Illuminata

Starring:Leo Bassi, Henri Behar, Maurizio Benazzo, Fernando Bolles, Katherine Borowitz, Jeff Braun (II), David Cale, Georgina Cates, Kenny Cranna, Beverly D'Angelo, George DiCenzo, Timothy Doyle, Ben Gazzara, Alexander Goodwin, Amo Gulinello, Bill Irwin, Donal McCann, Chris Papadopoulos, Joe Paparone
Studio: Live / Artisan
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

John Turturro's homage to the world of theatrical make-believe may fall short of the shining beacons of this Shakespearean genre--Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander and Jean Renoir's The Golden Coach, for two--but his Illuminata casts considerable sweetness and light of its own. Mostly set in a teeming warren of private and performance spaces within a turn-of-the-century theater, the film follows the fluctuating fortunes of playwright Tuccio (Turturro), his lover-muse-leading lady (Katherine Borowitz, Turturro's offscreen wife), and their colorful company: Rufus Sewell and Georgina Cates, youthful, less wise projections of playwright and muse; Ben Gazzara as a grizzled old thespian forgetful of the line between reality and performance; Bill Irwin as the naive bit player who catches the hungry eye of Christopher Walken's deliciously over-the-top, acid-tongued critic; Susan Sarandon as a calculatingly seductive diva fighting her age; and commedia dell'arte types Aida Turturro and Leo Bassi. Tuccio's dying to get his play on the boards, but as theater owners Beverly D'Angelo (she of the endearing overbite) and Donal McCann (late star of Irish cinema, and of John Huston's The Dead) reasonably point out, his delicate fantasy about love and illusion lacks an ending. Zigzagging through Midsummer Night's Dream misunderstandings and misalliances, slipping seamlessly from mundane into artifice and back again, Illuminata wends its way toward Tuccio's bittersweet denouement. In Mac, his directorial debut, Turturro paid heartfelt tribute to his own blue-collar dad; this sophomore effort (cowritten with friend and fellow director Brandon Cole) glows with warm affection for audiences, actors, and those who dream their plays. --Kathleen Murphy

Customer Reviews:

Almost TOO smart for it's own good!.......2007-02-26

Beautifully and artfully conceived and filmed,ILLUMINATA, which hosts an incredibly diverse and multi-talented cast under the direction of John Turturro,is magnificent and yet horribly convoluted.Do not bat an eyelash or you will miss something in this dialogue-laden,multi-character driven farce about the bizarre world of live theatre.It all comes together in the end,but getting there can be a bit dodgey at best.ILLUMINATA may just be a little TOO smart for it's own good.Definitely not light and frothy entertainment, but a highly complex film that requires the utmost of concentration. [...]

Horrendously overplayed, wildly unsuccessful.......2005-11-11

How can a film with such a cast be so little known? Well, sadly because it just isn't any good. And equally sadly, the blame seems to rest fairly and squarely on John Turturo's shoulders, who fails as co-writer, leading man and director to ever bring a cohesiveness to his material. To call it disjointed is being kind.

Illuminata is one of those films where you can see what the original appeal was but which just wears you down as it gets worse and worse and worse while intermittently throwing you a bone only to snatch it away. The screenplay is a complete mess, John Turturo's direction extremely poor and the tone horrendously uneven, not simply from scene to scene but from actor to actor: some of them don't even seem to be acting in the same movie. With the very honorable exceptions of Katherine Borowitz and Rufus Sewell, most of the stellar cast embarrass themselves on a regular basis with outrageously unfunny OTT performances that are out of place even in a backstage period piece.

It's easy to imagine Woody Allen circa Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy being able to tame the material and bring out its strengths, but Turturo just lets it run all over the place, with the bad all too often swamping the brief passages of good dialog completely. A pity.

Inticing the Senses..........2004-02-11

This is a movie of free spirits, truely for romantics who can appriciate the brilliant colours and scenery, which this movie supplies. It has witty dialoge and will be sure to grab all of your senses. It is sensual and magnificent. Reds of pomegranate, and blues of lover's eyes... everything beautiful and pure. This movie is not dull, but subdued. If you are not in love, you will want to be.

Watch again and again.......2000-08-28

A very interesting movie that needs to be watched more then once because of the different genres that reside in this movie. Having been on the set and watching the film build and unfold, it is a beautiful movie with its wonderful costumes and ideas.

Don't rate this movie by what we, the reviewers have said, rather watch the movie yourself and see what you get out of it. It is hard to understand at times but sometime movies need to be deeper then the fashes of action and explosions that catches our "attention span of a tick." Sit back and just enjoy something that is either meaningless or thought envoking.

dull backstage drama.......2000-07-28

"Write about what you know" has long been the dictum for writers ranging all the way from accomplished published authors to struggling composition class students; is there a playwright then who can resist the temptation to compose a play about composing a play? It has, of course, been done countless times in the past ("Shakespeare in Love" being but the most recent popular example), but, alas, rarely as dully as in "Illuminata," Brandon Cole's tale of a turn-of-the-century repertory company struggling, amid personal conflicts, theatrical roadblocks and even death, to produce an original work (itself entitled "Illuminata"). Cole, along with co-writer and director, John Turturro, centers his story on the playwright, Tuccio, (also played by Turturro), as he copes with temperamental actors, theatre owners and critics, all of whom conspire, intentionally or unintentionally, to sabotage his work.

Like so many films that attempt to deal seriously with the creative process, "Illuminata" seems naively to suggest that inspiration can only be achieved after the creator has undergone a series of concomitant life experiences that somehow illuminate the truths hitherto obscured in darkness. Thus, since, in this case, the play-within-the-play deals with the issue of marital infidelity, it is only after the entire cast and crew of the production have participated in a night long sexual roundelay (which consists essentially of switching partners in a style too cute for words) that the play (which failed in its first performance the night before) can come to complete artistic fruition. This cloying and cliched view of theatre as merely a reflection of life (or vice versa) might have been acceptable had the script provided any truly interesting characters, profound insights or satiric wit to carry us through. As it is, though, the characters are both unappealing and woefully underdeveloped, the insights consist of mere self-indulgent paeans to the glory of artistic creation and the humor rests mainly in a series of surprisingly crude illustrations of sexual activity. Furthermore, Turturro is such a dull, uninspiring lead, with his constant sadsack expression and look of pained bewilderment, that he conveys no sense of the dynamism essential to a person capable of producing a work of genius. This leaves the rest of the cast, some of whom are very good, pretty much adrift as they thrash about looking for something solid in the way of character development to hold onto.

Actually, the highlight of this film comes during the opening credit sequence, a beautifully done marionette performance that is almost heartbreaking in its otherworldly beauty and delicacy. It is a measure of the failure of the rest of the film that the audience wishes IT were performed by marionettes as well.

Charlie Rose with David Broder, Christopher Walken, John Turturro, and Brandon Cole (August 4, 1999)
Average customer rating:
Charlie Rose with David Broder, Christopher Walken, John Turturro, and Brandon Cole (August 4, 1999)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
All Titles | Charlie Rose Store | Television | Genres | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000LMPMQE
Release Date: 2006-08-08

Illuminata [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]
Average customer rating:
Illuminata [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]
Director: John Turturro
Manufacturer: Magna Pacific
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video
General | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000FMJBE4

Product Description

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: English (Dolby Digital 2.0), SYNOPSIS: It's the start of the 20th century, and Tuccio, resident playwright of a theatre repertory company offers the owners of the company his new play, 'Illuminata'. They reject it, saying it's not finished, and intrigue starts that involves influential critic Bevalaqua, theatre star Celimene, young lead actors and other theatre residents. SPECIAL FEATURES: Scene Access, Interactive Menu,