"EXTRAORDINARY"



"REVERENCE AND FIRE"


 
"SUPERB"
REVIEWS and COMMENTS
"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."
“….sumptuous…a film that celebrates the sacredness of artistic integrity… Ardant’s Callas is gorgeous… Ardant comes fully into her own in her portrayal of a great artist… Ardant is a boldly striking beauty with a commanding star charisma.... As an actress she (Ardant) has delved so deeply within herself that she doesn’t have to resemble Callas closely because she has become her from frame one.”
"For Callas lovers, it doesn't get much better than this... a generous offering, full of flamboyant characters and grand performances... For many, this will be the beginning of a beautiful acquaintance with one of the supreme interpretive artists of the 20th century... Ardant is an almost ideal Callas... 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. You know, Callas moments ."
With the simple lift of an eyebrow and sly smile playing at the corner of her plush mouth, Fanny Ardant can pierce anyone -- and in Franco Zeffirelli's tribute to his long-time friend Maria Callas, she does.

Beautiful from start to finish, "Callas Forever" stars Jeremy Irons as the opera star's queer, ponytailed manager, Larry Kelly, who can't stay away from the aging diva to end all divas. On his return to Paris, the imaginary promoter dumps the rock band he's been working with and takes on a film version of "Carmen." His idea, which he's sold to eager backers, is to use the sound track of her young voice with the 53-year-old legend on screen.

Nagging doubts about her "deal with devil" plague Zeffirelli's fantasy Callas as she agrees to the "bastardization" of her art. "It matters that such a voice existed," she says. The question is what will she pay to get it back?

Creativity and its corruption are the surprising stars of Zeffirelli's homage as he explores his own fiction of one of the world's greatest voices, and her struggle with artistic integrity.
 -- Kathleen Wilkinson, SF Gate  [San Francisco Chronicle online]
Franco Zeffirelli brings the immortal Maria Callas back for a magical, sumptuous romp that will have the most jaded circuit boy singing La Traviata.

Callas Forever is a glorious throwback to a time when gay men chose lovers based on which diva they worshipped: if you loved Leontyne Price and he adored Joan Sutherland, forget it.  But even the most diehard Tebaldi fan agreed that Maria Callas was la diva assoluta.  Callas Forever is also the ultimate “what if” fantasy, conceived by the inexhaustible Franco Zeffirelli and co-written with Martin Sherman (Bent).

 It’s 1977 and Callas (Fanny Ardant) is a recluse in Paris, mourning the loss of her voice and the death of Aristotle Onassis.  In comes Larry (Jeremy Irons), her high-strung former manager surrounded by beautiful young male assistants.   He has a crazy idea to restore her career – a lavish movie of Carmen, with Callas lip-synching to her old recording. 

It’s all a total flight of fancy, but it’s also utterly captivating and tremendous fun.  Ardant is positively eerie as Callas, Irons joyously chews the scenery with relish, and hearing the real Callas sing on the soundtrack is as breathtaking as it ever was.  Mostly, seeing Callas again reminds you what a true diva is, and makes you wish that just once Renée Fleming would be a bitch.
– Andrew Preis, Philadelphia Film Society
A Callas tale
Zeffirelli imagines the opera star's comeback in 'Forever'

[edited for length]

Zeffirelli's story takes place in 1977, as rock and concert promoter Jeremy Irons finally entices the long-retired Callas into a retro project at the debut of videotape. His idea is to film "Carmen," a role she recorded but never performed on stage, with a pre-Milli Vanilli lip-synch to her previous recording.

Irons is typically convincing as the world-weary promoter, mistrusting the concept of integrity and neglecting the aspirations of his young gay lover, who worships Callas' larger-than-life image.

French actress Fanny Ardant is astonishing as Callas, portraying her capricious, volatile moods and showing the depth of the diva's personal regrets.

With her trademark sunglasses on, she becomes Callas. Joan Plowright scores in a small role as a reporter.

The trademark staginess and Zeffirelli flamboyance enlivens the "Carmen" film-within-a-film scenes, making us wish it had really happened.

Though there are many touching moments, non-Callas scenes are a little sloppy and even irrelevant. But as a tale about the price of fleeting fame, the burden of celebrity and the pain of genius lost, "Callas Forever" will stick with you for days afterward. --TOM DI NARDO, Philadelphia Daily News


   

"MAGNIFICENT""



"BEST FILM"


"SPLENDID"