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First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(from Moving Pictures, winter issue, 2011)

John Turturro goes behind the camera for the fourth time with “Passione,” a film that allows the actor-director to give a unique perspective on his Italian heritage and bring to the screen the beauty — and intrigue — of Naples in the form of a musical journey. As he tells Moving Pictures, “It just turned out to be one of these movies that you get involved in that’s way beyond you.”

Moving Pictures: You were born in the U.S., but here you take a trip back to — or a trip to — Naples in the story.

John Turturro: Well … there are people who are interested in their background and their culture. I think a lot of people who come to America, you know, want to become Americanized. My father was born in Italy and came when he was 6 years old, and he was very patriotic, you know — American.

But I’ve worked in Europe a lot, and I worked with a great, great Italian and Neapolitan director, Francesco Rosi, in the ’90s. So I did a book — an adaptation of a Primo Levi book called “La tregua” (“The Truce”). And so [Rosi] introduced me to a lot of Neapolitan literature and … plays and writers. And, you know, you just get more and more interested in the culture of where you’re from because, in America, things do kind of get flattened out, you know what I mean? Even though New York City, where I grew up, is a real melting pot … everyone gets stereotyped a little bit in America. It’s just the way it is.

So when you get a chance to discover a little bit more about your culture and where you’re from or whatever, it can be really educational for yourself, and you get to understand really who you are a little bit better. This was something I was invited to do because my film “Romance & Cigarettes” had a very good distribution there and did very, very well. Whenever we had good distribution, we did really well with the film.

And, you know, people really liked it, and then they invited me to do this sort of documentary — [a] “Buena Vista Social Club”-[type of] exploration of Naples, which … may be the world’s biggest jukebox, between classical and popular music.

I focused more on popular music even though there’s a correlation and there’s always been an interchange between the two groups. … But the amount of music there is just amazing, and there’s influence from Spanish, Northern Africa, French, you know, [and] there’s a lot of Arabic in it.

It’s a place that a lot of music did travel out of, but I wasn’t interested in being nostalgic. I was interested to see what’s going on now and how it connects to the past. So it really turned out to be this sort of musical adventure that we made with a fantastic group of bands and singers. We did a lot of the songs live, even if they were sometimes on the street [and] sometimes, you know, in the theater. Some of the stuff we had staged. And … then we had people who were not professionals sometimes singing little bits and dancing and stuff.

So it’s a very wild, entertaining film about Naples … and I’m sort of the guide. But yeah, very modern music. You hear this really, you know, driving reggae — Northern African type of sound — and going all the way back to 1200 … the first popular Neapolitan song. It’s really the song of the washerwomen. … We did it all a capella in a Roman aqueduct underground.

It just turned out to be one of these movies that you get involved in that’s way beyond you. And I had some great collaborators — my editor, Simona Paggi, and my cinematographer, Marco Pontecorvo, who’ve done a lot of big films. You know, [Paggi] edited “Life Is Beautiful.”

And then we just, you know, we worked on it. We didn’t have a lot of money, but what we were able to accomplish, because we had these fantastic musicians, is really amazing.

[Naples is] a city that, if you walk through, you sing a song [and] someone completes the song for you. If you want to get someone to dance, you can dance past a barbershop. You put on music, these old guys will come out, they’ll check you out, and then they’ll start dancing with you.

And it’s just — it’s like a wild city. It’s very dangerous; it’s very beautiful, very mysterious. It’s a very, very sensual city because life and death is sort of in the air. So when you look at people and they look at you, it’s like, well, you’re not going to live forever, so what do you want to do? You know what I mean?

MP: There’s always been that stigma attached to Naples, too, that you find even in other parts of Italy. People will say, “Oh, you’re going to Naples? You know you’ve got to be careful.”

Turturro: Yeah. Well, you know … they’ve been invaded by a lot of people. … They’ve had “Gomorrah,” which is [a mob drama] about the whole Campania region. And you have to know how to behave; if you say the wrong things, you could get in trouble very easily. We had to deal with different people, and I had a couple of close encounters. It’s all about tone of voice, because people can interpret it as a challenge or something, you know.

MP: Do you speak Italian?

Turturro: I speak a certain amount of it, and I can read a certain amount of it. I’m actually studying again now because I didn’t grow up really speaking it. And Neapolitan is another language; the Italians have to have it subtitled too. They don’t understand it. There’s … a lot of French and Spanish in the language.

But, you know, it’s one of those places in the world — they live by the volcano; they live by the bay; they’ve had earthquakes. … Poets have been, you know, drawn to it. Great writers. They’ve had so many great actors come out of there.

So the people — there’s this power there that you don’t really see in many places. It’s a hot spot, like, you know, New Orleans is a hot spot of music, you know, and maybe Rio … it’s a melting pot and it’s, like, crushed together, and it’s international and provincial. It has all these contradictions, and a lot of the problems of the world you actually see in this place, from the past and the future. And what’s interesting about it is that music is an essential part of their life. It’s essential.

There’s rich people, too and … they’re the people, maybe, that … supported more of the classical tradition, which is huge there. I mean, [Enrico] Caruso is from there.

We met the guys … [who were] the third generation. Their grandfather pressed the first records. They pressed them. And they showed us how they recorded these greater singers. They were, like, bent over into a horn. That’s how they recorded.

So these guys were, like, the third generation, and they still run this place, you know. So it’s really like it’s stopped in time, but you can also see sort of the future, in a way. It’s really — it’s like a witch; the city is like a witch that just says, you know, “Come on. Come on.” … The energy of it is kind of almost overwhelming.

MP: You mentioned “Romance & Cigarettes” being distributed well there and, of course, you’re behind the camera on that one.

Turturro: Right.

MP: So were there an identifiability and a creative license, if you will, for you to be in these spaces sometimes?

Turturro: Some of these people know me, some of them don’t know me. You know what I mean? And some of them are really happy that I’m there. … We shot, for example, one song with playback when the guy was singing along. We just put them on the beach with all these people. They reacted completely normally. I was shocked. I was, like, “Wow, they’re not reacting.” They said, “Well, this is Naples. This is how it is.” It was like they were part of the scene.

You couldn’t do that in a lot of other places. People would get, you know, self-conscious. They just stood there and they were, like, “Well, this is a crazy guy singing, and, you know, it’s normal for us.” … I’m a big music lover, obviously … and I just think … there’s a content to [the form] that can really compete against anything when you have the right music, the right arrangement, the right performer. You know what I mean?

And you’re seeing people, like, rediscovering it again as a form. I don’t necessarily think adapting Broadway musicals [is] the way to [go] for the form to live at all, but this and what I did in “Romance & Cigarettes,” I think — or something like “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” — these are examples of … the power of [music]. When you make a small film nowadays, you’re up against these behemoths, which I am in sometimes too. And, you know, music, when it’s direct and when it’s live … can compete against anything when it’s a great song.

MP: Do you listen to a lot of music?

Turturro: Yeah, I listen to music. And obviously I worked on this for two years [and] I listened to only Neapolitan music … literally thousands of songs. So that’s something, you know, you do.

But you know, that allows me to do something like this, which really is really a lot of who I am. You know what I mean? And, you know, to give the opportunity to all these wonderful artists. [In] the music business … people can really use that, because [consumers] aren’t buying their CDs.

Obviously, we’re going to come out with a CD at the same time when we open in Italy, and then Germany and France and then whatever other territories we sell it to. But, you know, we’re hoping to do what “The Buena Vista Social Club” did, because that’s … why they approached me. They said, “We want someone to put a light on this.”

And I made … a 90-minute movie, and it’s really … like a trip … you’re taking. You know, a real adventurous trip, because the diversity of the music there is really overwhelming. And what’s great about it too is the depth of the irony. The songs are unbelievably ironic.

MP: In what sense?

Turturro: In [the] sense that, you know, there’s a love song … called “Where Is Zsa Zsa?” and this guy’s searching for this woman, trying to find her. … He’s crazy about her. But he says, “If I can’t find you, if there’s no way I can find you, you know, I’ll take your sister. You know, I’ll be with your sister if I can’t find [you], no matter how much I love you.”

And … you have to make do with the best that’s possible, and they understand that. There’s a real, kind of pragmatic quality to their approach. And yet they can have the most beautiful songs that you’ve ever heard, and some of them are really, really funny and really crazy.

You don’t get an opportunity like this to do that and … really fall madly in love with the place.

MP: There seems to be an insatiable curiosity in some actors to go out and find things and discover things and research things. Was that part of the attraction too?

Turturro: Well, you know, I’ve [directed] three [other] movies. You know, I did a movie about construction workers, “Mac” … and then I did a movie about the theater [“Illuminata”], and then I did “Romance & Cigarettes,” which was a love story, which, you know, was sort of a … savage musical.

So I’ve worked on things a long time. [The] first movie that I directed, I only did that because I had a need to tell a story that was about, you know, the world I observed growing up. … This is sort of an extension of my interest, you know, in people and music and a certain place. So it’s not so much about research.

After my first movie, I was asked to direct a lot of other films, and I was, like, “Well, I’m not sure I’m a director; this is something I know.”

So it’s more than research for me when I direct something.

As an actor, yes, I’m interested. You have to be a curious person, obviously. But these are things you’re going to work on for years. So you’ve got to have a … really deep connection to something. At least I do. And, you know, it’s something that can widen your experience. And when you’re at a certain age and you feel like, “Wow … I’m learning all about something … that I love,” it’s a great thing, you know.

As an actor, you know, you do a part, you do your research, you learn how to be good at something, and then you … don’t continue it, you know. I mean, I learned how to ride a horse a long time ago for a couple of movies, and I became really good at it. And I can still ride, which is great. I have that skill. But I don’t live on a farm. I don’t have horses. You know? And sometimes I get depressed about that. You know, you learn how to do something really well, and then you never do it again. You know what I mean? But it’s interesting for a while.

I think doing something like this is a much bigger experience as a person.

MP: And you get to bring it back and share the music with others.

Turturro: Yeah. When I see people sharing that and I see the response, I mean, we showed it in Venice and people went crazy. And we showed it here … and people were … shocked at the different sounds that came out, what the songs were about.

And one woman I met from the Toronto Globe said one song just blew her mind, and I said, “Well, it blew my mind too when I first heard it.” So, you know, because song is a story or a poem or a short story, sometimes it can be way more powerful than a whole movie.

You can watch a whole big movie with pyrotechnics and you go, “All right.” And this … three-minute romance or a five-minute story about what happened to somebody — it takes you somewhere and … you’re altered [by it].

MP: Music is the most original form of storytelling.

Turturro: It really is. … That’s why people chanted. In the Greek theater, they always had song and dance … so all these other things are kind of filling in for that. Now this is, like, essential stuff. You know what I mean? It’s essential stuff. And it sensitizes you. It can get you up. It can open you up. And I tried to do that in the movie. I tried to, you know, drive you and then do something delicate and then do something crazy.

And when you’re having those experiences, then you can receive everything. But if it’s all the same … it’s like tenderizing meat. You’re tenderizing the audience, and then the audience can start receiving stuff [and be], like, “Wow, give me more. Give me more of this. You know, surprise me.”

And life is full of surprises, and a great album — I use the word “album” because I’m 150 years old — but life is full of that, and your day is full of that, and a great CD, a great album, has some of that diversity. And so to do something like this in a place like that, it’s really kind of transporting. And that’s what music does.

Photos by Scott McDermott