Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958)

Carlo Piscane, Tiberio Murgia, unidentified baby, Marcello Mastroianni, and Renato Salvatori in Big Deal on Madonna Street

Cast: Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Memmo Carotenuto, Rossana Rory, Carla Gravina, Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Carlo Piscane, Tiberio Murgia, Totò. Screenplay: Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Mario Monicelli. Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo. Production design: Piero Gherardi. Film editing: Adriana Novelli. Music: Piero Umiliani. 

According to director Mario Monicelli, Big Deal on Madonna Street was intended not just as a parody of heist thrillers like Jules Dassin's Rififi (1955) but also of neorealism as a genre. We may get a glimpse of that when Tiberio (Marcello Mastroianni) hears that the target of the heist is a pawn shop: "My sheets are there," he says, perhaps reminding the audience of the scene in Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948) when the couple pawn their sheets so the husband can buy a bicycle. Whatever the target, Big Deal stands on its own as an Italian comedy classic, revealing the comic gifts of actors like Mastroianni and Vittorio Gassman, and providing a small but important role in the budding career of Claudia Cardinale. It's a tale of screw-ups, as everything possible goes wrong in the attempts of a crew of ne'er-do-wells to pull off a burglary that involves extensive planning, surveillance, and other feats that are just beyond their abilities. The comedy ranges from small ironies to broad slapstick, all set to a lively jazz score by Piero Umiliani. 

Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960)

Renato Salvatori and Alain Delon in Rocco and His Brothers

Rocco Parondi: Alain Delon
Simone Parondi: Renato Salvatori
Nadia: Annie Girardot
Rosaria Parondi: Katina Paxinou
Vincenzo Parondi: Spiros Focás
Ginetta: Claudia Cardinale
Ciro Parondi: Max Cartier
Luca Parondi: Rocco Vidolazzi
Morini: Roger Hanin

Director: Luchino Visconti
Story and screenplay: Luchino Visconti, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Vasco Pratolini, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, Enrico Medioli
Based on a novel by Giovanni Testori
Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno
Production design: Mario Garbuglia
Music: Nino Rota

When Rocco cries out, "Sangue! Sangue!" on finding Nadia's blood on his brother Simone's jacket, I almost expect to hear Puccini on the soundtrack instead of Nino Rota. It's one of those moments that cause Rocco and His Brothers (along with other films by Luchino Visconti) to be called "operatic." It's "realistic" but in a heightened way -- the word for it comes from the realm of opera: verismo. The moment is in the same key as the actual murder of Nadia, along with her earlier rape by Simone, and the numerous highly volatile scenes of the family life of the Parondis. It's what makes Rocco and His Brothers feel in many ways more contemporary than Michelangelo Antonioni's more cerebral L'Avventura, which was released in the same year. Movies have gone further in the direction of Rocco -- think of the films of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola -- than they have in the direction of Antonioni's oeuvre. I have room in my canon for both the raw, melodramatic, and perhaps somewhat overacted Rocco and the enigmatically artful work of Antonioni, however.

Watched on Filmstruck