L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 4 BARBARA MINAFRA NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS " My grandfather had a dream: becoming suc- cessful in America. I am part of that dream, and I am part of Giovinazzo, where my father, my grandfather and my grandmother were born." These aren't the words of any Italian-American, one that comes back to the motherland during the Summer to find a bit of him or herself and visit what is left of the family. They belong to Do the Right Thing's Pino, The Big Lebowski's Jesus (two minutes were enough to turn him into a legend in that movie), Exodus: Gods and Kings' pharaoh Seti: these are the words of kaleido- scopic John Turturro, known for his funny and at time grotesque characterizations in more than 80 movies, but also for being a tal- ented director, producer and screenwriter, the cinema and the- atre actor adored by the Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Francesco Rosi, William Fried- kin, Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, Michael Cimino. He played along with Paul Newman in The Color of Money and Sophia Loren in the tv series The Fortu- nate Pilgrim. And then, he also worked with Jack Nicholson and Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon, Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Willem Dafoe, Samuel L. Jack- son, John Travolta and Denzel Washington, just to name a few. In 1991, he won Best Actor at Cannes and the David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actor with Barton Fink. In 1994, thanks to his role in Robert Red- ford's Quiz Show, he was nomi- nated for Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, the Chica- go Film Festival, the Critics Association Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Here, too, we are only naming a few. His Hollywood filmography speaks volumes about his talent. He began his career in theatre and, after having received a scholarship for the Yale School of Drama and having obtained an MA in Fine Arts, he debuted on the silver screen. It was 1980 and the movie was no other than Raging Bull, directed by Martin Scorsese and with Robert De Niro, the story of Italian-Ameri- can boxer Jake LaMotta. A touch of Italianità marks his eclectic and prestigious career since the very beginning. Turturro moves with ease from dramatic to comedic roles, from indie movies (Tom DiCillo, Noah Baumbach) to blockbusters (Transformers). He's histrionic and chamaleonic. Sensitive and versatile, he's known and admired for a style that brings together humor and melancholy. But when he comes back to Italy, he simply feels like "a child of the South, half from Puglia and half from Sicilia:" that's how he says. His father Nicola (then Nicholas) left Giovinazzo (Bari) for New York at 6, to become a builder and carpenter. His moth- er, Caterina Incerella (then Katherine), was a jazz singer from Aragona, near Agrigento. John was born in Brooklyn on the 28th of February 1957 and at 6, just like his father did all those years before, he moved to Queens with the rest of his fami- ly, and there he lived until he went to college at SUNY New Paltz where he got a degree in Theatre Arts, thanks to the sacri- fices of a family that would blast Puccini all day long on the radio. In spite of the influence New York had on him, Italian-Ameri- can culture and his childhood were to characterize him as an individual, and inspired some of the movies he was to direct: Mac, which won the Caméra Continued to page 6 Did 1: John Turturro, left, receives the keys of Giovinazzo from the hands of mayor Tommaso Depalma © Depergola Fotografia-Ufficio Stampa Comune di Giovinazzo John Turturro: calling Puglia home

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