Movie Reviews for The Star Maker

The Star Maker

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Movie Reviews of The Star Maker

Movie Review: 'Tomorrow is Another Day'
Summary: 4 Stars

A memorable and heart wrenching tribute to Sicily! This film captures the soul of the Sicilian post-WWII experience, candidly revealing its peoples joys and sorrows, desires and dreams. The Roman con-man, Morelli, drives through Sicily posing as a film talent scout, charging 1500 lire for a screen test. Traveling through the island's rugged, natural beauty, we observe an agricultural economy, devastated by war and peppered with villages, dominated by a church, piazza and, sometimes, a tiny cinema. This is an older, harder way of life, entrenched in poverty and corruption. And, the faces, the faces stamped by experience, so many, varied and revealing faces: the young and old, rich and poor, crazy, the `seduced and abandoned,' whore, and homosexual; the carabinieri, the mafia, monarchists, anarchists, fascists, communists, and Christian Democrats. Every townsperson has a dream to escape for a better life.

Appearance and performance are embedded in Italian culture: All Italians are born actors! Many American viewers may not realize that the possibility of starring or participating in movies was a very real one at the time. By definition, the neo-realist directors used natural settings and non-actors in their films; People were selected for their faces and distinct characteristics. Female, Italian screen stars, such as Magnano, Bose, Lollobrigida, Loren and Cardinale, launched their film careers by winning regional beauty contests. Some auteurs actually preferred non-professional actors to achieve their cinematic visions because they required minimal coaching and could be directed.
Rossellini tied a string to a non-professional's toe and tugged on it when he wanted him to move. Fellini was notorious for providing no dialogue until shooting the scene and posing his characters, earning him the moniker of puppet master.

So, although Morelli exploits the Sicilians' hopes, he also makes no promises. His crime is not the swindle, but his disrespect for his inadvertent role of confessor. He is imprisoned for violating trust and dishonoring the Sicilian people. Morelli's return to the mainland of Italy is a poignant, poetic, unifying and redemptive montage of Sicilian experience, national identity and humanity. This film is deserving of much more acclaim and credit than it has earned.

Movie Review: Another one of Tornatore's dark fables
Summary: 4 Stars

Ever since Miramax edited the dark last act out of Cinema Paradiso to make a more sentimental film, Giuseppe Tornatore has been written off by many as something of a lightweight. On the face of it, The Star Maker would seem to have the perfect setup for a whimsical comedy of love and redemption as it follows a conman winding his way through post-war Sicily charging the locals 1,500 lira for screen tests he never even bothers to develop. The locals unburden their souls and confess their desperation to him as his camera becomes a confessional, building up a vivid portrait of a desperate place in a desperate time, but it makes little impression on him. In fact, despite the beautiful photography and the `cute' setup as one simple local girl follows him in the hopes of stardom and escape, it's resolutely unsentimental - redemption is denied and he never really learns anything from the experience. Even in the final scenes, he never really gets it.

Unfortunately, this very misleadingly packaged DVD appears to be cut by some seven minutes from the Italian version (with one of the most gaping jumps in continuity I've seen in a film since Tom Horn), but there's more than enough surviving to mark this out as a winner, more bitter than sweet.

No extras (aside from some promos for other Miramax releases) but the good subtitled 2.35:1 widescreen transfer shows off the ambitious and accomplished camerawork well.

Movie Review: WARNING: This is not a charming film.
Summary: 4 Stars

No, this is not a chic little euro-comedy like the picture on the front cover might suggest, or a charming new bent on "The Music Man" as implied by the plot outlined on the dvd box. In fact, it isn't funny or romantic at all.

That said, like "The Music Man," this is also the story of a con man. He travels from town to town, promising to make people stars, taking their money, auditioning them for star quality, advising them on how to make themselves more appealing, then going along his merry way. But in this case, he devirginizes your underage daughter, steals your wife's jewelry, then charges you for telling you that your nose is too big for the Hollywood screen. (Well, perhaps that all didn't happen, but it just as well could have with the inscrupulous nature of the film's antihero.)

The interesting and sad aspect of the story, and what should have been advertised about the film, is its demomstration of how people, desperately in need of hope in a time a great depression, will allow themselves to be fooled into believing anything to keep their hopes alive - even if it means buying the dreams spun by a corrupt "Star Maker."

It's a good film, but be warned, it is sobering, not lovely.

Movie Review: star maker, a need to watch film
Summary: 4 Stars

Picturesque and entertaining but mostly to watch for capturing the idea of the usually concealed desire we all have to be a star, or at least someone of more significance than the person we think we have become and the failure of others to recognize what hidden capabilities and talent we have...touching..