Pavarotti documentary an insight into a complicated personality
Director Ron Howard takes a straightforward, no-frill approach to his subject, perhaps comfortable in the knowledge Pavarotti’s voice will do all the heavy lifting necessary to carry an audience for the journey.
Leigh Paatsch
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What this very enjoyable documentary on the life of Luciano Pavarotti lacks in hard information, it more than compensates for with heavenly sounds.
Those sounds leave the throat of the great Italian tenor take the shortest route possible to your emotional core.
You don’t just hear what Pavarotti is singing. You feel it too. It is great to be reminded once more of this extraordinary gift now that 12 years have passed since his untimely death.
Director Ron Howard takes a straightforward, no-frill approach to his subject, perhaps comfortable in the knowledge Pavarotti’s voice will do all the heavy lifting necessary to carry an audience for the journey.
Therefore it is pretty much the usual collection of not-so-deep interviews with family, friends and collaborators, none of whom dish up anything too surprising.
Perhaps only the insights gained into Pavarotti’s complicated personality — he was reputed to be rather temperamental out of the spotlight — are what longtime fans will consider to be fresh material.
Turns out that Luciano never quite cured a crippling case of stage fright throughout his career, likening going out on stage to “going out to die each night.”
The doco is at its very best when it gets to show us plenty of Pavarotti in his showstopping, heart-starting prime, peaking with his work with the incomparable Joan Sutherland and (most famously of all) as part of The Three Tenors.
PAVAROTTI (M)
Director: Ron Howard (The Beatles: Eight Days a Week)
Starring: Luciano Pavarotti.
Rating: ***1/2
Big man. Big voice. Big life.
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