Recovered Classic 14: Starmaker

Foreign language films face a well-documented struggle to attract the widespread recognition they often deserve. A privileged few manage to make the leap from the art house circuit into the mainstream, but those that do are a rare breed.

Italian cinema has fared better than most, with the likes of Il Postino, Life is Beautiful and Cinema Paradiso all winning Oscars of some description and benefiting hugely from the increased exposure.

Having bagged the Academy's Best Foreign Language Film gong for 1989's Cinema Paradiso (a film about the friendship between a projectionist and a young boy), director Giuseppe Tornatore returned to Sicily for Starmaker. Again taking the magic of the movies as its central theme, this was a much darker evocation of the lure of the silver screen, but further underlined Tornatore's directing talent by snagging another Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

Set in 1953, Sergio Castellitto stars as Joe Morelli, a talent scout who travels around the country in his rickety old van stuffed with lights, cameras and assorted paraphernalia. Touring the many backwaters, he sets up his tent and offers screen tests (for a charge), luring unsuspecting villagers with promises of movie stardom….if the producers at Universal Studios in Rome like your face that is.

He is, of course, a total fraud, a complete charlatan, who nevertheless manages to dazzle and mesmerize people with dreams of wealth, glory and even salvation. His sideshow proves irresistible, the chance to be immortalized on film offering hope to scores of people who previously had none.
Abandoned women, policemen, homosexuals, Mafiosi, shepherds, the queue of people waiting to be hoodwinked while bearing their souls in front of his camera grows ever longer. They tell stories both comic and tragic, confessing their sins, their fears, their fantasies.

Happy to take their money because in some perverse way he believes he is doing them a favour by giving them the opportunity to express their dreams, Morelli's conscience is finally stirred by the beautiful Beata (Tiziana Lodato), an illiterate innocent and would-be starlet whom he falls in love with.
Exquisitely shot and featuring stunning locations, although Tornatore's film undergoes a somewhat abrupt change of tone once the story arc involving Beata starts to take over, there is much to enjoy and cherish here. The early scenes stand out in particular, most notably when the residents of one village become obsessed with trying to learn lines from Gone With the Wind. The crazy assortment of auditions and screen tests are also great fun to watch, adding a palpable charm and quirkiness, with Castellitto putting in a terrific performance in the central role.

But the director has veered away from the innocent appeal of Cinema Paradiso and puts a harrowing spin on this movie, which evokes a certain poignancy and gives the proceedings an unexpected twist. So this is no picture postcard charm offensive by any means.

Backed up by an atmospheric Ennio Morricone score, the film lost out in the 1995 Oscars to Dutch movie Antonia's Line, but it proves to be an intriguing tale told with considerable flair. It is perhaps too long and overly bogged down in its own moralizing in parts, but the director has blended his formidable film-making skills with a powerful and at times enchanting story which makes for rewarding and stimulating viewing.

David Lichtneker

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