Alain Delon
On “Rocco and His Brothers” (Minor Spoilers)
This film, from 1960, directed by Luchino Visconti, was eclipsed somewhat in film history. Fellini’s 8 ½ was released a few years later, and for Americans at least, Rocco and His Brothers disappeared into the general wash of Italian neorealism from the decade.
This is a shame. The two films could not be more different. And though I loved 8 ½, it is a comparatively lighthearted romp. Memorable, long, charming, and saturated with Fellini’s style; one is imbued with a sense of what Italy was, and I guess in some ways still is. (I travel there a lot and see Felliniesque scenes often). One feels for protagonist Guido Anselmi, with his movie making and women problems, appreciates it greatly, but from afar. If 8 ½ is a beautiful sword, Rocco is like getting impaled on it.
Same composer for both the films, one of my favorites: Nino Rota. Notable how different the tone of each film is musically. 8 ½ views its own struggle with a sort of pre-post-modern irreverence, the soundtrack is mostly lighthearted. Rota’s score in Rocco does not allow the audience to stand back from the action at all. The film opens with long shots of Milan in winter, specifically the train station into which the Padroni family will soon arrive. The accompanying song to this, backed by only a few guitar chords, is so spare and stripped down it’s as if one came undetected upon a lonely shepherd in a field who was singing to no audience, lamenting over something that was lost. This sets the tone for the entire film.
The very poor Parondi family comes from a little town in the south, in the Lucania region. They tumble out of the train, four handsome brothers and their recently widowed mother. (I have seen reviewers say these boys are improbably handsome. To which I say: have you been to Italy?) Dressed in rags, loading their bundles onto a horse cart, they’ve never been in a big city before and it shows. They go to meet the fifth brother, Vincenzo, at his engagement party at the home of his fiancé, Ginetta. Troubles begin right there. The two matriarchs clash, causing Vincenzo and his fiancée to break up. Vincenzo then finds them an apartment, a freezing basement with ice on the windows. Together they pick through cheap lentils for rocks, patch their clothing, and rejoice upon the first snows where they’ll be able to work clearing streets and sidewalks. This is the one interlude where all the brothers are together, and their mother, Rosaria, desperately desires that they will remain so. Everywhere they go, they’re pegged as southern hicks, but they persevere. They are strong in their unity, Rosaria striving mightily to keep them together under her roof.
Gradually things improve, monetarily. Guileless Rocco works at a laundry, his older brother Simone is recruited as a boxer and has some success. But here the character of Simone becomes more clear. He charms the owner of the laundry and steals a shirt, and Rocco feels he has to cover for him. This is just the beginning of the slow reveal of Simone’s character, and Rocco’s saint-like devotion. Nadia, (played by the incomparable French actress Annie Girardot), is a sex worker who lives in their building. She has been rescued from the cold by Vincenzo after being thrown out of her apartment. Insouciant and beautiful, the brothers are smitten with her, Rocco in a low key, shy way, the others more obviously. Though not from Milan, Nadia is a big city girl, tossing her hair and flashing her legs and lingerie, the likes of which they have never seen. She and Simone later get together, while his boxing career founders, because of his bad habits and lack of discipline. She leaves him. While trying to rectify Simone’s continuing crimes, Rocco temporarily gives up and joins the army. After his first year, he runs into Nadia in another town, where she has just finished a stint in jail. She tells him this, as a challenge. But he doesn’t care, finding this information superficial. Rocco’s belief in her, his attunement to her situation, is the lynch pin around which the major tragedy of the film turns. Nadia, hiding behind dark glasses, believes herself to be ruined, she is utterly without hope. (In retrospect, we see her as well as a victim of poverty, and of the inhuman mores of her day). Over coffee, he takes her hand and tells her,
“You shouldn’t be afraid and you seem to be. Have faith. Have great faith and have no fear,” he says.
“In what?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “In everything.”
“In you?”
“Yes, in me too.”
She believes him; her toughness melts away right before our eyes. It’s a leap into a future she had thought impossible. Against the gloomy backdrop of Milan’s public housing, Simone’s decline, and the hardship of their lives, Rocco will save her, and she will save him by allowing herself to be saved.
It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck.
Because Simone is rotten. As much as Rocco is a sort of saint, Simone is a hapless drunk, a bumbling but extremely dangerous villain. He gets into more trouble and bombs out of boxing. His promoters press Rocco, in whom they see talent, to box, to help recoup their investment in the defunct Simone. Rocco despises boxing, but he’s good at it. He agrees, while Simone continues to screw up. I won’t spoil it, but will say that Rocco will do anything to protect his brother.
Despite all of the tension, toward the end we are treated to one of the most joyous scenes in the film, of which there are aplenty. Rocco has just won a major boxing tournament; the family is flush with cash. They are at their apartment, at a dining table that opens out to the balcony, and interior of their public housing. Vincenzo has married Ginetta and they have a baby; the sparkling wine is flowing. It’s a celebratory dinner, mother Rosaria is ecstatic. Everyone is there except for Simone. Rocco yells up to the entire building and everyone comes out, joining in the merriment. Bottles are thrown balcony to balcony without losing a drop, toasts are made, the entire scene is suffused with a warm sweetness—where even Rosaria forgets for a moment that all of her sons are not there. Shy Rocco is reluctant, but the crowd persuades him to make a toast.
He begins, “To the day, which is still far away, when I can go home. Ours is the land of olives, and moon sickness, and of rainbows…” This brings tears all around, especially from his mother, Rosaria.
He then asks Vicenzo, who is a builder, “Do you remember Vincenzo, when starting to build, the head mason throws a brick at the shadow of the first person that has happened by? As a token of sacrifice. So the house can be built solidly…”
This is received somberly, as Rocco is still catching up with himself. He is attempting to justify his recent act of unimaginable cold-heartedness, and make it into a sort of poetry. This works overall for the film, somewhat, but not for him. He has thrown the brick into the shadow, but at that moment he is still unaware of how dark the shadow will be.
Quite often Delon is referred to in reviews as a “matinee idol.” This is a diminishing put down, given how many great performances he has turned in. Journalist Scott Eyman wrote that Delon “has the face of one of Caravaggio’s dark angels,” and it’s true. But Delon’s watchability does not detract from his talent. I don’t think he ever had an acting lesson and did not benefit from much of an education. It doesn’t matter. His performance as Rocco, at the age of twenty-five, is a tour de force.
The other stand-out is Annie Girardot as Nadia. An actress I had never heard of, I want to see more of now, in fact, I want to see everything she’s done. As a screen presence, she is Europe’s answer to Barbara Stanwyck. She is unforgettable here, and will haunt your dreams.
Reviewers have called Rocco and His Brothers, operatic, and I agree.
To begin with, there is no irony anywhere in it; tragedy and transcendence are gone over repeatedly, teasing out every nuance. The family is dirt poor, they came to Milan because they had no choice. As things develop, the impoverished southern village that they came from takes on a charm it might never really have had. (In the first scene, they bring oranges from Luciana to the engagement party, the smell and taste of them bring great joy to the guests).
Like an opera, the film is grueling, but it is not depressing. Rather it has the opposite effect, because in every detail and in its length, it embraces anyone’s lost dream, and lost innocence. The prevailing subtext, beautifully and poignantly rendered, is the times before it all happened, and what each of the characters were, or imagined themselves to be, in “the land of olives, and moon sickness, and of rainbows.”
p.s. I recently saw the film at our wonderful cinema in Sag Harbor.
Annie Girardot and Renato Salvatori