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To me, this movie is perfection.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

As Good As It Gets

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Having recently been uprooted to Milan, Rocco (Alain Delon) and his four brothers each look for a new way in life when a prostitute (Annie Girardot) comes between Rocco and his brother Simone (Renato Salvatori).Censors demanded that four scenes be cut or the film would be confiscated and the producer prosecuted; however, after negotiations, producer Goffredo Lombardo agreed to darken the critical scenes within the film with filters; two of these darkened scenes were omitted entirely.This attempt at censorship may be the most interesting part of the film. Yes, it is celebrated. Yes, Roger Ebert loved it. And it is certainly worthy of praise. But it does run long and is not overly interesting. A great film from a technical standpoint, but not particularly entertaining.

Epic! Operatic! Dramatic black and white photographs! Compelling! There is wizardry in this cinematic effort. But…overlong, too histrionic for American audiences, slow moving, and predictable. This film purports to be the story of naïve and innocent country folk who come to the big city and face difficult life choices. This is expressed by characters in two long, sociologically tinged speeches. Minus these speeches, this sociological realism is just a back story. The main theme of the story line is biblical; the secondary theme, prosaic. I had to read the English subtitles to follow the story, so I may have missed a lot. While reading, the visuals and the actors' expressions sometimes get lost. Ann Girardot does fine job as a prostitute who has a heart of gold-sometimes. Salvatori is great as is Paxinou but all these roles often strain credibility. Delon looks saintly and lost. Everything is a nanosecond removed from an uproar. A gym manager tears up his office, Citizen Kane style, because he doesn't like the quality of boxers in his gym-and his character is inconsequential.I waited four decades before I could see this movie. I was not disappointed because I no longer expect epiphanies. I simply want to be brought into the story and be interested in its outcome. No more. Thus, I recommend this movie. The story is compelling. It was well done and has great cinema historic value, even with its flaws.,

Aside from its great portrayal of family life (and, via Rocco, all the hypocrisies and evils therein), the film is also great study in the effects of World War Two on rejiggering the Italian lifestyle, especially with expanded urbanization. In the end, the three older brothers cannot deal with the move from the pastoral life of their youth. Ciro, who is easily the most ethically grounded brother (despite Rocco's constantly being called saintly), can do so, and the film ends with the jury out on young Luca. This is heightened by the fact that we are not shown any images, within the film, of the family's rural roots- not domestic nor geographic. It, as the past always is, is another country. But, many poor critics have mistakenly called the film a 'tragedy,' when it clearly is not, for a tragedy demands a sense of grandeur or greatness, and there are no such people in this film. Instead, Rocco And His Brothers shows us dirt poor 'real' people scraping to survive (in stark contrast to Visconti's campier melodramas on the rich and powerful), and one of the consequences of survival is that only the fittest make it. Thus, Nadia, Simone, and one suspects Rocco, are doomed. But this fact is far more related to the film's Neo-Realist roots than its melodramatic faux 'tragedy.' And that all this is done so deftly, with an economy of narrative setup, is a testament to both the writing and acting in selling what could be a really bad cliché.Rocco And His Brothers is a great film, which only deepens upon successive viewings (in meaning and complexity) just as its nominal successor (Hannah And Her Sisters) was a quarter century later, but for the same reason, achieved by different means: it takes one into another (past) time and era seamlessly- making any inquiry into what mis-en-scene is seem silly; and in doing so proves it is timeless. And that is usually never too far from greatness.

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.