Callas Forever

Beautifully acted, intelligently written and criminally neglected by critics and distributors (it wasn't even released in the UK or USA) Callas Forever is a haunting and poignant study of the sacrifices an artist makes for her art. The director Franco Zeffirelli based much of it on his own 25-year friendship with the lady herself. Still, this is anything but a straightforward biopic. In a fictional story set during the last few months of the diva's life, Zeffirelli plays a tantalising game of "What if..?"

It's the spring of 1977, and Maria Callas - the world's most famous opera star - is now a recluse in Paris. A tragic cross between Garbo and Norma Desmond, she spends her life popping pills, fighting off bad dreams and listening to recordings of her voice at its glorious peak. Fanny Ardant does a stunning impersonation of the Callas voice and mannerisms. She even looks uncannily like her (apart from the odd awkward shot where she looks like Nana Mouskouri!) But her private hell is disrupted by the arrival of an old friend...

Larry Kelly (Jeremy Irons) is a flamboyant gay impresario, complete with pony-tail! He's just had the brainwave of matching recordings of Callas in her prime with movie versions of her greatest opera hits. First up is Carmen, and this film-within-a-film (a riot of dancing gypsies, dashing matadors and floating lace mantillas) is easily the highlight of the show. We also get not one but two tragic love stories - Maria's unrequited passion for a hunky young tenor (Gabriel Garko) and Larry's doomed affair with a cute young painter (Jay Rodan).

At the end, Larry and Maria sit on a park bench and muse on how they have Sacrificed Their Lives For Their Art. Was it worth it? When the final result is as touching and lyrical as Callas Forever...well, most definitely, yes. Provided, of course, the public gets a chance to see it!

This is a masterful film; I caught it at a gay film festival, but I don't understand why it hasn't been released. From the opening scenes with Jeremy Irons as an agent and a punk rock song playing in the background, you know you'in in the hands of a masterful storyteller. Zeffirelli structures the plot as the creation of a masterpiece that got away; a fictional film version of "Carmen." The conceit of the film is that Callas (late in her life) has been persuaded to make a film of Carmen (a role she had only recored but never sung). Since her voice is past its primew, she lip-syncs herself. This brilliant premise allows Fanny Ardant (who is simply brilliant as Callas) to lipsync to old Callas recordings. It also enables Zeffirelli to include several spectacular scenes from "Carmen" as part of the plot. I would rank this among the very best films about opera ever made.

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.

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.