Illuminata movie storyline. Actor John Turturro, who made his directorial debut with the Cannes Camera d’Or winner Mac (1992), returned to directing with this period farce about a struggling, turn-of-the-century New York repertory company owned by Astergourd (Beverly D’Angelo) and Pallenchio (Donal McCann). Egotistical playwright Tuccio (Turturro) has written a new play, Illuminata, for the troupe’s actress-manager Rachel (Katherine Borowitz), daughter of aging actor Flavio (Ben Gazzara), who’s lost his memory.
Tuccio would like to see Illuminata staged, but the owners feel the play is unfinished. Young Piero (Matthew Sussman) collapses while performing in Cavalleria Rusticana, and this provides the ambitious Tuccio with an opportunity to introduce his new work to audiences. Unfortunately, foppish critic Bevalaqua (Christopher Walken) is unimpressed and issues a vicious attack on the production — while also making unsubtle overtures to company clown Marco (Bill Irwin). Diva Celimene (Susan Sarandon) seduces Tuccio with her promises to bring him worldwide fame and fortune. Other liaisons are played out with the juvenile leads (Rufus Sewell, Georgina Cates), a veteran clown (Leo Bassi), and a supporting actress (Aida Turturro). Shown in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
Illuminata is a 1998 romantic comedy film directed by John Turturro and written by Brandon Cole and John Turturro, based on Cole’s play. The cinematographer was Harris Savides. The puppet sequences were done by Roman Paska. Music for the ‘Tuccio Operatic Dream Sequence’ was composed by Richard Termini.
Film Review for Illuminata
”Illuminata” is John Turturro’s enormously fond homage to the world of acting, beguilingly presented and filled with knowing backstage humor. And Mr. Turturro, who directed the film and wrote its screenplay with Brandon Cole, from Mr. Cole’s original play, has done a fine job of drawing his cast into the spirit of celebration. The players’ enthusiasm for this material is palpable as ”Illuminata” summons the stock characters of behind-the-scenes theater stories and affectionately invests them with new life. The actor who is asked, ”You can’t cross left to right?” and answers, ”Not emotionally, no” may be a familiar type, but he’s not one who’ll ever go out of style.
Set amid a turn-of-the-century New York repertory company with a strongly European flavor, ”Illuminata” features such divine fixtures as the aging diva, Celimene. She is played gleefully by Susan Sarandon as the kind of actress who sees a fresh-faced young beauty and is moved to remark: ”That is how I shall look years from now. I’m beginning to be able to play ingenues.” Attacked with equal gusto is the smug, lofty critic with the Transylvanian accent, hilariously played by Christopher Walken as a master of casual cruelty and irrelevant ad hominem observations.
When this critic arrives to review the troupe’s work, he winds up writing about the long eyelashes of a male bit player. Bill Irwin is amusingly cast as the reluctant object of the critic’s affections. ”There is nothing I like better than things like this,” the critic confides when one of the actors goes wild and apparently drops dead onstage.
Mr. Turturro and his somberly beautiful wife, Katherine Borowitz, play out the section of ”Illuminata” that gives it ballast and heart. (Their photogenic son, Amedeo, also has a small role in the film.) The filmmaker appears as Tuccio, an aspiring playwright involved with Ms. Borowitz’s Rachel, the company’s reigning star. These two work out a delicate balance of love and ambition during the course of the story, and deliver what are its most earnest and also most theatrical sentiments. ”Illuminata” is both the title of Tuccio’s play and what he eventually calls Rachel, as the light of his life, after the film has taken them down quite a rocky road.
Meanwhile, Beverly D’Angelo brazens her way delightfully through the film as one of the theater’s owners, with a comic yet movingly rueful performance from Donal McCann as her weaker mate. (Mr. McCann, who died in July, is well remembered for his role in John Huston’s elegiacal film ”The Dead.”) The large and zestful cast also includes Rufus Sewell, breathing funny new life into the standard-issue myopic leading man; Ben Gazzara as an actor who can’t build a character without the right hat, and Aida Turturro and Leo Bassi as the story’s earthiest clowns.
Mr. Turturro, who directs ”Illuminata” well enough to let the viewer stop noticing that he directed it, gives the film (handsomely shot by Harris Savides) more visual variety than might be expected. There are puppets and curtain calls, an exotic lair for Ms. Sarandon’s grande dame and a quaint and invitingly dreamlike stage set. The white flakes drifting onto this set are bread crumbs at an early stage, flower petals by the time the film is over.
Illuminata (1999)
Directed by: John Turturro
Starring: Leo Bassi, Henri Behar, Maurizio Benazzo, Beverly D’Angelo, Fernando Bolles, Katherine Borowitz, Jeff Braun, David Cale, Georgina Cates
Screenplay by: Brandon Cole
Production Design by: Robin Standefer
Cinematography by: Harris Savides
Film Editing by: Michael Berenbaum
Costume Design by: Roman Paska, Donna Zakowska
Set Decoration by: Donna Hamilton
Art Direction by: Stephen Alesch
Music by: Arnold Black, William Bolcom
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content, nudity and language.
Distributed by: Artisan Entertainment
Release Date: August 6, 1999
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