Rocco and His Brothers

Rocco and His Brothers is not a sports film in the strict sense: it is a three-hour epic about southern Italians moving to Milan during the economic boom. But boxing drives it. The ring is where the two brothers at its centre, Simone and Rocco, try to escape poverty, and it is around boxing that their rivalry takes shape.

Two boxing paths

Simone, played by Renato Salvatori, is the first to step into the ring. Strong and egged on by Nadia and his mother, he sees boxing as a shortcut to money and fame, but drink and a dissolute life wreck his career. Rocco, played by Alain Delon, has no taste for fighting. After his military service he signs a ten-year contract with a promoter to pay off his brother's debts. Visconti films boxing as labour and sacrifice rather than triumph.

A troubled production

It was shot in Milan in spring 1960, with scenes in Rome, Bellagio and Civitavecchia. After a judge threatened to sue, the family name was changed from Pafundi to Parondi. On its Italian release the film was blocked after a Vatican official objected: scenes were darkened and two were cut, later restored on home video.

A classic and an influence

It won the Special Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1960 Venice Film Festival and sold more than 10 million tickets in Italy. Francis Ford Coppola cited it as an inspiration for The Godfather, Martin Scorsese listed it among essential foreign films, and Roger Ebert added it to his Great Movies. For fans of boxing films, it bridges postwar social drama and the darker American boxing films of the following decades.