Callas Forever is a 2002 biographical film

Biographical film

A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...

 directed by Franco Zeffirelli

Franco Zeffirelli

Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....

, who co-wrote the screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 with Martin Sherman

Martin Sherman

Martin Sherman is an American dramatist and screenwriter, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Bent , which explores the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust...

. It is an homage

Homage

Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....

 to Zeffirelli's friend, internationally acclaimed opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 diva

Diva

A diva is a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and, by extension, in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna"....

 Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...

, whom he directed on stage in Norma

Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...

, La Traviata

La traviata

La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...

, and Tosca

Tosca

Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...

.

Plot

The partially fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

alized film is set in 1977, the year in which Callas died, and centers on the making of a movie of Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

's Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

. The diva, whose now-ragged voice is well past its prime, is persuaded to star in it by longtime friend and former manager Larry Kelly, who abandoned classical music to become a rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 impresario

Impresario

An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...

. He insists by lip-synching to her old recording she will recapture her lost youth and leave behind a priceless legacy for her admirers, and his theory is supported by Callas confidante

Confidante

A confidante is a type of sofa, originally characterized by a triangular seat at each end, so that people could sit at either end of the sofa and be close to the person sitting in the middle...

 and journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 Sarah Keller.

Other characters include Michael, a handsome young painter of limited talent and ardent Callas fan with whom Larry is infatuated; Marco, the tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 who plays Don José in Carmen and flirts with his aging co-star, who responds to his advances; and Bruna, the housekeeper in Callas' Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 apartment.

Callas' passion for music and faith in herself are restored by the finished film. She refuses to lip-synch more filmed operas but agrees to star in a screen adaptation of Tosca if it is filmed live, using her own voice. When the financial backers walk out and the contract is canceled, she demands that Larry destroy Carmen, arguing its release would be contrary to her legacy of honest performances, even those she delivered on really awful nights when her fans wanted to close their ears and hide their eyes with embarrassment and disappointment.

Production notes

The film was made in Bucharest, Romania, Córdoba

Córdoba, Spain

-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...

 in Andalusia

Andalusia

Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, and Paris.

The costume designs were nominated for a Goya Award

Goya Awards

The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....

 in Spain and a Silver Ribbon by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.

The film grossed $445,996 in the US, €1,249,657 in Italy, and €278,631 in Spain. It is available on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

.

Principal cast

• Fanny Ardant
  Fanny Ardant
  Fanny Marguerite Judith Ardant is a French actress. She has appeared in more than fifty motion pictures since 1976. Ardant won the César Award for Best Actress in 1997 for her performance in Pédale douce.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Maria Callas
• Jeremy Irons
  Jeremy Irons
  Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...
  
   ..... Larry Kelly
• Joan Plowright
  Joan Plowright
  Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...
  
   ..... Sarah Keller
• Jay Rodan
  Jay Rodan
  Jay Rodan is a British actor, writer and director.Rodan was born in Durban, South Africa to a Scottish father and South African mother of Scots, Dutch and French descent...
  
   ..... Michael
• Gabriel Garko
  Gabriel Garko
  Dario Gabriel Oliviero , better known by his stage name Gabriel Garko, is an Italian actor and former fashion model. His film credits include Callas Forever and L'Onore and il Rispetto a television mini-series where he portrayed a ruthless fictitious Mafia boss "Tonio Fortebracci"...
  
   ..... Marco
• Anna Lelio ..... Bruna
• Stephen Billington
  Stephen Billington
  Stephen Billington is a British actor, best known for playing Greg Kelly in Coronation Street . He has worked with many leading film directors, including Peter Greenaway, Franco Zeffirelli, and Mel Gibson...
  
  .....Brendan
• Justino Díaz
  Justino Díaz
  Justino Díaz is an internationally renowned bass-baritone opera singer. In 1963, Díaz won an annual contest held at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, becoming the "first" Puerto Rican to obtain such an honor and as a consequence, made his Metropolitan debut on October 1963 in Verdi's Rigoletto...
  
  .....A singer (Scarpia)

Principal production credits

• Executive Producers
  Film producer
  A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
  
   ..... Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini
• Original Music
  Film score
  A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
  
   ..... Alessio Vlad
• Cinematography
  Cinematography
  Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
  
   ..... Ennio Guarnieri
• Production Design
  Production designer
  In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
  
   ..... Carlo Centolavigna, Bruno Cesari
• Art Direction
  Art director
  The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
  
   ..... Luigi Quintili
• Costume Design
  Costume design
  Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
  
   ..... Karl Lagerfeld
  Karl Lagerfeld
  Karl Lagerfeld is a German fashion designer, artist and photographer based in Paris. He has collaborated on a variety of fashion and art related projects, most notably as head designer and creative director for the fashion house Chanel...
  
  , Anna Anni, Alessandro Lai, Alberto Spiazzi

Critical reception

In his review in the New York Times, Stephen Holden

Stephen Holden

Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...

 called it "the kind of what-if movie you might have expected to be made about Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

 but not about the quintessential opera diva of the 20th century. A lip-synching hall of mirrors, it is essentially a piece of highbrow karaoke

Karaoke

is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...

 . . . Ms. Ardant displays an eerie command of the diva's body language: the way her lips could curl into an imperious sneer, her flame-throwing glare, her hands crossed prayerfully on her chest as she sank to her knees in agony. Yet there is something inescapably ghoulish in the spectacle of an actress (even a great one) lip-synching the role of an opera legend who is herself lip-synching to her old records to create a bogus product . . . If Callas Forever is compellingly acted . . . it is a skimpily produced movie that looks pasted together on a limited budget. The la-di-da ambience of divas and their courtiers rings true for its era, but the fussy hothouse atmosphere of unrestrained diva-worship is ultimately more than a little stifling."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 of the Chicago Sun-Times

Chicago Sun-Times

The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

stated, "The visual style is all Zeffirelli, and it is interesting that the opera-within-the-film is not skimped on, as is usually the case in films containing scenes from other productions. Indeed, most of the budget seems to have gone to the moments of Carmen that we see; they look sumptuous and robust, and the surrounding film looks, well, like a low-budget art movie . . . Ardant . . . [has] the fiery passion needed for Carmen . . . [and] excels at playing a temperamental diva."

In Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

, Deborah Young described the film as "an impressionistic sketch" and added, "Opera buffs may be disappointed not to see their heroine depicted in her heyday, and casual viewers may be miffed not to get a melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

tic replay of her affair with Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Sokratis Onassis , commonly called Ari or Aristo Onassis, was a prominent Greek shipping magnate.- Early life :Onassis was born in Karatass, a suburb of Smyrna to Socrates and Penelope Onassis...

 . . . [the] main body of the movie is weighed down by flat, expository dialogue and a lot of pedestrian filming . . . however . . . the Carmen sequences, which make up a sizable chunk of the film and are far and away the pic's most exhilarating sections, are graceful and fluid."

In The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, Peter Bradshaw called it "a gallant, ghastly fantasy" and added, "half a pound of Roquefort left overnight in a glove compartment could not be cheesier. It's a camp extravaganza of such exquisite awfulness, such unembarrassable silliness, that you watch it hypnotised."

Mark Kermode of The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

said it was "directed by Zeffirelli like a man still living in the Seventies, replete with ostentatious zooms and unfashionably smouldering close-ups."

Mick LaSalle

Mick LaSalle

Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...

 of the San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

enthused, "For Callas lovers, it doesn't get much better than this. The movie is rich with music and more than a few moments of painful exaltation, where the breath catches, the eyes fill and the skin tingles . . . Yet a familiarity with Callas or opera in general is hardly required for appreciating this film. Though campy

Camp (style)

Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...

 at times, Callas Forever is a generous offering, full of flamboyant characters and grand performances . . . [the Callas Zeffirelli] gives us [is] a woman blessed and cursed by a terrible gift that makes normal life meaningless, while giving her a glimpse into a transcendence that eludes her. There are other ways of presenting Callas, but this is an especially powerful one."

In the New York Observer

New York Observer

The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...

, Rex Reed

Rex Reed

Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...

 opined, "You will go away devastated and raving about the great French actress Fanny Ardant as Callas. It's a titanic performance that redefines the term "tour de force."

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

called it "not only one of Zeffirelli's sumptuous productions but also a film that celebrates the sacredness of artistic integrity that to Zeffirelli Callas embodied fully . . . Ardant comes fully into her own in her portrayal of a great artist . . . [she] is a boldly striking beauty with a commanding star charisma . . . as an actress she has delved so deeply within herself that she doesn’t have to resemble Callas closely because she has become her from frame one."

External links

• Official US website
• Callas Forever at the Internet Movie Database