John Turturro Never Needed You to Like Him
John Turturro wanted Pino. In last week's Fresh Air interview, published November 2, he recalled reading Do the Right Thing and recognising the people in it. He chose the racist son at the pizza shop because the ugliness was familiar. This was someone you might buy lunch from.
It remains a bracing choice. A star can play a horrible man and still spend the film quietly petitioning for the audience's affection. Pino gives Turturro very little cover. The performance is better for it.
Racism with a street address
Spike Lee sets Do the Right Thing on a Brooklyn block during a punishingly hot day. The neighbourhood is crowded with people who have their own grievances and loyalties. Pino works inside it. His prejudice shares space with the ordinary business of serving food and dealing with family.
That proximity makes the performance hard to shake. Turturro does not give us a safely distant monster. Recognising Pino's circumstances does not excuse him; it makes his attitudes harder to dismiss as somebody else's problem.
The role also tests a habit audiences bring to performances: searching for the moment when a difficult character reveals that he is decent underneath. Pino's scenes do not owe us that relief. Turturro can make him comprehensible without asking us to forgive him.
This is where to begin a Turturro revisit. Watch his exchanges with the people around the shop and notice how often familiar conversation carries something vicious. The discomfort belongs to the scene. Smoothing it away would spoil the work.
A thief offers a different invitation
Turturro's new film, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, suggests a useful follow-up. Sony Pictures Classics describes Harry Lehman as an ageing thief struggling in an increasingly cashless city while caring for his disabled wife. A stolen USB stick puts him in danger.
Those are the distributor's plot details, not a review of the finished film. They do establish a familiar invitation: follow a criminal whose responsibilities may earn your sympathy. It is a very different bargain from the one Pino offers.
See Do the Right Thing first. It is the stronger test of what we mean when we say we admire an actor. Turturro makes a man worth watching without making his company pleasant. You should be able to leave the film impressed by the performance and still furious with the character.
