Gigli - No Ti Scordar di Me - DVD

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"The personality of Beniamino Gigli comes across in "No ti scordar di me". Despite the Italian titel (which means "do not forget me"), this is an English movie which is interesting today primarily because Gigli (typecast as an Italian singer) dominates the soundtrack with operatic arias, a lullaby and some Neapolitan songs, including the one that gives the movie its title and serves as the leitmotif." - Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post

A big hit, this film, Gigli's first, became the prototype for most of his others: he plays the cuckold, the most ignominious figure in Italian culture. Not only does he sing his heart out but "No ti scordar di me" is sensitively written and directed and has a touching ending.
What sets Gigli apart from nearly all other 20th-century tenors? His singing is full of contrast. Such 19th-century holdovers as De Lucia varied dynamics and tone color as well as rhythm and, sometimes, notes. Most singers since at best have had or have created one sonority of individual character, at one dynamic level. Caruso and those who followed him mostly sang at full voice. Pavarotti and company do little varying of dynamics and seldom shade their tones, using the same color to express both happiness and sadness.
Gigli had many sonorities and two basic dynamic levels, loud and soft. "Non ti scordardi me" finds him in peak from and provides a key to some of his best art, making clear that it was based on chiaroscuro - the contrasting of tone colors, usually in response to words, and of soft passage with loud. He repeats the title song, singing it differently.
Gigli made extensive use of a vocal technique known as "covering", involving darkening the tone and modifying vowels, almost as if some were schwas (like the "uh" sounds in "America"). Early in the film he sings a song, "Mille cherubini in coro", "closed"; repeating it later, he covers so heavily that if you aren't sure to what the term refers, you'll know after hearing him do it. - Stefan Zucker

"Non ti scordar di me" was picked as among the top videos of 1993 by Steve Cohen in "The Philadelphia Jewish Times". Cohen added, "This is Gigli's most popular film, lovingly restored".

This is the BCS Title customers most frequently reorder to give as a gift. And no wonder. One woman wrote Gigli that in 30 days she had seen th film 76 times.