ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS Restored and Uncut!

Yet another reason to look kindly on the Masters of Cinema series here - see below for the note on their upcoming Mizoguchi double bill for another - in the upcoming fully restored and uncut release of Luchino Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers. It's the full cut of the film - running at nearly three hours - fully restored and packaged in a three disc set that includes more than three hours of bonus features and a bonus CD including the original score. Tasty. Find the full details below the break.

****ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (MASTERS OF CINEMA) - PRESS RELEASE****

• An acknowledged influence on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series and Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull – this milestone of world cinema won the FIPRESCI prize and the Special Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1960.

• Three disc edition includes best ever looking DVD transfer of the film (a new anamorphic restoration of the film in its fully uncut original 3-hour version); with over 3 hours of extras: a host of documentaries and interviews, and an exclusive CD soundtrack of the film score by Nino Rota (Oscar® and BAFTA winning composer, The Godfather, Fellini's 8 1/2, etc)

• Directed by Luchino Visconti, the legendary auteur of The Leopard, Bellissima, and Death in Venice
• Stars international screen legends Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale, and Annie Girardot

From Luchino Visconti – the master director of such classics as La terra trema, Bellissima, and The Leopard – comes this epic study of family, sex, and betrayal. Alongside Fellini's La dolce vita and Antonioni's L'avventura, Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers [Rocco e i suoi fratelli] ushered Italian cinema into a new era, one unafraid to confront head-on the hypocrisies of the ruling class, the squalor in urban living, and the collision between generations.

A tight-knit family moves from Italy's rural south to metropolitan Milan. The shock of the new is violent and immediate. A mother meddles. A whore beguiles. Brother faces brother. Blood-ties come undone. We pity beatific Rocco (played by the immortal Alain Delon in one of his greatest roles) and Nadia the harlot (Annie Girardot, capricious and scintillating) – the modern condition has shattered their lives.

An acknowledged influence on Coppola's The Godfather series (Nino Rota's exquisite Rocco score for Visconti led to working on The Godfather), Scorsese's Raging Bull, and many others, Rocco and His Brothers is a cinematic shock that erupts on the fault-line of emotion. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present one of Visconti's most revered films – winner of the FIPRESCI Prize and the Special Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1960 – newly restored to its original Italian-language three-hour form.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
• 3 x disc edition (2 x DVDs, 1 x CD soundtrack) containing a new anamorphic restoration of the film in its fully uncut original 3-hour Italian release version.

• New and improved English subtitles.
• Three hours of extras, including newsreels from 1960; lengthy interviews with cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, and stars of the film Annie Girardot and Claudia Cardinale; the original Italian trailer; and two documentaries - TF1's Les Coulisses du tournage, and RAI's hour-long Luchino Visconti.

• Soundtrack CD of Nino Rota's glorious score for the film.
• 40-page booklet featuring archival imagery, articles by Luchino Visconti ("The Miracle That Gave Man Crumbs") and respected Italian film critic Guido Aristarco ("The Earth Still Trembles"), and a rare interview with Visconti ("Questions for the Author") translated into English for the first time.

Release Date: 25 February 2008
Catalogue No: EKA40257
Barcode: 5060000402575
RRP: £22.99
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 170 minutes
Format: B&W
Genre: Crime/ Drama
Director: Luchino Visconti
Year: 1960
Country: Italy