Glass Masters at Work: Vittorio Costantini A Film by Robin Lehman Corning Museum of Glass 57 min, $19.95Shot and directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Robin Lehman and punctuated by insightful commentary from Corning Studio resident adviser William Gudenrath and others, Glass Masters at Work: Vittorio Costantini comes so close to perfection that we can forgive Lehman’s mise-en-scène missteps—inserting grainy freeze frames instead of proper photographs to showcase finished work at the end of virtually every chapter. But anyone who so much as glances at this otherwise beautiful film will be moved by the work and working methods of maestro Costantini, one of the greatest glassworkers of his, or any generation.
Experienced glass artists, especially flameworkers and furnace sculptors, will find themselves puzzled, humbled, or speechless watching Vittorio turn out his greatest hits, one by one, for us and for posterity. The maestro’s butterfly, fish, spider, penguin, wasp, octopus, kingfisher, and beetle demonstrations manage to turn even Gudenrath, in all respects a global authority in the field of glass, into a giddy Laura Wingfield. Bravo, Vittorio.
—Miguel Unson
TO ORDER:
Glass Masters at Work: Vittorio Costantini, the fourth in the “Glass Masters” series, is available for order directly from the Corning Museum of Glass.