Word: phillipe
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...PHILLIP DIMITRIOUS, the protagonist in Paul Mazursky's Tempest, is by most standards a very successful man. As a New York architect, he designs fantastic casinos for his mobster boss. He is married to Antonia, an acclaimed actress still the object of others' desire. His daughter, Miranda, is completely immersed in the complexities of pubescent pop culture, complete with movie-star worship and bad imported music...
...Phillip is far from satisfied. To his gangster employer Alonzo, "Phillip is a moody man, but he's a genius, so it's forgiven. "Unfortunately, Phillip's inquietude is more than temperament. For him. The American Dream has become a low-budget horror movie titled something like "The Revenge of Morpheus...
...heads for the Mediterranean homeland of his fathers. Along the way, he picks up an oversized wanderer named Aretha (Susan Sarandon) whose greatest claim is her ability to sing Jewish folk songs in both Hebrew and Greek. By the end of his 18-month trek, and Mazursky's film. Phillip seemingly reclaims himself. Alas, he does so by means unrevealed to the movie's audience, who watch him sitting contented in his comfortable Manhattan apartment and wonder exactly what all the fuss was about...
...result is unclear, and the problems may rise from the confusingly complete identification Mazursky has with Phillip. He almost mockingly cast John Cassavetes, a fellow filmmaker known for his cinema verity, in the role, while admitting that he first visualized Phillip as a Jewish American like himself. A New Year's Eve party Phillip anticipates will be "dull, pretentious and nervous" appears to parrot Mazursky's dislike of Hollywood tinsel. And when in an interview he says. "America has become kind of decadent; a lot of things have been too easy," he echoes his own screenplay of Phillip castigating Antonia...
Mazursky's modern Prospero is Phillip Dimitrious (John Cassavetes), a successful Manhattan architect careering toward a nervous breakdown. He loves his actress wife (Gena Rowlands) but is tired of her. He loves his 14-year-old daughter (a lovely duckling named Molly Ringwald) without quite understanding his paternal possessiveness of her. His rage expresses itself in sudden lightning storms that streak the Manhattan skies and act as the mysterious percussion to the mad music inside his head. Off he goes to Greece, where he finds an earthbound Ariel (the sweetly sensible Susan Sarandon), and finally to his dream isle...