Rocketman (Elton John) and Pavarotti, about the lyrical tenor: two lives in music

Rocketman (Elton John) and Pavarotti, about the lyrical tenor: two lives in music

By
Joanne Laurier

June 7, 2019

Rocketman directed by Dexter Fletcher, screenplay by Lee Hal l ; Pavarotti , directed by Ron Howard, screenplay by Mark Monroe

Rocketman

Dexter Fletcher's Rocketman It is a fantastic and generally entertaining tribute to the music of British singer and songwriter Elton John, one of the most popular musical artists in the world. The industry estimates more than 300 million the number of discs sold. John's most successful period was the 1970s, when he released numerous albums and singles that conquered a large audience. His songs, at their best, have an attractive melodic exuberance and a "catchy" hard to resist.

Elton John was born Reginald Dwight in 1947 in a suburb of London. The post-war era opened up new economic, technological and cultural opportunities. John's parents were both inclined to music. According to a biographer, they "were big record buyers, exposing Reggie to the music of pianists [Trinidadian] Winifred Atwell, Nat King Cole and George Shearing, as well as Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, Kay Starr, Johnny Ray, Guy Mitchell, Jo Stafford and Frankie Laine. A friend noticed that John had developed a surprisingly eclectic taste in music: "He listened with interest to everything that was on the stage." John built up a vast collection of records and acknowledged that he had spent much of his childhood with these "inanimate objects".

A prodigious and precocious talent, the future performer won a junior scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 11. He attended Saturday classes at the Academy for five years, at a time when the school only taught classical music. Helen Piena, one of her instructors, described her ability to play everything he had heard with almost perfect reproduction: [George Frideric] Handel to him, which was four pages long. He reproduced it exactly like a gramophone record. "

At 17, he left school to pursue a career in the music industry. In 1967, John began composing music on lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, his partner in songwriting. John's first major commercial and critical success took place in 1970. An astonishing series of successes followed …

Filmmakers have designed Rocketman with extravagant musicality and direction. The British actor Taron Egerton, aged 29, who plays Elton John, sings with great talent and showmanship, thus manifesting an obvious affection for the subject being treated.

The film takes place in the vague setting of a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Living interpretations of John's songs become the way to address various aspects of his life, including a difficult and somewhat lonely childhood, growing awareness of his homosexuality and drug problems, as well as his fame and his success. In addition, Reggie / Elton confronts in this way with his childhood.

For example, Kit Connor sings "I Want Love" as a young Reggie. Steven Mackintosh plays his cold and distant father, Bryce Dallas Howard, his autonomous mother and Gemma Jones, his generous grandmother. His parents, still in struggle, end up divorcing.

Despite his classic training at the Royal Academy, Reggie – who will soon become Elton – launches into rock music 'n' roll. There is a fantastic sequence in a bar in which the singer delivers "Saturday Night's Alright" at the piano to a lively crowd. He then becomes the pianist of an American soul band on tour. It will not be long before Elton starts collaborating with Taupin (Jamie Bell), who writes lyrics as fast as Elton sets them to music. Their intense "fraternal" friendship is a stabilizing force for Elton. The duet is quickly picked up by Liberty Records executives (Charlie Rowe plays rightfully Ray Williams, the crunchy chewing cigar), impressed by songs such as "Daniel" and "I guess that's why they call him" the Blues".

Elton and Bernie made their mark with a transcendental concert at the legendary Troubadour Club in Los Angeles (August 1970), where Elton performed "Crocodile Rock" in a highly choreographed segment in which he and his audience levitated in slow motion.

The handsome and cool John Reid (Richard Madden) enters Elton's life as his lover and manager ("It's going to be a crazy race!"), Only to exploit him, helping the rock star now rich to sink into a nightmare of substance abuse.

Rocketman bathes the viewer in Elton John's famous ballads, creating sumptuous sets that seek to dramatize the singer's inner experience (for example, John, the human rocket, literally explodes into space at the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 1975 ). Egerton lives deeply in his role, singing skillfully and dissolving in flamboyant interludes. In fact, all performances are top notch with the music produced by Giles Martin, son of the famous Beatles producer, George Martin.

Of course, the film, like John's career, leaves out a lot of things. The singer reflected an aspect of life in the 1970s, the vitality associated with greater psychological and sexual openness, coupled here with huge gifts of popular music. In the past decade, John's career was also associated with growing hedonism and self-absorption by large sections of the middle class. The extravagance itself, the "overwork" as a thing in itself runs out.

The 1970s were also dominated by the Vietnam War, Watergate, the resignation of Nixon and the beginning of decades of declining living conditions for many people in the United States, Britain and elsewhere. On this point, Elton John was largely helpless. In the end, his enormous reputation and wealth brought him into contact, whether he wanted to or not (he claims to "hate celebrity"), with the likes of Princess Diana, and so on.

A musical career does not take place in a vacuum and an artist who lives in a period of stagnation without a compass of opposition inevitably falls into the "bad public". It also has to do with John's musical exhaustion.

Music critic Robert Christgau observed in 1975, at a time when John was the most successful pop music artist in the world, that there was both "something wonderful at Elton John and something monstrous. The star rock star of the 70s seems out of time, spared the confusion of the decade "- a reference to the relative social indifference of the artist.

Christgau continued, "Yet few people like rock and roll, or any pop music, that Elton John never reaches. It's not just that it's so ubiquitous, although it helps; Quite simply, the man is a genius, "adding that John's" gift for the hook "- made up of external sources or assemblies – is so universal that it is unlikely, from a statistical point of view, that one of them is not stuck in your pleasure center. Or your craw. Or both."

It does not matter Rocketman ' This is one of the shortcomings of this film, or its subject, the film is an exhilarating adventure reminiscent of how attractive and sustainable Elton John's music is.

Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007), the great Italian lyric tenor is the subject of Pavarotti, an intriguing documentary made (surprisingly) by Ron Howard. The filmmaker had access to the Pavarotti estate and his film is composed mainly of rare footage from the opera star.

The production notes explain that Howard and his associates conducted more than 50 new interviews in New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, London, Modena and Verona from April 2017 to June 2018. The notes further assert that the conversations "brought perspectives not only of wives, family members, students and performers of opera and rock, but also of managers, promoters and marketers who contributed to burn the unusual trajectory of her career and lead the opera to places she had never been to before. "The interviews, for the most part, express uncritical admiration.

American soprano Carol Vaness describes Pavarotti's voice as "heaven on earth," while American soprano Madelyn Renee describes her personal and professional relationship with a man who has consumed life, she says, of all her fibers.

One of the most famous pieces of Pavarotti, the air "Nessun Dorma" ("Nobody will sleep") by Giacomo Puccini Turandot, is the emotional pivot of the film.

The singer was born in Modena, Italy, on the eve of the Second World War. "I was born during the war, so I wear that," says the singer.

"The human voice is the centerpiece of our film. This is the best musically available tool. Nothing transcends all the disciplines of music and all points of contact with a human emotion like the human voice, "explains the mixer, Chris Jenkins. "And Pavarotti's voice is the most exquisite of instruments. That's why, rather than being sequestered in opera, I think her voice transcends categories. His voice speaks of those universal emotions that we seek in all great paintings, music, food, love and compassion. "

Pavarotti, at the beginning of his career, broke nine records in Donizetti Daughter of the Regiment. "Most of the tenors," says the production note of the film, "transpose the note into such a deadly and yet very provocative flat, but not at Pavarotti.With this series of Cs, he made the story of the opera and was nicknamed "The King of the Highties."

One of the most memorable moments of the film, apart from "Nessun Dorma", is the performance of the Three Tenors, Pavarotti, the Spanish Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, led by the famous Zubin Mehta to the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome in Italy 7, 1990. The recording of this first concert becomes the best-selling classical album of all time. The popular opera trio will collaborate throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

The documentary clearly shows that Pavarotti has also fallen into the culture of celebrities, also rubbing shoulders with the ubiquitous Princess Diana. The money, the ego, a reactionary climate have also inevitably made victims in his case.

It is suspected that, personally and professionally, Howard's film, produced with the help of the tenor field, also leaves much to the sidelines. The more critical voices are not heard here. It's an easy-to-digest version of Pavarotti's life and career.

But even those who criticized his artistic choices, including his incursions into popular music, and various commercial ventures always come back and pay homage to Pavarotti's voice, which, as one commentator puts it, was "brilliant, clear, even at the untrained ear ". . "

<! – blog comments powered by Disqus ->