With the longest running time of any film in this collection (three hours), Luchino Visconti’s Rocco e i suoi fratelli (US: Rocco and His Brothers) is a cinematic masterpiece that blends the melodrama of opera with the ruthlessness of noir, the exultation of faith with the debasement of crime. Ostensibly following the tales of the five poor Parondi brothers (“like the five fingers of my hand,” says their mother, played by Katina Paxinou) as they arrive in Milan from southern Italy to find work and see snow for the first time, the film homes in on two in particular: the kind, forgiving, and almost Christ-like Rocco (Alain Delon) and the amoral, insecure, violent Simone (Renato Salvatori). As Simone sinks into crime and dissolution, Rocco enlists in the military; after Simone treats Nadia (Annie Girardot) like the prostitute she is, Rocco humanizes her through a loving relationship (“You made me realize how loathsome my life had become,” she tells him); after Simone’s boxing career tanks, Rocco keeps fighting and winning to pay off Simone’s debts; as Simone rapes and murders, Rocco loves and forgives. This contrast is not to say the other Parondi brothers — Vincenzo (Spiros Focás), Ciro (Max Cartier) and Luca (Rocco Vidolazzi) — aren’t wonderfully developed: the film very effectively portrays how the bonds of brotherhood outweigh personality differences, even Ciro’s final, “disloyal” act an effort to hold his family together (“Just like when we used to clean lentils, we must weed out the bad seed”). Scene after scene, Visconti visualizes the characters’ emotional conflicts with light, such as Rocco’s and Simone’s extended trek home after the grotesque confrontation in the park, their fistfight continuing at each corner despite mutual exhaustion, Rocco’s body finally dropping in the gutter. In fact, violence seems almost to be a form of language in Visconti’s world, conveying love in its most warped form, even conveying lust as we find in Simone’s pugilism (“I need money”) toward the predatory Morini (Roger Hanin) just before the television screen fades to dark.