Luchino Visconti's ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS: A classic masterpiece of neo-realism and family melodrama arrives on Blu-ray/DVD

TrustMovies first encountered ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, the landmark movie from Italian master Luchino Visconti, in 1960 when he was in the midst of his college years. That year he also saw René Clément's Purple Noon for the first time and of course -- as did simultaneously half of the world's moviegoers, women and men -- fell in love with the star of both films, Alain Delon. These two movies, together with Ingmar Bergman's The Magician, which he had seen the year previously, changed his movie-going habits forever by demonstrating how much more powerful, involving, thought-provoking and entertaining international films could be when compared with so much of the drivel he had experienced via the output of the Hollywood studios.

From then and onwards, TM suspects that he has seen at least as many foreign films as domestic product. Rocco and His Brothers, making its DVD and Blu-ray debut next week in a glorious new 4K restoration via Milestone Films, also put him in touch with the work of the late Signore Visconti (shown at left), for which he is doubly grateful.

And while he must have seen this film at least ten or more times when he was much younger (and then again on videotape maybe two decades ago), he doesn't recall its ever looking any better than it does now, as Giuseppe Rotunno's magnificent black-and-white cinematography shimmers and glows, then dapples and darkens its way toward making this movie one of, if not the most beautifully filmed accomplishments of all time.

Given that the movie deals with a poor family from Italy's south that travels by train to the "big city" of Milan only to find itself living in continued near-poverty, with little of what might be called traditional beauty of sets, costumes or locations to be seen, makes Rotunno's accomplishment all that more special.

Some aficionados might bridle at my calling Rocco a melodrama. But it is. Melodrama was Visconti's forte, and this film is his best among many excellent ones, from Ossessione through Senso, Sandra and The Damned. What makes Rocco so great is that the melodrama is anchored to a tale that incorporates Visconti's major concerns: family, class and the impact of change upon tradition.

Working with a vast array of characters, in which each -- from smallest to most important -- is brought to impressive life, the protagonists, a mother (Katina Paxinou, above, left) and her five sons, come north and quickly fall into the somewhat decadent life of the city. From boxing gyms and hookers to a dry cleaning establishment, the military and a thoroughly bourgeois family into which one son will marry, family members brush up against (and sometimes embrace) everything from power and money to theft and murder.

The emotional stakes here are ultra-high, and Visconti, his writers and cast plunge in with utter abandon. (This is probably what made the movie so powerful for me as a very young man: I'd never experienced anything like it on screen.)

And while M. Delon (above), an actor of limited range and depth, will always remain for me the most beautiful man to ever grace the screen, watching the film again today only makes the marvelous work of actor Renato Salvatori (below, second from right), who plays the most wayward of the five brothers so very remarkable. An actor up-until-then known for light romantic comedy, his performance here would become the highlight of his career.

So, too, would the work of Annie Girardot (below, in the role of Nadia, the prostitute who becomes involved with two of the brothers) place this actress squarely and deservedly on the map of international stardom.

The movie is just three minutes short of three hours long, but it is never in the least slow-moving, let alone boring, thanks to Visconti's ability at pacing and at making the most of the melodrama's meat. Two scenes still hold the power to shock and scald: the rape and the murder.

And how wonderful it is to see the film once again uncut and containing the various segments (along with title cards) for each of the five brothers.

Revisiting a love from one's youth can sometimes be disappointing. I'm delighted to say that Rocco and His Brothers holds up in every way and in every detail.

From The Milestone Cinematheque, available as both DVD and Blu-ray, the film hits the street this coming Tuesday, July 10 -- for purchase and (I would hope) rental. The terrific Bonus Features include two that are definitely "don't miss": a video interview with Caterina d'Amico, daughter of one of Italy's most famous screenwriters, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, and another, earlier set of interviews by Caterina with Rocco cast and crew members, including her mother. These are so filled with fascinating, pertinent, enjoyable and funny stuff that I could watch them all over again. And probably will.

At the FSLC, OPEN ROADS returns with a bevy of new Italian films. First up: Ferzan Ozpetek and the Taviani brothers

Mark your calendars for May 31 through June 6, as the popular series, OPEN ROADS: NEW ITALIAN CINEMA, now in its 18th year, returns to the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Co-presented by the FSLC and Istituto Luce Cinecittà, this year's series offers 15 new Italian films --narrative or documentary, plus a pair of " classics" that perfectly complement two of the new films to be seen: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Night of the Shooting Stars (above) will be shown in conjunction with the appearance of the brothers final film (Vittorio died this past April), Rainbow: A Private Affair, while Marco Ferreri's famous The Ape Woman will screen alongside a new documentary (below) about this iconoclast filmmaker, Marco Ferreri: Dangerous but Necessary.

In past years TrustMovies has often viewed all (or almost all) of the Open Roads films, but this year, due to age, infirmities and screening links that don't always work, he has only managed to see a half dozen of the selections. Still, these were enough to make the series, as always, a "must." Below are his thoughts on the first two films. More will come over the days to follow. You can view the entire Opens Roads schedule by clicking here and then clicking on the individual films for more information and/or on the particular screening time in order to procure tickets.

Ferzan Ozpetek is one of my favorite filmmakers, with a resume full of fine films, most of which deal with subjects and themes close to my own mind and heart -- from the intersection of art and life to sexuality, passion and love (often GLBT-related) -- so the opportunity to see anything new from this fellow is not to be missed. His latest, NAPLES IN VEILS (Napoli velata), seems to me a kind of culmination of all that's important to Signore Ozpetek, brought to life with the kind of beauty, passion and art that seems near-extraordinary, even for the likes of him. (The filmmaker is shown below, center, with the two gorgeous stars of his new film: Giovanna Mezzogiorno (right) and Alessandro Borghi (left).

Ozpetek's movies are usually eye-poppingly beautiful to view, and Naples in Veils is no exception -- except that it is exceptionally so. The director and his cinematographer (Gian Filippo Corticelli) give us the architecture (exterior, interior), the sea, the penthouses, basements, highways and byways of Naples as we've never seen them. The movie is such a visual treat, in fact, that if it were merely a travelog, I'd probably have been thrilled.

Yet the tale it tells is even more unusual. As written by Ozpetek, along with Gianni Romoli and Valia Santella, Naples in Veils begins with the murder of a husband by his wife, with their young daughter a witness to the result. We move to that daughter, now grown into Ms Mezzogiorno, attending a very bizarre "Nativity Scene as performance art" (above). At this event, staged, I believe, in the very apartment in which that murder took place, our heroine meets a young man (Signore Borghi) and is soon trysting in the hottest sex scene Ozpetek has yet filmed. Our couple spends a passionate (and quite versatile) night together night and arranges to meet the following day at the museum.

From there, the movie turns into a major mystery -- not simply of what, why and how something awful has happened but even more about the mysteries of character, identity, and the why and how of who we come to love. It seems to me that all of Ozpetek's major concerns are mirrored here: passionate love vs the stable, caring variety; the place and meaning of art to our lives; and even the very act of storytelling itself (the filmmaker borrows a page out of Paul Haggis' wondrous Third Person). And all of this is given to us wrapped in the most spectacularly beautiful packaging.

I'd try to stop myself from overpraising this film, but I don't think that is even possible. Yes, Naples in Veils is all over the place, yet every place it ventures is worth the trip. The movie -- in Italian with English subtitles and running 113 minutes -- screens at Open Roads  this Saturday June 2 at 8:30pm, and next Thursday, June 7, at 2:30 pm. Click here for more information and tickets.

It always sad to reach the end of a filmmaking career, particularly when that career has encompassed so many interesting and worthwhile films (and not just the usual suspects: The Night of the Shooting Stars and Padre Padrone) such as Allonsanfan, Good Morning Babylon and especially the more recent Caesar Must Die. With the death this past April of Vittorio Taviani, pictured below, right, with his brother Paolo, the duo's final film is now upon us.

I only wish RAINBOW: A PRIVATE AFFAIR had proven a better good-bye. God knows, the movie is lovely to look at, with crack cinematography by Simone Zampagni and sets and costumes so redolent of the movie's time frame (World War II Italy). Trouble is, these lustrous and nostalgic visuals (as below) call so much attention to themselves, they often overwhelm the movie's story, told in very fractured fashion by the filmmakers, who themselves adapted to the screen the novel by Beppe Fenoglio about Italian partisans in WWII.

The story has to do with a young partisan, played by the usually excellent Luca Marinelli (at right, below and at bottom), who, here, seem mostly in some sort of daze, on the run from Mussolini's Black Shirts, as he keeps flashing back to various memories of a love triangle between himself, his best friend Giorgio (Lorenzo Richelmy of Netflix's Marco Polo, dancing above, right) and their would-be girlfriend Fulvia (played by Valentina Bellè, above, left, and at bottom, center).

Simultaneously, our sort-of hero travels through the mist and over hill and valley -- first looking for Giorgio, and then after the latter has been captured by the Black Shirts, trying to find and capture a Black Shirt to trade for Giorgio's release. On some level the plot here makes little sense realistically, but the Tavianis seem to have imagined it to be a kind of fantasy anyway, so perhaps that doesn't matter much. The past, in all its pristine beauty, resonates most. The present, in all its degradation, violence and torture, registers as more of a dream.

If so, it's a dream that isn't nearly as strong as it might be. I am glad to have seen the film, but it will not remain in my memory as one of the brothers' best. Rainbow: A Private Affair (dumb title. the addition of "Rainbow" to the original Italian title is just silly, even if the song Over the Rainbow figures as part of the nostalgic past), in Italian with English subtitles and running 84 minutes, screens twice at Opens Roads: Friday, June 1, at 2pm and Monday, June 4, at 6:30pm. Click here for more info or to purchase tickets.

There'll be more to come on Open Roads over the following few days.
Stay tuned...

Rossellini's War Trilogy -- ROME OPEN CITY, PAISAN, and GERMANY YEAR ZERO -- now on Blu-ray from Criterion

If TrustMovies had to pick three films above all others that might stand in for the World War II experience, I suspect it would be what is now known as The War Trilogy from Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini. In a way this strikes him as odd, since of course the USA was fighting against the Italians during this time (as well as the German and the Japanese). Yet this great, unsentimental-but-entirely-humane filmmaker was able to capture the war so searingly from the POV of the Italians, the Americans in Italy, and finally the Germans in their immediately post-war experience that this great trilogy becomes a viewing experience like no other we have. You can save your Saving Private Ryan for those times you need a rah-rah-then-shed a-tear moment. Rossellini, with his documentary style coupled to such indelible, vital drama, is the man for me.

I've seen the three films that comprise the trilogy each twice now on video, and the new Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection is most probably the best rendition -- high-definition digital restorations with uncompressed monaural soundtracks -- we'll get, complete with Criterion's usual plethora of special features that themselves make up an entire viewing experience: introductions to each film by the late Signore Rossellini, audio commentaries, and interviews with film critics, scholars, and other filmmakers, and a booklet full of smart essays.

The most dramatic and moving of the three is the first film, ROME OPEN CITY, made in 1945, which I falsely remembered as ending with that shocking and memorable scene involving the great actress Anna Magnani (above) and the German Gestapo. But, no, that scene ends the first part of the film, and it is the parish priest, played by Aldo Fabrizi (below), whose continuing story commands the remainder of this breathtaking movie.

Rome Open City is such a galvanizing, moving and engulfing experience that its follow-ups can't begin to better it. But they don't try. Instead, they provide things quite different and unexpected -- for their own time and even now, more than 70 years later.

PAISAN (made in 1946) offers six vignettes of life in wartime, as the Allies, led by the Americans, arrive in Sicily and slowly, haltingly make their way northward. These short tales are quite different, one from another, yet together they provide an indelible picture of life in wartime. In the first, a young Italian girl (below) leads a group of American soldiers through a minefield and into a fortress where events takes their sad and unruly course.

A street child and an American G.I. bond in an episode that must have seemed shocking at the time and still has the power to startle, as the soldier, a black man, admits he does not want to return to America, and is then confronted with what Italy has become for those who've lost everything. This segment is so full of life and vitality yet has the power to punch us in the gut.

A wartime love story of sorts, told in present-day and flashback shows us the sadness and cynicism that war produces, as an American soldier and an Italian young woman meet, and then meet again some time later with results as different as night from day. The performances here, as throughout, join professionals with non-pros, and this mixture results in scene after scene in which real life seems to coalesce into humor, surprise and sometimes high drama.

A kind of road trip on foot by a young woman hoping to find her partisan lover and a man who wants to reunite with his family provides the most exciting, stomach-tightening episode of the film. Here we view both the awful destruction of Florence, as well as the great beauty of the architecture that remains, as we watch the near-suicidal journey these two take trying to get to and then across the Arno river.

In the quietest segment, three American chaplains -- a Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew -- visit a monastery in the Apennines, where the monks have some trouble adapting to the idea of freedom of religion. This episode -- sweet and welcoming -- proves a respite from the war raging elsewhere.

Finally, we have the segment dealing with the Italians partisans and their fight, joined now by the Americans, against the Germans in a region near the Po River. This is by far the most downbeat of the vignettes, and yet it seems a more than fitting finale to a film that, as we learn from the supplemental features, was scorned by Italians when it initially opened and only after France heralded it did the rest of the world see it -- and slowly come to agree with that assessment.

In retrospect, and after this second viewing, Paisan seems to me the linchpin of the trilogy due to its breadth and scope, as well as to the depth it brings to each segment. It is war as seen from so many different and contrary angles that is cannot help but broaden one's own ideas of home, country and what constitutes humanity.

Leave it to Rossellini to force us to identify with the "other" -- and in a major manner. In his concluding film -- GERMANY YEAR ZERO (from 1947) -- you will find yourself identifying with and caring about Germany and some of its inhabitants, immediately post-war, as the ravaged country tries to pick itself up and go on. The filmmaker never excuses Germany's actions during wartime (he doesn't do this regarding his own country of Italy, either). Instead he concentrates on individuals and their immediate needs.

In this, the shortest film in the trilogy, Rossellini's main character is a young blond boy, about as German as one could find, who seems at this point so bone-thin as to maybe not be able make it to his next meal. He and his remaining family are never sure where that meal will come from, in any case. (In the film's opening, a newly dead horse is carved up in the middle of the street as a meal for those who surround it to take home and, one hopes, somehow cook.)

We meet the boy, Edmund, his feuding family (they live in a bombed-out building), some would-be "friends," and a fellow who had been a teacher and also a believer in the Nazi philosophy, some of whom become involved in Germany's post-war black market. The film is ugly, uncompromising and generally unpleasant, and yet Rossellini makes us root for this kid and his survival, even as we understand his situation. It's a strange accomplishment and one that leaves as bitter a taste in one's mouth as was probably felt by those Germans who lasted out the war and its bombings and then had to do whatever it took for continued survival.

Hitting the street just this past week from The Criterion Collection, on Blu-ray in a new boxed set, ROBERTO ROSSELLINI'S WAR TRILOGY runs a total of 302 minutes. It's available now -- for purchase and I hope, eventually, for rental, as well.

Blu-ray debut for Luchino Visconti's less-than-masterful but still worthwhile biopic, LUDWIG

TrustMovies has now seen LUDWIG -- Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti's telling of the history, from his crowing through to his death, of the ruler known as "Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria" -- three times. The first was in 1973 during its original theatrical release, the second maybe ten years ago on DVD, and the third with the film's current Blu-ray release to home video via Arrow Academy. On initial viewing, I found the film pretty awful, despite my love for much of Visconti's work. On second viewing it seemed a bit better, and this time it appears, perhaps due to the increased length (nearly four-and-one-half-hours) richer and fuller than any previous incarnation.

One of the highlights of this new Blu-ray disc release is the hour-long documentary about Signore Visconti, shown at right, during which the late actor Vittorio Gassman talks about the director and notes that he was a master of melodrama. Indeed he was, and one of the problems with his telling of the tale of Ludwig is that Visconti foregoes most of that melodrama, which perhaps makes his feature a bit more rigorous but in the end much less compelling.

The filmmaker has, however, coaxed from Helmut Berger what is undoubtedly the finest performance this pretty-boy actor ever gave. Herr Berger is surprisingly good: His road from eccentric to full-out nut-case to sad specimen of abused royalty is played with genuine feeling and an acute sense of the specifics of aging and deterioration.

In this longer, four-and-one-half-hour version, we get some of the detail and precision that was missing from the shorter versions. These include more of the history and politics of the time and of the various relationships between characters. This current and fully restored Ludwig is a fuller, richer version of what came before.

In the supporting cast, Trevor Howard and Silvana Mangano still shine darkly as as the scheming Richard and Cosima Wagner, while Romy Schneider (above) makes princess Elizabeth as difficult and coquettish as ever. As Ludwig’s best and most trusted friend, Helmut Griem (shown at right in final photo) provides the film’s moral ballast, while John Moulder-Brown (below) makes the sweet, boyish and very sad character of Prince Otto come to fine life. 

Among the scenes you’re most likely to remember – from all the versions – will be Ludwig’s wooing of the young actor Kainz in that glorious underground grotto with the swans and that charming little love boat, and Elizabeth’s visit to Ludwig’s most famous castle in the room with all those mirrors. Visually the film is a near-constant treat, with sets and costumes as gloriously garish and/or stunning as you’ll have seen. And then there’s that hunting lodge scene with all the young men perched atop and around the limbs of the giant tree that grows in the middle of the lodge.

There are memorable moments aplenty to make the 257 minutes worthwhile, and if the film must take its place among Visconti’s lesser works, well, it is still a Visconti. From Arrow Academy/Arrow Video and released here in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, Ludwig arrives on high-definition Blu-ray -- the 4K restoration is from the original film negative -- and standard def DVD in a four-disc set this coming Tuesday, April 11.

Special features include that hour-long doc on the director, a half-hour portrait of actress Silvana Mangano, an interview with screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico, a brand new interview with Helmut Berger (the contrast between then and now is simply staggering), and the film's theatrical trailer. There are several viewing options, as well: in the full theatrical cut or as five individual parts as shown on Italian television, with an English soundtrack with optional English subtitles, and in the original Italian soundtrack with English subtitles.

Federico Fellini's CITY OF WOMEN makes its Blu-ray and DVDebut this coming week

CITY OF WOMEN (La città delle donne), from 1980, is among the final few full-length films from Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, pictured below, and although TrustMovies could have sworn he'd seen it around the time of its original release, it turns out he had not -- until now via the new Blu-ray and DVD which hit the street this coming Tuesday, May 31, courtesy of the Cohen Film Collection's Classics of Italian Cinema. This is a most welcome release, and not simply because it will add to the catalog of a filmmaking master. It is also one of Fellini's better works.

Yes, it is full of the filmmaker's signature content and characters: Here we have the leading man who's a sexist pig par excellence, surrounded by all kinds of women -- especially those on the corpulent side who possess a very large butt, which they know how to move. His leading man is again played by his actor of choice, Marcello Mastroianni, below, who was in his mid-50s at the time and still looking terrifically good of figure and face. On a trip by train to somewhere or other, our "hero" proves to be quite taken with the woman who sits across from him and whom he becomes intent on seducing.

If only. That would-be seduction leads Snàporaz (surely one of the least becoming names in the history of leading-man characters) into a kind of Grand Hotel in which a feminist convention is taking place.

As the only male to be found (other than the hotel's staff), Snàporaz is subjected to all kinds of contempt and humiliation -- much of it creepily enjoyable, particularly as it comes from a filmmaker whose own sexism was, well, rather heavy-duty.

Clearly Fellini was trying to come to terms with feminism, which had been on the rise for some time and was intent on displacing, or at least rejiggering, the current state of Italian patriarchy. While you have to give the guy credit for handing us a leading character whose male chauvinism borders on the hugely unappealing, Fellini was so besotted with his would-be alter ego, Mastroianni, along with his needs and desires, that the filmmaker's entire identification goes to and with the man.

The women here are all, with the exception of the elderly mother/grandmother figures, sex objects or scary bitches. The old Madonna/Whore syndrome is in full Italian flower. If this lends the film an uneasy duality, it also adds the kind of tension that only a secure and talented filmmaker would risk.

That risk pays off, as scene after scene pulls us in and leaves us amazed and amused. or shocked and thrillingly appalled. We go from spoofing the old Italian "white telephone" genre (below)

to the birthday party of a fellow who has supposedly conquered 10,00 females to finally a quest for the "ideal woman."

Yeah, right. Well, boys will be boys, and if their pursuits seem a tad trivial, they're also age-old and, for so many men, show little sign of abating.

And in the hands of a filmmaker as fanciful and imaginative as Signore Fellini, they are also eye-popping and thought-provoking.

If you've never seen a Fellini, City of Women is not a bad place to begin. If you've already seen this one, a revisit is probably in order. The Blu-ray transfer, while nothing special, is certainly adequate. In any case, the filmmaker's fecund imagination provides all the special effects and amazing visuals you could want.

Available via the Cohen Film Collection and running a lengthy but never boring 139 minutes, the film resurfaces this coming Tuesday, May 31 -- for purchase or rental.