Callas Forever

This movie is very beautiful. It's plot is essentially a fantasy by Zeffirelli, revolving around the idea of Callas starring in a film production of Bizet's Carmen, at a time when her life was drawing to it's close and her magnificent voice had been reduced to a painful echo of it's former glory. This setup is completely imaginary - Zeffirelli, of course, being intimate with Callas, having worked with her on a number of productions - and although Callas is at the focal point of the story, one can safely assume that this movie is as much about Zeffirelli himself as it is about the great diva.

The film's main characters - the aging artist, the agent, the film critic - are mainly used to explore themes familiar to those living the life of artistic creation; the fading of creative powers, the meaning of integrity in art, the influence of money and publicity, love and the beauty of youth. This is Zeffireli speaking here, making use of one of the most expressive voices ever heard, to express feelings of his own.

It is is better not to approach this movie guided by expectations of absorbing revealing biographical elements. Though Ardant convincingly depicts the arrogance and overbearing personality which were often present in Callas' behaviour - with a few very convincing tantrums thrown in - there is a sentimentality projected that is more of a wishful thinking than factual characterization; one can hardly imagine Callas enjoying herself in an impromptu picnic in a park, surrounding herself with nothing but carefree informality. But the movie is very strong on most aspects; the directing is fabulous, both in it's pace and in it's settings, and the acting - Jeremy Irons in particular - is truly exceptional. And then it's the music - wonderful singing from Callas' voice, coupled with scenes from a very spirited production of Carmen where Ardant gives a convincing performance in a very demanding part.

For some people the movie will prove somewhat unsatisfying, the more so if one focuses exclusively on Callas at the cost of ignoring other nuances and ideas, and the sheer pleasure of listening to the music and singing. But it is definitely recommended to watch, and for opera lovers it is a must see.

By 1977 (as the movie begins) Maria C. had become very much an icon, so the movie's emphasis on her large gay following is defensible I suppose, though Jeremy Irons' paramour is simply too good-looking for the part.

There was a film called Beethoven's Nephew a few years ago with a similar issue. Serious problem arise with casting attractive males in movies when they really have no qualities apart from their looks.

The Jeremy Irons character is a promoter who comes up with a thoroughly whacked-out idea for making money off the diva in what would turn out to be the last year of her life. He talks her into it -- re-staging Carmen for a movie and having her lip-sync to a tape made 20 years before -- and what we see produced is certainly knock-down gorgeous (Zefferelli directed this, after all), but still it is an absurd humiliation for the woman. Fortunately she comes to her senses at the end and gets the film quashed. (All this really happened, incidentally.) But the whole experience saves her life, in a sense, bringing her out of wasted years of drugs and a curtained existence in an elegant Paris apartment, to an acceptance of her age and an understanding of her place in high musical culture.

Fanny Ardant doesn't really look like Callas in the movie, though in the promotional stills she seems to. She can certainly act though, and makes an archetypal larger-than-life woman believable and thoroughly sympathetic. Joan Plowright is miscast, but the movie is strong enough to bury the memory of her part. There are scenes involving a board of directors that are just peculiar; apparently there is a parallel universe out there where corporate boards meet at the top of tall buildings to talk about the investment opportunities of aging opera stars. Fortunately those sequences are brief.

Some very nice touches appear having to do with Aristotle Onassis, who arguably destroyed the greatest opera singer in the 20th century, then dumped her. Coming to understand the depth of that betrayal is a painful undercurrent for Callas in the film.

For me one of the most intriguing scenes has to do with a handful of master classes Callas gave in New York at the very end of her life. I don't remember why, but I had a recording of some of them several years ago, lost now, alas. They were notable mainly for the uncanny perfection of Callas's examples when she would sing bits of arias for the students, following some young voice's painful attempt at the same piece. In one of the class's recreations in the film, while very brief, Callas-as-teacher rises to the kind of intellectual and emotional profundity that one-in-a-million teachers ever achieve. I was simply knocked out. Fanny Ardant does her very best work here, and the sequence is the emotional high-point of the film. I had tears in my eyes during the scene, something that usually nothing less than a hobbit will inspire in me.

The very end of the film is moving and utterly satisfying -- bittersweet, tragic, beautiful, more Puccini than Verdi.

This film arrives two years after it was released in Europe. Frankly one doesn't know who to blame for a movie that leaves the viewer confused about who the real Maria Callas was. Franco Zeffirelli should have known better. He was around when Callas was at the peak of her career. To team up with Martin Sherman in this shameful travesty it's a betrayal to her memory.

The thing that comes clearly in the film is Maria Callas' sense of professionalism and perfectionism she asked of herself and the ones involved in any project she undertook. Alas, what we watch is the sad final days of a woman who threw everything away for the love of Ari Onassis, who didn't deserve.

Fanny Ardant, at times looks like Maria, but there is a problem with her distinct French accent because we all know Maria Callas was born in New York and her command of English, was impeccable. Jeremy Irons also appears as the manager.

To catch the art of Maria Callas at her best, one must check "Medea" directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Callas comes across as the great actress that she was.

A hommage. a parable. one of films about artist fight against the passing time. Fanny Ardant in one of her admirable roles. and a good occasion to see the world near a real star. short, one of films about an impossible theme. who gives not exactly the portrait of star. the glamour. or essence of her art. but a subtle, inspired sketch of near world. eulogy of art. and remember of Maria Callas.sure, in melodramatic style, not always credible, but easy for be perceved by a large public as just the right tool for aa beautiful message about past and need of truth.

Maria Callas was an artist of such magnitude that it seems impossible for any filmed biography to do her justice. Besides, who could really play Maria Callas? Well, the actress featured here does as well as anyone else could, which is, I guess, adequate. Of much greater importance is the banality of the story. I can't imagine Maria Callas in the 1970's even considering doing what the film suggests. By 1965, it was painfully obvious that Callas, despite her glamorous image and appearance, could never, even at age 41, have reconstructed her once fabulous voice, a voice which in its prime could accomplish miracles. In any case, it is folly to suggest that Callas would have elected to do a film version of "Carmen" ( a role she never cared for) with a dubbed recording she had made years earlier. I could see "Norma", "Tosca" or "Traviata", but never "Carmen". Larry Kelly actually died several years before Callas, so his presence here is pure fiction ------- which is what the film actually is. As a way to pass 108 minutes, the film is adequate, but if you're looking for a documentation of Maria Callas in her final years, you will have to keep looking. I doubt whether you will ever find what you are looking for because it seems highly unlikely that the real Callas, ever the elusive firefly, will ever be captured and preserved.