10/08/2023 - Franco Maresco delivers a portrait of the famously versatile jazz musician Joe Lovano, but sadly the director’s didactic voice-over narration dominates all

Presented out of competition in this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Franco Maresco’s feature-length documentary Lovano Supreme presents itself as a portrait of the life and musical work of the famous and versatile jazz musician Joe Lovano, who was born in Cleveland in 1952 to parents of Sicilian origin.

The film alternates sequences shot during a recent trip made by the musician to Sicily with a considerable volume of archive footage and several interviews filmed ad hoc. Despite effective pacing of the film’s narration and its potential to satisfy jazz fans’ expectations, Maresco arguably chooses the most banal and hurried approach to discuss his protagonist: almost everything is unveiled, described and emphasised via his voice-over. At times, it’s as if the director is simply reading off a script, at others it's irritatingly didactic, ultimately verbalising all of Lovano’s emotions and perceptions. On occasion, these emotions and perceptions are visible on screen, but at other times, they seem limited to Maresco’s own thoughts and assumptions.

Ultimately, the director’s use of voice-over results in a rather frustrating and predictable viewing experience. In one scene, for example, we learn that after meeting John Coltrane’s son, Ravi, Lovano manages to return to the Hamlet-born musician’s long-term home where he lived from the time of his first album A Love Supreme until his death. Here, Maresco tells us what’s going to happen well in advance: he informs us that, feeling overwhelmed with emotion at finding himself in that house again, Lovano decided to improvise a few notes on his saxophone. After this “announcement”, we only actually see Lovano playing for a matter of seconds. It’s natural, in this instance, to wonder whether this was the best approach for relating such an episode. Surely the lonely figure of Lovano playing the saxophone, without too many introductory explanations, would have proved far more impactful?

Maresco’s commentary becomes increasingly cumbersome, before eventually thinning out – albeit minimally – in the second half of the film. And as soon as Maresco steps aside, everything becomes more interesting and authentic. In one scene lasting around five minutes, we see Lovano talking with a few students and, by way of a language which straddles the practical and the philosophical, he suggests they try to channel the spirits of masters along the lines of Max Roach and Cannonball Adderley during their performances.

This scene too, however, is interrupted by a news report by a regional broadcaster (presented in its entirety, with commentary provided by an equally pompous anchorman) and then by the voice of Maresco once again.

Overall, Lovano Supreme is a shaky work which fails to take full advantage of the many great jazz music classics on offer or of its charismatic protagonist who’s ready and willing to share his stories with the audience. It’s also difficult to justify the selection of a film with such shamelessly televisual language in a festival setting such as Locarno, given that Lovano Supreme seems closer to Teche Rai products than to a genuinely cinematic documentary.

In short, we would have preferred to hear less of Maresco’s impassioned voice, for greater space to be given to the protagonist and to learn even more about Lovano. What does emerge rather well, however, is the spiritual nature of jazz and, more generally speaking, the power of music as a language capable of surviving over the centuries, as well as being superior to and actually predating speech itself.

Lovano Supreme is produced by Qoomoon and the Lumpen Cultural Association.

(Translated from Italian)