Nessun Dorma (No one sleeps)

"Yes, Giorgio" (1982) was not a great film. It wasn't especially well acted. It was predictable. And yet I've seen it more than a dozen times, and I cry through the end every time I see it. Luciano Pavarotti was a brilliant singer - but a slightly less than brilliant actor. In this film, he essentially played himself.

A famous opera singer, "Giorgio Fini", loses his voice during an American tour. He goes to a female throat specialist, Pamela Taylor (played by Kathryn Harrold), with whom he falls in love. Giorgio is married, and though he and his wife have an understanding regarding his affairs while he travels, Pamela is unable to resign herself to being perpetually "the other woman". At the end, during his triumphant return to the stage, as he sings Nessun Dorma, she applauds his beautiful performance and then leaves the theater, as they both knew she would.

The story is, as I said above, predictable, almost cliched. But the end moves me every time I see it. Love can be everything, all encompassing, opening our lives and our world in ways we could never have foreseen. There is a poem that I can't find anymore unfortunately, that said we don't get to choose the form and circumstances, love does. We can take it as it comes or give it up.

Sounds like a tango song.

After much searching, I found the video of that portion of the film. Not only is the piece sung beautifully (of course) - but the dialogue of facial expressions exchanged between the two main characters is some of the best (non-)dialogue in the entire film.

2 comments:

TomK said...

Wow! again. You are good girl and right on this one.

My first blog post...hope it goes in the right place...

Mari said...

I'm only just now finding this comment, Tom - thank you for posting it! Thanks for the inspiration.