A Very Entertaining Film Despite Inevitable Adverse Comparisons with Cinema Paradiso
Written: Feb 29 '04 (Updated Feb 04 '06)
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Pros: A fine film by Tornatore, despite some weaknesses
Cons: Not up to the standard of Tornatore’s magnificent Cinema Paradiso
The Bottom Line: Recommended, despite some weaknesses, for its strong initial premise, fascinating depiction of the Sicilian people, great cinematography, strong performances, and lovely Tiziana Lodato in the flesh
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
What The Star Maker most suffers from is high expectations. Released in 1995, it was directed by Giuseppe Tornatore who also directed the 1990 Academy Award winner in the Best Foreign Film category, Cinema Paradiso, which is America’s second most popular foreign film of all time according to one poll. Moreover, The Star Maker shares some common elements with Cinema Paradiso. Both are set in Sicily shortly after World War II when Italy was struggling to recover from the devastation of its economy as well as its physical structure. Both films deal with aspects of the 1950's film industry, the earlier film focusing on a boy’s fascination with the projection booth of the local movie theater and the more recent film taking up the subject of screen testing. Both films are first and foremost about Sicily – its people and its picturesque landscapes. Comparisons between the two films are therefore inevitable. Unfortunately, The Star Maker does not fare well on the basis of comparison with Cinema Paradiso, although few films would.
I’ve given The Star Maker a four-star rating, but it comes by that rating in a rather unusual way. It’s not four-star across the board in all of its cinematic qualities. It’s five-star in some respects but three-stars or less in some other facets. One is left with the frustrating feeling that this film could have been a truly great one if only the director and script writer had put more attention into eliminating some glaring weaknesses. A great initial premise, a couple of outstanding performances, and some exquisitely beautiful cinematography have been partially negated by weak dialogue, inconsistencies of purpose between the film’s beginning and its end, and lack of a compelling ending.
The story concerns Joe Morelli (Sergio Castellitto) who roams around the small, rural towns of Sicily in a beat-up truck, posing as a talent scout for a movie company – Universal Studios of Rome. He is a con artist using the lure of fame and fortune to play on the hopes of a desperate population. In each town he visits, he initially circles a few times through the town in his dilapidated truck, plastered with movie posters, with loudspeakers blaring, “We are here to offer you a fantastic future!” Then he stops in the town’s central square and sets up his tripod and camera. Soon, everyone in town is practicing lines from “Gone With the Wind”, to very humorous effect, especially when a group of local tough guys recite Scarlet’s lines to one another. He offers screen tests for 1500 lire (to “cover the expense of film and processing”). In point of fact, the film in his camera has long since expired. “Mother of God, what a face!” “You’re sitting on a gold mine.” With enticements like these, the naïve villagers fork over what amounts to a life savings in those difficult times for a shot at immortality and liberation from poverty. “Profile left!” “Profile right!” “Look at the Camera!”
The greatest strength of The Star Maker is the almost unlimited potential provided by this initial premise for some truly fascinating and entertaining film making. The idea of lots of ordinary citizens from various small Sicilian towns taking screen tests provides endless opportunity to exhibit a fascinating cross-section of the colorful people of Sicily. Some are paralyzed by the camera; some find release. The oldest man in town – at 112 years of age – stares toothlessly into the camera. A teenager breaks into tears, sobbing about how desperate she is to get out of her little town. One penniless mother seduces Joe in order to get a screen test for her teenage daughter and Joe is well pleased to accept sexual favors in lieu of payment. Joe films them reciting lines from “Gone With the Wind.” Some ham it up; some play it straight (or, at least, some attempt to do so). Some are unable to remember the lines, so Joe encourages them to simply say whatever comes to mind. This leads to some poignant confessional kind of monologues. One old professor, wearing a cloak, who has not spoken since the war, suddenly finds himself able to speak in front of the camera about the war trauma that has made him mute, “Oh, Fifth Regiment of my life”. A shepherd comes down from the hills for a screen tests and recites for the camera, “The best thing about being a shepherd is that you can reason with the stars.” While they bare their souls, Joe only pretends to listen and care, but later grouses, “They’re all a pain in the @ss.” In his mind, they are just pathetic suckers, “dumb beasts and rednecks.” On one level, this is about the ability of a movie camera to encourage people to lose their inhibitions – to open up or show off. On another level, it is about the Catholic faith and its belief in absolution by confession.
Tornatore’s infatuation with American film is made evident in both Cinema Paradiso and in The Star Maker, with the frequent insertion of clips in the former film and the use of lines from Gone With the Wind in the latter one. Yet, for all his admiration for American film, Tornatore’s own directorial style is distinctly European (and neorealistic, specifically), including the rejection of Hollywood’s star system of casting in preference for natural, working class, nonprofessional faces as well as a relatively unstructured “scriptless” approach to filming, a la Fellini or De Sica. The premise of The Star Maker (the discovery of stars through a talent search among the general population) is rendered more credible by the European method of casting than would be the case here in America.
The film takes a deeper turn when in one town, Joe encounters a lovely teenaged girl named Beata (Tiziana Lodato). Beata is an innocent, virginal, illiterate, and somewhat dim-witted beauty who has grown up in a convent and who survives by scrubbing floors and by revealing her body to lecherous old men. There’s an interesting kind of hypocrisy in the film’s treatment of Beata’s removing her blouse for lire: as viewers of the film, we are led to feel some natural disgust toward the exploitation of Beata’s innocence and circumstances, while at the same time we partake in precisely the same kind of enjoyment in looking at her marvelously sculptured body. Tornatore exploits Lodato’s beauty to the maximum extent via multiple scenes involving nudity and sex knowing full well the commercial value of doing so. The viewing public (especially the male segment) flocks to this film as much for this reason as any other, in effect paying to see Beata naked. I don’t say that it’s wrong; only that it is hypocritical for us to view the old men in the film as any more lecherous than the rest of us. I don’t scrupple to assert that Lodato in the buff is well worth the price of admission!
Having scraped together the price of a screen test with Joe Morelli, Beata sits before the camera, saying, “I like love stories where everybody kisses and are happy ever after.” Beata’s simple purity and stunning beauty is more than even Joe can ignore. It must pass through his mind, at this moment, that were he anything more than a fraud, Beata could have been his “discovery.” Joe is so taken by her sensuality and emotional chastity that, in a moment of conscience, he refuses to take her money. Joe’s cruel, selfish psyche has been stung by love’s bite. When Joe leaves town, Beata stows away in the back of his truck. She is hopelessly in love with the Star Maker. He cares only for himself, but cannot resist her seductive appeal. In a pang of decency, Joe returns her to her village, but their lives have now become intertwined.
On the road, Joe faces challenges. His truck is pulled over by bandits led by a pair of brothers. They intend to kill him but Joe, ever the flim flam man, talks his way out of the predicament by marveling at the beauty of their faces and their movie star potential. Soon, the bandits are gawking for the camera and paying Joe for the privilege. Joe gives a ride to a local physician whose selfless devotion to his patients provides stark contrast to Joe’s callous self-absorption. The physician says to him, significantly, “We all understand things when it is too late.” This could be seen as a pretty fair statement of the film’s core message. Joe is commandeered with his equipment, in one town, by the local Mafia. The Mafia don has died and the henchmen, sentimentally, want a picture of him to remember him by, since the don never allowed his picture to be taken in life. Later, discovering that Joe is a fraud, they accuse him of dishonoring the dead and exact retribution by beating him up. In actuality, Joe honors neither the dead nor the living. Joe films a police officer who vainly believes himself to have star potential. This leads to Joe’s undoing when the officer discovers through some investigation that Joe is a phony.
The structure of The Star Maker is very unusual and, unfortunately, not in a successful way. The first half of the film, approximately, has the feel of a comedy, even if the comedic elements are spurred by Joe’s scam. The latter half of the film deepens and darkens unexpectedly, and has the distinct feel of a tragedy by the end. In comparison to Cinema Paradiso, this film is a good deal more disturbing, dealing with the baser elements of human nature. It is reminiscent of La Strada, which also entails an innocent, good-hearted girl, a hardened male performer, and a realization that materializes too late of the value of love.
The performance by Castellitto as Joe Morelli is very effective. Morelli is duly portrayed for all his slimy cynicism and disregard for humanity. The performance by Lodata as Beata is even better. She almost steals the film in her more limited role. She gives Beata the required simplicity and innocence together with appealing sensuality.
The biggest weakness of The Star Maker is that the epilogue fails to give adequate meaning to what has transpired over the course of the film. We are left only with an understanding that the consequences of Joe’s vile fraud will hang over him like a pall for the rest of his days. It is too little by way of resolution.
Despite the shortcomings, I am recommending this film for the success of the initial premise and the entertaining segments it provides, the beauty of the cinematography and the Sicilian countryside, the performances by the leads, and, yes – for the men and any women so inclined – the beauty of the Lodatian landscape. For the last of these reasons, the film is rated R for sex and full frontal nudity, bad language, and some violence. The running time is 108 minutes.
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