Girardot's performance, I would have gone much lower.