SALON

Friday, Jul 1, 2011 5:31 PM UTC

“Passione”: John Turturro’s musical postcard from Naples

A consummate showman's irresistible tour of the polyglot Neapolitan musical tradition, from opera to hip-hop

By

Topics: Italy, Music, Our Picks, Movies, Quick Takes, Transformers,

A still from "Passione"

It wouldn’t be right to let the holiday weekend go by without noticing John Turturro’s eccentric summer delight “Passione,” a valentine to Neapolitan music and culture that opened last week in New York and will soon be reaching other cities. Certainly in his extensive acting career Turturro has proven to be a consummate showman with an omnivorous appetite; you can see him at the multiplex right now, chewing the scenery as a defrocked CIA agent in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and voicing an arrogant Italian Formula One champion in “Cars 2.” His intermittent directing career took a truly strange turn with the 2005 “Romance & Cigarettes,” an inspired, insane and irresistible “jukebox musical” that paired James Gandolfini and Susan Sarandon on the streets of outer-borough New York.

If “Passione” is arguably a more normal kind of film than “Romance & Cigarettes,” well, first of all, that’s not saying much. Second of all, much the same delicious sensibility is at work in this ironic, flamboyant and sentimental anthology of the divergent and colliding musical styles of Naples, a crossroads city known for its crime and garbage where French, Greek, African, Arab, Spanish and American culture have interbred. The film’s title comes from a piece by jazz saxophonist James Senese, whose father was an African-American G.I. from North Carolina (whom he never met). As Turturro observes in his introduction to the film, the abundant emotion of Neapolitan music is often infused with contradiction and tragedy.

Turturro finds a group of elderly guys who are still prepared to argue about whether Enrico Caruso or Fernando de Lucia was the greatest Italian operatic tenor, shows us clips of the legendary crooners Sergio Bruni and Angela Luce, and stages a cheeseball dance number with hair-flipping babes set to contemporary Italian hip-hop. If the performances and Turturro’s video segments are undeniably uneven, it’s the film’s cinematic verve and richly enjoyable tone — emoting grandly while winking at the audience; believing in love while assuring us that it’s all lies — that carry the day. In between Caruso and hip-hop, we find some of the movie’s best musical numbers, as in Portuguese-style fado singer Mísia’s performance with the pop band Avion Travel, or the remarkable rai/R&B/canzone stylings of spectacular Tunisian-Italian singer M’Barka Ben Taleb.

Turturro’s larger point, I think, is that the music and culture of Naples are hybrid by nature, and are a principal source of the city’s enduring strength. (A lesson he may well understand as relevant to American viewers too.) At least by implication, he’s rejecting the northern Italian racism, and the notion of a pure indigenous Italian culture, that has become more prevalent under Silvio Berlusconi. “Passione” ought to be shown outdoors, of course; it demands a light supper of oysters and pasta and grilled fish and a bottle or three of light but intoxicating wine, not to mention an affair with someone who’ll betray you, break your heart and come back tomorrow for more. Failing that, you’ll just have to go see it with friends.

“Passione” is now playing at Film Forum in New York and the West End Cinema in Washington. It opens July 15 in Miami and Seattle, and July 22 in Los Angeles, with more cities to follow.

 

 

Andrew O

More Andrew O'Hehir.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
357 points358 points | 313 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
268 points269 points | 26 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
232 points233 points | 32 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
112 points113 points | 14 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
83 points84 points | 16 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations