New 4K Digital Restoration
Thursday, May 12 | 7 pm only
Released in 1960—the same year as Antonioni’s L’Avventura and Fellini’s La Dolce Vita—Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers represents a lesser known, if no less brilliant, facet of the Italian cinema’s annus mirabilis. Presented in a new 4K restoration, Rocco tells the story of an impoverished Southern Italian family, who—after the death of their patriarch—migrates to Milan in hopes of securing a more prosperous future, but finds themselves beset by a series of personal tragedies. Deftly interweaving romantic melodrama and socioeconomic commentary, the film features electric performances from Alain Delon and Annie Girardot. Visconti’s ability to combine an epic, novelistic narrative with a realist aesthetic and a high operatic sensibility had a great influence on the films of New Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. In particular, Nino Rota’s soulful score for Rocco anticipates his award-winning work on Coppola’s The Godfather Trilogy.
Director Luchino Visconti 1960 Italy/France 168 minutes NR DCP
