Marco Bellocchio

Fists in the Pocket

Fists in the Pocket

Tormented by twisted desires, a young man takes drastic measures to rid his grotesquely dysfunctional family of its various afflictions, in this astonishing 1965 debut from Marco Bellocchio. With its coolly assured style, shocking perversity, and savage gallows humor, Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca) was a gleaming ice pick in the eye of bourgeois family values and Catholic morality, a truly unique work that continues to rank as one of the great achievements of Italian cinema.

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Film Info

  • Marco Bellocchio
  • Italy
  • 1965
  • 108 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.85:1
  • Italian
  • Spine #333

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • On the DVD: Restored high-definition digital transfer
  • On the Blu-ray: New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Marco Bellocchio, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Interviews from 2005 with Bellocchio, actors Lou Castel and Paola Pitagora, editor Silvano Agosti, critic Tullio Kezich, and filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci
  • New interview with scholar Stefano Albertini (Blu-ray only)
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young and (with the DVD) an interview with Bellocchio

Cover by Neil Kellerhouse and Peter Grant

Purchase Options

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films

Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films

DVD Box Set

50 Discs

$650.00

Special Features

  • On the DVD: Restored high-definition digital transfer
  • On the Blu-ray: New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Marco Bellocchio, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Interviews from 2005 with Bellocchio, actors Lou Castel and Paola Pitagora, editor Silvano Agosti, critic Tullio Kezich, and filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci
  • New interview with scholar Stefano Albertini (Blu-ray only)
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Deborah Young and (with the DVD) an interview with Bellocchio

Cover by Neil Kellerhouse and Peter Grant

Fists in the Pocket
Cast
Lou Castel
Alessandro
Paola Pitagora
Giulia
Marino Masé
Augusto
Liliana Gerace
Mother
Pierluigi Troglio
Leone
Jenny MacNeil
Lucia
Credits
Director
Marco Bellocchio
Written by
Marco Bellocchio
Produced by
Enzo Doria
Production manager
Ugo Novello
Cinematography
Alberto Marrama
Music by
Ennio Morricone
Art direction
Gisella Longo
Edited by
Silvano Agosti
Dubbing director
Elda Tattoli
Assistant editor
Anita Cacciolati
Sound
Vittorio De Sisti
Camera operator
Giuseppe Lanci
Assistant camera operator
Alberto Rosa

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Explore

Ennio Morricone

Composer

Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone

After making a name for himself scoring spaghetti westerns, Ennio Morricone went on to work with some of the most renowned European and Hollywood moviemakers of all time in a career that has spanned five decades. The maestro was born in Rome and educated in trumpet and choral music at Italy’s National Academy of Santa Cecilia, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, during World War II. Early in his career, he wrote background music for radio dramas, composed classical pieces, and performed in jazz bands, but it was his sixties movie scores for Sergio Leone—specifically his now ubiquitous woodwindy wah-wah for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—that put him on the international map. Thanks to the iconic themes from these films, Morricone would be commissioned to write music for more than forty other westerns, but he would also work with such filmmakers as Marco Bellocchio (Fists in the Pocket), Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salò), and, when he began scoring American films, Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven), Samuel Fuller (White Dog), Brian De Palma (The Untouchables), and John Carpenter (The Thing). Moving easily between B movies and prestige films, adventure and romance, Morricone has remained one of cinema’s most adventurous, active, and versatile composers.

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