On the occasion of the centenary of its birth, Rai ( Public italian Television )produced and broadcast “Carosello Carosone”. The movie celebrates the life and the incredible career of Renato Carosone, the worldwide famous Italian musician.
The film retraces all the stages of his life: the piano diploma at the Conservatory at a very young age, listening to American records from which he draws inspiration for his sound, the musical experiences in Eritrea in the 40s, the meeting with his wife Italia Levidi .
Then the return to Naples, in the 1950’s: at that moment Carosone focuses on his style by finding a balance between American Swing, African sounds and Neapolitan tradition and gives birth to a sextet to perform with in the most important clubs in Italy. The success is such that it will be his band to inaugurate the first Rai television music program on January 3, 1954.
The great appreciation for this new way of making music paves the way for an overseas tour of the group, which culminates with the evening at Carnegie Hall in New York (which is also the point of view from which the narrative unfolds in the film, in the form of a flashback).
Having reached the peak of success, barely forty years old, Carosone retires from the stage. It’s 1959. His name is inextricably linked to the Dolce Vita, the light-heartedness and the desire for Italian redemption of the second post-war period and remains in the history of world music.
The Los Carosones review
“Carosello Carosone” seemed to us an exceptional film, from many points of view; starting from the script, which was adapted directly from the autobiography that Renato Carosone wrote together with the writer and music critic Federico Vacalebre “Carosone 100. Autobiography of the American from Naples“.
On the acting roles, Eduardo Scarpetta did an excellent job playing Carosone: having never played a musical instrument, in an interview he declared that he had studied piano before the start of shooting to be able to perform the pieces, first with Ciro Caravano ( Neri per Caso) and then with Stefano Bollani, composer of the soundtrack and hands of Carosone in the details of the film. Vincenzo Nemolato is also amazing in the role of Gegè di Giacomo.
The biopic on Renato Carosone is a complete film, which manages to exhaustively tell the surprising career of a man who passed from conducting Anglo-American orchestras in Ethiopia to triumph in Italy and in the world, until his sudden farewell to the stage; all within a few years. Finally, it is not surprising that Stefano Bollani won the “Nastro d’Argento” for the soundtrack, considering the extraordinary work he did in recreating the original sound of the time.