Movie: Viva Verdi!
Running Time: 1:17
Nominated for: Original Song
How I watched: Laemmle Theatre
When it had me: Italian Language
When it lost me: Some difficult editing
What systems does it challenge: Going quietly into that dark night
I had no idea what this movie was when I showed up. I only knew it was nominated for original song and it had some connection to Giuseppe Verdi. It turns out it is a documentary about a retirement home for musicians that was created by Giuseppe Verdi in Milan on 1902.
What's great is seeing all of these aging artists still surrounded every day with the music and instruments that they feel passionate about. Most of them still perform and many of them teach young artist's in residence. All of them have a safe and wonderful home to help weather some of the difficulties of being elderly.
The editor struggled to group the footage of these characters into loose themes in order to try and tell a story. It isn't always successful. Some little segments were quite short and it jumped around quite a bit. But that's the problem of assembling docs; it isn't always neat and tidy.
I had big emotions watching this. On the way to the theatre, I was remembering that it was my Italian grandfather's birthday and I calculated that he would be 97 if this year if he were still here with us. That was before I knew this movie was about elderly Italians. When I saw a 98 year old italian man singing with joy, I kind of lost it. It made me thinking of all the additional years we could have had with him, aging and loving life. So it became an opportunity to process some grief, as well.
Which reminds me, have I told you about Mike Lisa? And what a great guy he was? He got me interested in film in the 1980s when he started recording every Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant film for me on his Betamax so I could watch them on the weekends. Happy Birthday, Pop.
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