Toscanini: In His Own Words


Toscanini: In His Own Words is a 2008 American documentary drama written and directed by Larry Weinstein, about Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. It is based on tapes of Toscanini's intimate conversations with his friends, secretly recorded by Toscanini's son, Walter, which had been kept under lock and key for more than 50 years before the film's production.

Synopsis

The film is based on 150 hours of taped interviews secretly recorded by Toscanini's son, Walter, at Toscanini's Wave Hill home, in the Bronx, New York City.
In a fictional New Year's Eve, Toscanini, sitting in his armchair in his living room, is joined for an intimate chat by his relatives and close friends: his son Walter and daughter Wally, his assistant and friend Anita Colombo, Canadian conductor Wilfrid Pelletier, and Iris Cantelli, wife of his protégé Guido. In this fictional conversation are encapsulated the "multiple revelations" of the secretly recorded tapes.
The film juxtaposes the fictional conversation in a warm living room, with Toscanini being portrayed by Barry Jackson, his daughter Wally by Carolina Giammetta, Wilfried Pelletier by Micheal Brandon, and Iris Cantelli by Valentina Chico, with actual kinescopic archival footage filmed between 1932 and 1957, Toscanini's NBC concerts from 1948 to 1952, newsreel, and reconstructed black and white and color video images, functioning as an illustration of Toscanini's words in the conversation.

Reception

The film received two nominations at the 24th Gemini Awards: Best Performing Arts Program or Series, or Arts Documentary Program or Series, and Best Writing in a Documentary Program or Series for Weinstein and Sachs.

Cast