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Paolo Conte is widely
recognised as one of Italy’s greatest composer / performers. His music is both
contemporary and classical, with influences drawn over a wide arc of time, and from around
the world. His lyrics are highly regarded as poetry, and he is also an accomplished
painter. He is cautious about the trappings of stardom, and fiercely guards his privacy.
This first major profile on Paolo Conte discovers the influences, inspirations and
thoughts of the private man behind…… ‘A Face On Loan.’
Born into a family of
lawyers two years before the outbreak of World War 2 in the northern Italian provincial
town of Asti, Conte was constrained to relinquish his musical ambitions to help out in his
family’s legal office. But another relative, his uncle Gino, had opened up his
horizons with stories of his globetrotting adventures. Paolo, helped by his
singer/songwriter brother Giorgio, placed his musical compositions to some of Italy’s
best selling artists in the 1960’s whilst still practising as a lawyer. His
composition ‘Azzurro’ (Blue) is one of Italy’s best loved songs, and became
a huge international hit in 1968 for the Italian singer Adriano Celentano.
Conte’s experience
as a bankruptcy clerk, inspired him with sympathetic songs about born losers, and his
acute observations on post-war Italy and the human condition lead him to develop a highly
personal style. It was not until the early 1970’s and he was in his 40’s, that
he was convinced by a record producer to perform his own songs. Over 10 years he built up
a cult following in his home country, but it was a string of concerts in Paris in the
early 80’s that established him with a wide audience and as an international star
with career sales of over 10 million albums.
Over one year we follow
Paolo Conte in Italy and to London, New York, Boston and Monaco. There are interviews with
Italy’s leading columnist Curzio Maltese; Paolo’s brother Giorgio who is an
established singer/songwriter in Italy; Caterina Caselli who performed Conte’s songs
as a singer in the 60’s and as a record company executive was instrumental in
establishing Conte and more recently the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli; Alda Gandini, the
record executive who boosted Conte’s popularity around the world; Comedian and Oscar
winning actor and director Roberto Benigni, and movie director Enzo D’Alo who
commissioned Conte to score the soundtrack to his animation movie ‘Freccia
Azzurro’ (The Blue Arrow.)
Conte’s myriad influences,
melancholy, irony, nostalgia and art are seamlessly thread into an entertaining hour with
ample concert footage and archive clips, with his poetic lyrics revealing as much about
the artist as his own interviews conducted in Italy, Boston and Monaco. Conte’s
sophisticated but popular musical compositions speak as much for themselves as the
innermost thoughts of this great contemporary artist.
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Synopsis:
