ILLUMINATA
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Artisan Entertainment Director: John Turturro Writer: John Turturro, Brandon Cole Cast: John Turturro, Katherine Borowitz, Christopher Walken, Susan Sarandon, Beverly D'Angelo, Bill Irwin, Rufus Sewell, Georgina Cates, Matthew Sussman, Ben Gazzara, Leo Bassi, Donal McCann, Aida Turturro, Jeremy Knaster, David Thornton
Theater people are not like you and me. Many live their lives as though they are always "on," always performing, and like the character Mima in the new anime movie "Perfect Blue" and Dr. Bill Harford in "Eyes Wide Shut" may have trouble distinguishing between illusion and reality. Some folks are born to be accountants while others are created to be on the stage. The genetic difference between CPA's and thespians could be staggering.
We're not talking about the big successes of the Broadway and West End stages, who appreciate the commercial nature of their job, but of those who in New York would likely be seen in small, remote, off-off Broadway platforms and in London somewhere out on the fringe. These dedicated performers are fulfilling a labor of love and are perhaps so accustomed to taking on roles of idiosyncratic and archetypal characters that they comport themselves like their fictional doubles even when away from the glare of the bright lights and the now worshipping, now condemning audience.
John Turturro, a creative force on both stage and screen, is one of the people best able lovingly to portray the often zany lives of people who live for the joy of performing. A director as well as actor, he helmed the crowd-pleasing, autobiographical "Mac" some seven years ago, a solid tale of three Italian-American brothers in Queens, New York during the mid-fifties. The movie, which was dedicated to Turturro's carpenter father whose life inspired the film, portrays a man whose penny-pinching boss frustrates him and makes him determined to realize the American Dream by starting his own construction company. If "Mac" is crammed with offbeat humor, authentically recreating the lives of blue-collar people,"Illuminata" is likewise packaged as a droll portrait of the eccentric folks who work inside the auditoriums constructed by those builders.
Again casting his real-life wife, Katherine Borowitz, in a major guise, Turturro unfolds a tale in which he plays a role not unlike his capacity as a haunted playwright in "Barton Fink." In "Illuminata"--which takes its name from the designation of the play that Tuccio (Turturro) has written for a New York company at about the year 1900--the playwright struggles to have a theater owner put on his latest unfinished work. Truly a labor of love, his drama is written specifically as a gift for his beloved Rachel (Katherine Borowitz), the company's acclaimed actress and enterprise manager, but theater owners Astergourd (Beverly D'Angelo) and Pallenchio (Donal McCann) feel that the work is not ready. An opportunity suddenly arises to stage the work, but the renowned and effete drama critic Umberto Bevalaqua (Christopher Walken) pans the production. Insisting that with the proper re-writes "Illuminata" can be reconceived and win plaudits, the company seeks to win a reversal from the critic by setting up reluctant cast member Marco (Bill Irwin) on a "date" with Bevalaqua--which provides this movie with its principal scene of pure farce. While Tuccio continues to re- write scenes, rehearsing the lines diligently with his sweetheart, the company as a whole becomes enmeshed in a roundelay of seductions that could have come from the quill pen of a farceur like Feydeau. Celemine (Susan Sarandon) seeks to entice Tuccio, the lovely Simone (Georgina Cates) has eyes for the handsome young Dominique (Rufus Sewell), the rotund Martha (Aida Turturro) sets her clutches on Pallenchio (Donal McCann).
Turturro, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brandon Cole, fills the two-hour comedy with bon mots that could bring a smile to Oscar Wilde's face. One member of the audience, clueless about his own feeling toward an evening's entertainment, insists, "Who knows what's good? That's what critics are for." We in the audience, all know that we can turn out better dramas than playwrights, hence the passing remark by one such fellow to the writer after seeing the play, "It would have been better if the wife killed herself."
Some of the liaisons seem highly improbable, but then these are actors and Turturro is pushing the farce envelope. "Illuminata" is not overlong but suffers from too many individual scenes, as couples pair off to carry out their trysts only to have editor Michael Berenbaum cut to the next duo just as we get to care about one pair. The film therefore fails to gel, to hold together, becoming more a series of Saturday- Night-Live style sketches, however effective the vignettes.
Christopher Walken walks away with the story each time he is on the screen--his hair twisted helter-skelter like the distracted and lovelorn critic that he is, his machinations on the handsome Marco providing much of the vitality of the story. The most captivating scene arrives at the very end as Simone and Dominique act out a tender love scene set against a fanciful sylvan background under a full moon, a woodland creature parting the screen at the moment Simone ascends a stairwell to the clouds. The hush that comes over the audience at the drama is paralleled by the stillness of the crowd in the movie theater as we perceive anew what live theater at its best is all about. "Illuminata" is backed up by William Bolcom's potent operatic music (the audience at the screening I attended remained throughout the final credits to enjoy the strains) and Donna Zakowska's capricious costumes.
Rated R. Running Time: 119 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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