Cast: Sergio Castellitto, Tiziana Lodato, Franco Scaldati
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Producers: Vittorio and Rita Cecchi Gori
Screenplay: Giuseppe Tornatore and Fabio Rinaudo
Cinematography: Dante Spinotti
Music: Ennio Morricone
U.S. Distributor: Miramax Films
In Italian with subtitles
Once again, Miramax Films is marketing a motion picture as something it isn't. All the ads for The Star Maker present it as a lighthearted romance like The Postman. In reality, however, this is a cynical, often-grim look at cupidity and its tragic consequences. In tone, it's more like Lamerica than The Postman, and, even though director Giuseppe Tornatore previously made Cinema Paradiso, The Star Maker has little of that film's warm sense of nostalgia. This movie is designed to be disturbing, not exhilarating, and it's extremely effective at that.
Tornatore has structured his film in a most atypical fashion. The Star Maker starts out as a light comedy with dark undertones. Sergio Castellitto is Joe Morelli, an itinerant talent scout who is making his way across Sicily, advertising that, for 1500 lire, anyone can film a screen test. He dangles fame and fortune before all comers, most of whom can't really afford the fee. There are numerous comic anecdotes as men and women do their own, often-absurd interpretations of Rhett and Scarlet from Gone With the Wind, but, lurking beneath the surface humor is a sense of growing desperation. It doesn't take long to recognize that Morelli is a con man, and his promises are as empty as the purses of those who entrust their dreams to him.
As the film progresses, Morelli becomes more reprehensible. Men and women come to him as if he was a priest, with heartfelt confessions of their past and hopes for a brighter future, but Morelli doesn't hear or care about their words -- all he wants is payment, either in coin or in trade (he accepts sexual favors from one woman who doesn't have any money). He's a cruel, self-absorbed man who scavenges through life's wreckage in the small, bombed-out towns of post-World War II Sicily.
In the village of Scordizzi, a girl named Beata (Tiziana Lodato) is enraptured by Morelli and his lifestyle. To obtain the 1500 lire for a screen test, she strips naked in front of a local bigwig, then, when Morelli leaves her town, she stows away in his van, offering him her body when he discovers her. Beata is hopelessly in the star maker's thrall, but, as usual, Morelli cares only about himself.
In the end, Morelli must face the consequences of his actions, but that doesn't do much for the innocent victims scattered in his wake. Morelli is never fully redeemed -- this isn't Restoration. Nevertheless, by the time we get to the epilogue, he has changed. The ugliness of his past isn't behind him, though. It hangs over him like a pall, and will dog his tracks to the end of his days. During the course of the film, one Mafioso accuses Morelli of not honoring the dead, but his real problem is that he doesn't honor the living.
The Star Maker is a beautifully-filmed motion picture. Not only does cinematographer Dante Spinotti do a wonderful job showing off Sicily, but his silhouette-saturated shots of Morelli inside his tent after dark are evocative. Ennio Morricone's low-key score is the perfect companion to Spinotti's images.
With The Star Maker, Tornatore has fashioned a powerful motion picture whose impact comes through legitimate drama, not cheap manipulation. The primary actors, Castellitto and Lodato, are both excellent, and the film's unhurried pace allows the audience to gradually understand how much subtle damage Morelli is doing. Historically, The Star Maker reminds us of the deep divisions in Italy after Mussolini's fall, and how isolated Sicily is from the rest of the country. Ultimately, however, this is a study of the baser elements of human nature, and a reminder that any person's actions can have unexpectedly painful ramifications for others.
© 1996 James Berardinelli