John Turturro labor of love finally reaches big screen
LOS ANGELES (AFP) — When actor-director John Turturro finished filming his quirky musical "Romance and Cigarettes" in 2005, the portents for a successful release in US cinemas were good.
A stellar cast including the likes of James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken had turned in some wonderful performances, and test screenings had delighted audiences.
Yet for Turturro, 50, it was the beginning of a Kafka-esque two-year nightmare, a trial that saw the film left in limbo and facing the very real prospect of never being released in US theatres.
Having been poised for release in 2005, the film was suddenly put on hold when Sony bought a controlling stake in United Artists parent company MGM.
"The new owners inherited the film, and they said 'We don't get this.'" Turturro told AFP. "Once the film got stuck, we became damaged goods immediately. Nobody wanted to touch it."
While the film had been well received by European audiences, no US distributor was willing to take a chance on Turturro's tale of infidelity in a blue-collar Brooklyn family set to a soundtrack of classics from artists including Engelbert Humperdinck, James Brown and Bruce Springsteen.
Only now, two years later, is the film finally appearing in US cinemas after Turturro reached a deal with Sony to distribute the picture himself.
"Discouraging is putting it mildly," Turturro said. "I had the film completed, a distributor who liked it and who was preparing a big campaign. If we'd released it when scheduled, we'd have made money.
"But it all changed overnight because of the merger. Yet that's the 'Starbucks' way of the world unfortunately. Bigger studios means fewer individual buyers, which means it's harder to get your voice heard."
Turturro is best known for his performances in a series of acclaimed films over the past two decades, notably a string of Coen brothers hits including "Barton Fink", "Miller's Crossing" and "O Brother Where Art Thou" as well as the celebrated Spike Lee dramas "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever."
For years however the idea behind "Romance and Cigarettes" had been fomenting. Originally intended as a black comedy, Turturro incorporated music into his film after being introduced to the work of late British playwright Dennis Potter.
"Some friends said I should take a look at Dennis Potter. I knew about him and I'd read about him but I'd never seen 'The Singing Detective'. And I saw a little of it and I said to myself 'This guy is on to something'.
"I didn't want to watch too much in case I became too influenced. But that inspired me because I grew up in a musical family, a tiny house filled with music, where everybody sang out loud."
Like much of Potter's work, Turturro's film is bristling with sexual undercurrents, and features one memorable sex scene where Winslet, the red-headed femme fatale, steals the show.
"Well, I like sex," says Turturro. "But I don't like the way it's usually treated in movies. Quite often it's dishonest, it's not funny."
Turturro was effusive about his collaboration with Winslet, the five-time Oscar nominee who is the object of Gandolfini's desires in the film.
"I had a brilliant collaboration with Kate. I don't see how you could be better in a supporting role in a movie.
"As an actor with experience, I know how hard it is to do certain things. But to be musical, funny, filthy, sexy, moving all at once as she was during this film-- it's amazing. She's something special."
Although set in New York, Winslet's character speaks with a broad northern English accent, which surprisingly was not unknown in Turturro's neighborhood, the director explained.
"Our next door neighbors were from Liverpool. In fact our block was a block full of different regional accents. It's not the New York cliche you always see in films, where everyone's either Italian or Irish," he said.
Turturro has just completed work on a movie version of "The Nutcracker", where he plays the rat king.
While he has received lucrative offers to work as a hired gun director, he prefers to restrict himself to projects in which he has an emotional investment. "I always say that my films are about love," he said. "It's the great mystery of life."
