Pavarotti Review
PG-13: Brief strong language and a war related image
Studios: CBS Films, HanWay Films
Run Time: 1 Hr and 53 Minutes
Director: Ron Howard | Screenwriter: Mark Monroe
From the filmmaking team behind the highly-acclaimed documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years, PAVAROTTI is a riveting film that lifts the curtain on the icon who brought opera to the people. Academy Award winner Ron Howard puts audiences front and center for an exploration of The Voice… The Man… The Legend. Luciano Pavarotti gave his life to the music and a voice to the world. This cinematic event features history-making performances and intimate interviews, including never-before-seen footage and cutting-edge Dolby Atmos technology.
Every once in a while, a world-renowned filmmaker will take a break from narrative filmmaking and delve into documentary filmmaking. Just recently Peter Jackson dropped They Shall Not Grow Old, and now Ron Howard has made his own feature about iconic opera singer Pavarotti.
I’m only 21 years old, which means I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to all of the pop culture figures from before my time. It wasn’t until last year that I learned of the man from a live taping of the Earwolf podcast How Did This Get Made with Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas at Brooklyn Academy of Music which focused on the 1982 film Yes, Giorgio, a movie I have never even heard of starring a man I never even knew existed. But then, during this year’s Grammy Awards, a TV spot for this documentary aired and I was immediately intrigued by the final credit saying, “Directed by Ron Howard”. Ron Howard directing a movie about Luciano Pavarotti?
Because I’m baby, this was a perfect opportunity to learn about the Italian operatic tenor who brought opera into the mainstream during the late 20th century. Throughout the first quarter of the feature, I kept questioning why Howard chose this figure instead of making a narrative. This isn’t Howard’s first documentary feature by any means, but... Pavorotti? Then, as the film progressed and I learned about this man whose life goal was to bring joy to the world, it became clear: nobody is able to capture the larger-than-life magic better than Pavorotti himself.
When you have a deep love for your subject, you express that passion through each frame of the film, which is this documentary’s great feature. The movie is ultimately a two hour portrait of Luciano’s life but, with each section of the film and his story, you get the sense that this man’s personality was as grand as his voice. With interviews from his family and colleagues, the film genuinely captures the incredibleness of the man. It never meanders around or feels as if it needed to be cut for time, for it is nearly two hours long, but contains enough substance and incredible stories about the figure.
What truly makes this whole is the footage from his stage performances and the powerful booming voice that took audiences’ breaths away, including the likes of Queen Diana. Seeing restored videos of Pavarotti belting out his voice is one of the most immersive qualities that effortlessly sweeps you away. Even when the picture is just set on a photograph of him and all you’re going by is the audio, you’re compelled by the man. You get legit chills… chills that make you go:
Throughout the movie, there is an amazing larger picture that spoke to me on a spiritual level about how Pavarotti was more than a man. Hell, I would argue he isn’t much of a man at all, but instead a human being. He connected with females, was comfortable around them, and maintained a professional and friendly relationship with them, being focused solely on making others happy and living his life to the fullest while providing nothing but music and joy. He would do his damn best to put a smile on anyone’s face because that’s how he navigated his lifestyle -- with pure happiness. He was so human that he used to host humanitarian benefit concerts that many famous artists would perform at. If Pavarotti was still alive today, he probably would’ve come out as a non-binary person based on the evidence in this movie.
The picture is not just a fluff piece, for Howard addresses some of the uncomfortable and somewhat problematic places that the tenor encountered his life, primarily his affair with Nicoletta Mantovani (who is 32 years younger than him). It’s developed enough to provide one of the few cases where love doesn’t really have an age. Yeah, it’s kind of a weird thing to say and, while I don’t personally believe that statement to an extent, especially with celebrities in their 50s dating women around my age, Pavorotti is presented as a person who was full of carefree love and also ineptness of society’s judgement of what’s unacceptable that it makes up for it. Even seeing his wife (whom he cheated on) being unbothered by it because she knows who this man truly is -- a person who acts with his heart as opposed to how most men think with their genitals -- makes for a heartwarming finale.
One of the only issues I have with this doc is how manipulative it can get when it comes to some of the emotional beats early on. And I don’t mean on a sentimental level, but more of a reactionary setting. Seriously, Howard doesn’t attempt any subtly here as he makes it fairly obvious what kind of relationship Pavarotti shared with certain people. If they were good, a slow fade opened to either a photograph or some footage that makes you go “awww”. But when they villainize a person, he quickly slap-daps an image of that person on screen and zooms into an extreme close up on their profile while blaring sinister music behind it to express that they’re:
I am totally here for this streak of wholesome docs about humanitarian figures who brought nothing but joy to people. Last year gave us Won’t You Be My Neighbor and now we have Pavarotti and it’s truly inspiring. Both films do a great job going in depth with every aspect of these amazing beings' lives and presenting their jolly love on the big screen. No actor can capture that wholesomeness, so the best we can get are documentaries (even though we are getting a Mr. Rogers narrative feature this Christmas). The best thing is that both features also address the demons that spawned from fame, which makes them more humanly relatable.
Pavarotti is a brilliant and well made portrait, not of a man, but of a human being with the voice of an angel and a heart of gold.
Rating: 4/5 | 88%
