I know, it is not fair to criticize a great movie director like Franco Zeffirelli after his passing, but aside of his film mastery, nostalgia of good bygone centuries, and impeccable taste for costume and set designs, he was nevertheless a controversial personality.
The man and the artist were two different entities and this also shows in some of his movies and shorts, as well as in some of his staged operas, which were quite distant from his political views and life.
This "Homage to Rome", which was actually financed by official sources for advertising purposes to make Rome more palatable to tourists visiting the "Eternal City" (or so they insist in calling it), clearly shows a hint of kitsch mixed with an unbridled admiration for a romanticized past, but has nothing to do with the real city or the real people living in it.
Zeffirelli seems absent minded when it comes to some social and economic realities there and all he can do is to film beautiful images of what was instead of what is.
Besides being indeed able to attract a certain kind of audience, all the rest is stale, stifled and tastes like a too sugary laden pastry which might poison every diabetic person.
I don't want to detract from his taste for beauty, but the man has completely forgotten that there is a real world out there, and no, it is not made of romantic arias, nor stylish costumes and fashionable buildings.
What a difference from his previously filmed short, back in 1966 called "Per Firenze" (For Florence), in which he documented the tragic flooding of that city, showing compassion for the people living there.
It is said that with age a man changes, and indeed, Zeffirelli did change quite a lot, and not always for the best, and not everything seemed to fit within what he had previously created.
Oh, he still had a keen eye for details and style, but apparently not anymore for the human spirit he tried to lure into his own realm.
I therefore gave it just five stars out of ten, just because he could have done a much better portrait of Rome as a whole, if he also had some consideration for his fellow citizen.
This shows that with wealth people lose a part of their own genuine humanity, and probably, also part of their souls. So detached they are from everything that is real and that really counts in life that they simply don't seem to even notice the simplest of things around them.
This should not be considered an epitaph for an otherwise great artist, who nevertheless gave us masterpieces such as "Romeo and Juliet" and "Jesus of Nazareth", but in all fairness, where did his true soul remain in the end?
This is also probably why he decided to dedicate all his latter career to Operas, instead of continuing his career as a gifted movie director. Nice and cozy hiding place for someone who doesn't want to see reality under the sun and only dreams of fantastic worlds which only ever existed in human imagination.
Some might want to correct me here, and state that he nevertheless continued as a movie director, and indeed he did, but in a very noticeable lower key than when he started and none of his subsequent works actually pulled audiences back into cinemas as before.
Quite a sad ending for an otherwise bright mind and gentle being not to have continued in the path he had started with. The reason why will never completely be known, but perhaps a disillusion with politics or other great causes may have distanced the genius from his true intent and convinced him otherwise.
But still, if one seeks a well directed movie of long bygone days or an Opera that was well staged with great lyric names and conductors, then go no further and seek the name Zeffirelli. It will be worth it.
