TOSCA'S KISS
Switzerland, 1984, 87 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Daniel Schmid.
Tosca's Kiss is a popular and engaging documentary about a home for ageing singers and musicians in Milan. It is sponsored and run by the Giuseppe Verdi Foundation. After the expiry of Verdi's copyright rights, financial difficulties dogged the running of the home. This film contributed to funds for further management.
The film was made by Swiss director Daniel Schmid, director of such features as Hecate. The film begins with the facade of the home in Milan and ends with the cameras drawing away from it. The audience has visited the home and met the people inside with the director.
The film is a pleasing story about old age. The inhabitants are like any people that one would meet in a home for the aged. They are old, they show signs of age. They are humorous, silly, petty, have great dignity. They also, as the nurse says, live in the past. This is particidlarly the case with the inhabitants of the Casa Verdi. They are retired opera singers, musicians, conductors. The film shows several of them in detail. They look to the camera, speak, sing. Some are shrewd and play to the camera. Others do not realise how they communicate - and are authentic even in their pomposity. This is particularly the case of one singer who talks over his American-born wife all the time. Several of the men have extraordinarily fine voices and enjoy singing. One opera star is given central treatment. There is a pleasing scene where she listens to one of her old records of Tosca.
There are many operatic excerpts sung by the old singers. They sing alone, as they move around the home, they are gathered together by a celebrated conductor and sing with great vigour together. Their finale is '0 Sole Mio'
The film is Italian in style, in Italian dialogue to capture the nuances and tones of the elderly people. The film invites the audience to reflect on achievement, ageing, memories of past glories, human foibles.
The film is an entertaining and humane cinema document.
