John Turturro

by D.K. Holm

28 February, 1957—, Brooklyn, New York.

Films as director, unless otherwise noted:

Mac (1992)

Illuminata (1998)

ohn Turturro is an example of what happens when the lunatics take charge of the asylum. Mac was an easily forgotten film, if personally important to its writer-director-star. In it, the eldest son of a now fatherless family takes over leadership duties, and after working as a carpenter for a cheap contractor, sets off on his own, dragging two resistant brothers with him. The film is not only autobiographical (apparently the narrative represents actual experiences in the life of Turturro's father), but metaphorical as well, with Turturro's Niccolo Vitelli fleeing bad leadership (skimping contractor / bad film director) to strike out on his own (Turturro as contractor / his own film director and writer). The well-meaning tone of the film cannot disguise the fact that it is, to one viewer at least, boring. Turturro's admirable ambition, however, has gotten him in over his head. With Illuminata, finished in 1998 but only released late in 1999, he more explicitly addresses the world of theater and acting.

It's a dreadful film. But people who admire Turturro as the occasionally brilliant character actor (Quiz Show, The Big Lebowski ) will want to like it, will almost will themselves to do so. Once again we confront Turturro playing a character whose ambitions exceed his present station. He is Tuccio, a minor member of an international acting troupe situated in an imaginary and Nabokovian amalgam of New York City, Italy, and Victorian London. He is the high minded artist, surrounded by the rank and commercial and selfish. He wants to mount a play, but the company is resistant, as is his lover (played by Turturro's real life wife, Katherine Borowitz).

Readers with a long memory will recall the acceptance speech for a special Oscar that Laurence Olivier gave at the 1978 awards ceremony. It made no sense. It was like nonsense verse, floating on its music but conveying nothing, caloryless and insubstantial. "In the great wealth, the great firmament of your nation's generosities, this particular choice may perhaps be found by future generations as a trifle eccentric, but the mere fact of it—the prodigal, pure, human kindness of it—must be seen as a beautiful star in that firmament which shines upon me at this moment, dazzling me a little, but filling me with the warmth of the extraordinary elation, the euphoria that happens to so many of us at the first breath of the majestic glow of a new tomorrow. From the top of this moment, in the solace, in the kindly emotion that is charging my soul and my heart at this moment, I thank you for this great gift which lends me such a very splendid part in this, your glorious occasion." You will also recall that after this pabulum was uttered, Jon Voight was shown smacking his head in raptures, as if he actually understood the nonsense emanating from the stage. Actors are drawn to this manner of claptrap for some reason. They think it actually means something. That's because actors, American actors anyway, are trained to feel, not to think, to attend to the undercurrent not to the main thread. If uttered with the right gravity, and with a few poetical words tossed in ("firmament"), bulshit will befould even the most ardent actor, who will go crazy over verbiage that is absolutely fatuous.

That's what the whole last movement of Illuminata becomes. Tuccio finally gets his play mounted. Three actors speak his lines. There is a moody quiet on the stage. The audience is rapped. Tuccio looks on with slack jawed awe at his own creation (played by Turturro, who also as director is filming himself looking on his own creation with rapture). Yet none of the play within a film makes sense. It is incomprehensible—but full of feeling, which is all anyone seems to care about in Turturro's films.

The rest of Illuminata is a collection of half remember anecdotes about Sarah Bernhardt and other components of acting lore. Cribbed, mauled, and rendered nonsensical, Turturro and Brandon Cole, his co-writer here and in Mac, manufacture a paean to the world of acting that would naturally attract a big and interesting cast such as the one Turturro collects. But language, in its primary function as a vehicle for communicating information, escapes him. Evidence of this was provided on PBS's Charlie Rose Show Wednesday, August 4th. Turturro, explaining some of his influences, mentioned Jean Renoir and Rules of the Game . He quoted his favorite line from the film: "The terrible thing about life is that everyone has his needs." That Turturro could so mangle one of the most famous lines of dialogue in the history of cinema is testimony to the fact that he should stay on his proper side of the camera, where he will be forced to repeat someone else's words until he gets them right under the supervision of someone with an active intelligence.

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