Mark Reviews Movies: PAVAROTTI

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 4, 2019

In telling the story of Luciano Pavarotti, director Ron Howard may have erred in gauging the potential of the late opera singer's life as the subject of a straightforward biographical documentary. Pavarotti tracks the man's life and career, offering more of a generic celebration than any kind of probing study, and it offers little to no insight into any specific element of what made the man unique.

Through interviews and a surprisingly large quantity of archival footage (performances, media appearances, and home movies), Howard goes from Pavarotti's childhood to his death in 2007. From the movie, we gather that Pavarotti sang, became famous because of his talent (The most fascinating section of the movie follows his early roles on stage and oh-so briefly dissects his singing methods), and found a few ways to bring opera from the lofty heights of the grand theaters and closer to the masses.

Anyone with a passing understanding of the singer already knows this, since there was a good period of time when the name Pavarotti was synonymous with opera. Other opera singers before and since him have come close to that level of media attention and household familiarity, but no one had or has matched the man's level of fame.

If there is a central theme to Howard's documentary, it is fame. By extension, it's how Pavarotti seemed to have transcended the perils of celebrity by pure love of his craft, the goal of being a singer for the masses, and being a generally decent person, with a big heart for family, friends, fellow singers, and fans alike. The costs, at least according to the movie's arithmetic, were relatively slim, save for at least one private affair and a public one near the end of his life—neither of which seems to have lowered him in the eyes of others.

Howard is clearly enamored with his subject's talent, the man's public persona (not only his appearances on stage and in interviews but also in his charity work), and the apparent mystery of what separated the celebrity from the private person. That last part comes across as a superficial framing device to lend Pavarotti the air of depth that simply doesn't exist here. This is simply the recounting of a life and career in a way as straightforward, broad, and surface-level as possible.

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