Giuseppe Tornatore Movies

Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore returns to the helm for this suspenseful thriller concerning a young Ukrainian prostitute-turned-cleaning woman named Irina (Kseniya Rappoport). Years ago, Irina was drawn into an international prostitution ring before being brutalized by a man named Mold (Michele Placido) who also killed her boyfriend. Flash-forward to the present, and Irina is a humble cleaning woman in a building owned by jewelers. Though her appearance would suggest poverty, Irina always has a sizable wad of cash in her pocket and lives in a large apartment across the street from the loudly dysfunctional Adacher family. Gradually, the mousy cleaning woman works her way into the family home, befriending the parents (Claudia Gerini and Pierfrancesco Favino) and becoming a trusted confidante to their daughter Thea (Clara Dossena). As her relationship with the family deepens, her motivations for getting so close become frighteningly clear. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Roberto Ando directs this biopic about Sicilian aristocrat Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa -- who gained posthumous fame with his novel The Leopard later made into a film by Luchino Visconti -- and his relationship with two young proteges. Set in Palermo during the 1950s, the film centers on Marco Pace (Paolo Briguglia), a brilliant, taciturn university student and fledgling writer who gets himself introduced to Prince Tomasi di Lampedusa (Michel Bouquet). The youth unfortunately mistakes the Prince's preachy self-absorption for paternal interest and is thus crestfallen when his erstwhile mentor adopts rich relative Guido Lanza (Giorgio Lupano) as his heir. As the film progresses, a quiet rivalry builds between the youths. Cinema legend Jeanne Moreau also appears. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

On the 1st of January in 1900, Danny Boodmann (Bill Nunn), the mechanic of the transatlantic liner Virginian bound for America, finds an abandoned baby on board and decides to keep him. Nicknamed Novecento (1900), the boy grows up on the ship hidden from everyone. His presence is revealed when Danny dies in an accident. The young '1900' manages to hide again despite threats from the captain. Discovering a passion for music, he teaches himself to play the piano without being able to read the notes, and he soon becomes a virtuoso whose reputation spreads beyond the confines of the ship. Even the famous jazz piano player, Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III), gets on board for a challenge because he has heard rumors about the greatest piano player in the world living on a ship. The story is told by Max Tooney, Novocento's old trumpeter friend, who reminisces about the incredible pianist who never set foot on land. After two films about cinema, Giuseppe Tornatore comes up with the story of a highly imaginative artist who lives only for and through his art. Tornatore was inspired by a theatre monologue written in 1994 by Alessandro Baricco, and the film was shot partly in Odessa, on a sixty-year-old Russian freighter, and partly in the Cinecitta studios in Rome. Tim Roth's performance as the talented but reserved Novocento is remarkable, and the music of Ennio Morricone plays a vital role in the film. La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano, which was retitled The Legend of 1900 for US distribution after forty-five minutes have been cut, was originally two hours and forty minutes when it was shown to great success in Italy in autumn of 1998. The US version had its world premiere at the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

This Italian film was released in 1995 and slowly made its way around the world; its English title is The Star Maker. Like the Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso by the same writer-director, Guiseppe Tornatore, it's drenched in the filmmaker's love for cinema. In Sicily in the early 1950s, Joe Morelli (Sergio Castellitto) is a con man who travels by truck from village to village posing as a film company representative. For a fee, he offers the rubes screen tests, using passages from a script of Gone with the Wind and encouraging their hopes with lines such as "Success awaits you!" Morelli's camera brings out people's hidden sides, including a soldier's war trauma, a woman's protests at being accused of prostitution, and a policeman who recites poetry. Begging for a chance at the stardom Morelli purportedly offers, Beata (Tiziana Lodato) asks Morelli to take her with him. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

Three very odd relationships provide the basis for this thought-provoking Italian anthology that is overseen by director Bernardo Bertolucci. The first tale, "The Blue Dog" centers on a barber who becomes the fixation of a mysteriously devoted dog with an unusual blue spot upon his head. In "Especially on Sunday," a traveler encounters a woman and a man beside a river and offers them a ride. The woman is quite the coquette and she chattily explains that she is visiting her companion, who suffers from a debilitating breakdown. They all stop for lunch and her friend begins telling them a disturbing, surreal tale. The third tale "Snow on the Fire," features a repentant woman who confesses a dark secret to the town priest. It seems the old woman has grown addicted to watching her son make passionate love to his new bride, who knows that she is watching and seems to enjoy it all the more. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Cinema Paradiso offers a nostalgic look at films and the effect they have on a young boy who grows up in and around the title village movie theater in this Italian comedy drama that is based on the life and times of screenwriter/director Giuseppe Tornatore. The story begins in the present as a Sicilian mother pines for her estranged son, Salvatore, who left many years ago and has since become a prominent Roman film director who has taken the advice of his mentor too literally. He finally returns to his home village to attend the funeral of the town's former film projectionist, Alfredo, and, in so doing, embarks upon a journey into his boyhood just after WWII when he became the man's official son. In the dark confines of the Cinema Paradiso, the boy and the other townsfolk try to escape from the grim realities of post-war Italy. The town censor is also there to insure nothing untoward appears onscreen, invariably demanding that all kissing scenes be edited out. One day, Salvatore saves Alfredo's life after a fire, and then becomes the new projectionist. A few years later, Salvatore falls in love with a beautiful girl who breaks his heart after he is inducted into the military. Thirty years later, Salvatore has come to say goodbye to his life-long friend, who has left him a little gift in a film can. In 2002, over a decade after the film's original release, Tornatore brought the original 170-minute director's cut to American screens for the first time. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide