Watch Callas Forever For Free

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I'm talking about the negative reviewers here. I can only suppose it's a case of "Hell has no fury...". This is a terrific movie. In some ways this is the quintessence of art - a beautifully formed fantasy designed to reveal a hidden aspect of its subject. Quite why it's so divisive I don't know. Zeffireli is a genuine artist. He doesn't always get it right but this time the elements are all there - a subject he cares passionately for, a wonderfully whimsical conceit and the perfect conduit in Fanny Ardant. The result is as good an insight into an artist's soul as I've seen and a deeply moving and memorable film. Fanny Ardat is a French national treasure. France has at least a dozen brilliant actresses and Ardant is one of them but she's not often given such a meaty role. Here, her performance made me think at times of Falconetti. It's that good. The supporting players are, with one exception, fine and do what's needed. It's Ardant's show. The exception is Joan Plowright. She plays her journalist as a cuddly Miss Marple type and it just doesn't work. It's bad casting and I imagine that Zeffirelli had a personal reason for giving her the role. Joking aside, the negative reviews are very hard to understand. Skimpy budget shows? Not at all. It looks great thanks to Zeffirelli's eye for composition and design. Choppy and disconnected? I watched the 108 minute cut and wouldn't have changed a single edit. To file this film under "gay interest" or "for fans of opera only" is to miss the point. This is a thoroughly entertaining and enlightening film about an extraordinary artist, anchored by an extraordinary central performance.

What is the meaning of writing all of those imaginary events to ascribe them to the legendary singer's last stage ?, did they want to say how the artist's life is just a truth in illusionary frame ? Or that any artiest has only one timed opportunity to be creative and after its end there will be no more ingenuity ??!!, or that love can destroy an artiest utterly (her love story with Onassis) ?, or that any attempt to ruminate the lost youth is impossible (the relationship between the agent and the painter, Callas and the young actor) ? Is it about how sincere (Callas) was when she refused to complete the hoax and demanded to terminate the movie within the movie ? So being that sincere to reality why rather they didn't terminate (Callas Forever) itself already ??? Well.. The real question which buzzes in my head all the time and maybe I'll sleep better if I find its answer is WHY did they make this whole absurd movie in the first place ???, what kind of possible concept could be expressed through this story which never happened ?! I have no idea ! All what I'm having is just tons of confusion and even more tons of disgust not only because of me being that ignorant, but also because of me being that patient to stand all of this antipathetic movie till it ended !! I didn't hate it because it's not understandable...I hate it because it doesn't want to be understandable, and I've always thought that when you finish watching a movie then give it a lot of thinking to discover totally nothing about its own meaning or its special message, so this is the definition of a "Bad" movie ! long story short : I'm sorry to whom reads right now because you'll find nothing more than questions, and I'm sorry that you've watched it too as it's not Callas Forever it's Silliness Forever !

This is one of the loveliest European films I've seen in ages. It is an adoring tribute to Maria Callas by her longtime friend, Franco Zeffirelli, whose friendship with the spectacular opera diva of the 1950s had spanned 25 years.The conceit of the screenplay, conceived by Mr. Zeffirelli, is for Ms. Callas's fictional former concert manager to approach her with an idea to revitalize her flagged career and spirits. It is 1977, near the end of her life, and she is living as a recluse in her lavish Paris apartment, whiling away her days playing cards with the servants, drinking and popping pills, listening to her old recordings, and lamenting the loss of her voice and her precious Ari Onassis, who had died two years earlier (though of course she had lost him much earlier, when he married Jackie Kennedy in 1968, something she never got over).The manager's idea is for her to create a series of films in which she employs her still marvelous beauty and dramatic skills to enact her famous operatic performances, all the while lip-synching to recordings made years earlier when her voice was in its prime. She is reluctant, feels it is artistically fraudulent to use technology to simulate a performance, and, beneath this rationale, she is also frightened to return to the spotlight created by any sort of new venture.Finally she agrees to do "Carmen," the one major role that she had recorded but never performed on stage (apparently this is true). But in the end, after the film is shot, Callas reverts to her earlier view and demands that the manager promise never to distribute the "Carmen" film.The elegant French actress, Fanny Ardant, stars as Ms. Callas, reprising a role she had performed on stage in Paris in Roman Polanski's much praised adaptation of "Master Class" in 1997. It is said that Ms. Ardant looks strikingly similar to Ms. Callas. Jeremy Irons plays the role of her former manager, Larry Kelly, a personable gay man who is sincerely devoted to Ms. Callas. There are romantic subtexts – Kelly and a gay young artist (Jay Rodan), Callas and the gorgeous young tenor (Gabriel Garko) who plays opposite her in the Carmen film-within-a-film. Joan Plowright plays a good humored journalist, an old acquaintance of the principals.But the joy of this film is watching the performances of both Ms. Ardant and Mr. Irons, photographed often in close-ups that capture the exquisite "facial acting" – to use Stanley Kauffmann's term – of which both are so wonderfully capable. These players are sensational when separate and especially in scenes when they appear together. I have rarely seen Jeremy Irons show such a light, nimble sensibility, setting aside his more typical tendency toward melancholy. The photography and mise en scene are as lovely as Ms. Ardant. Especially wondrous are scenes showing Callas's apartment and, even more so, the scenes from "Carmen" (the exterior scenes were shot on location in Spain).Throughout, of course, we are treated to Ms. Callas's arresting coloratura soprano in recorded performances of various arias from among those for which she was famous. Ms. Ardant's performance more than rises to the passionate requirements for her various scenes as Carmen. These are truly thrilling. This film has had extremely poor distribution, in Europe and North America. That is unfortunate, for it is an aesthetic treat the likes of which are all too rare. (In French, Italian and – mainly – English). My rating: 8/10 (B+). (Seen on 03/13/05). If you'd like to read more of my reviews, send me a message for directions to my websites.

This is an odd movie, fairly opulent looking, yet barely released. A gay rock music promoter named Larry Kelly (I wonder if the REAL Larry Kelly, who started the Dallas Opera and worked with Callas, is still alive) is also a friend of recluse Maria Callas. He talks Callas into starring in a movie of Carmen, using her 13 year old recording as a soundtrack. She is difficult, but superb. The Carmen movie is a big success, but Maria feels uncomfortable with the concept and asks Larry to withdraw the film.Fanny Ardant is pretty good, but too variable. She swings from crotchety to alluring in a matter of seconds. You don't see much behind that beautiful mask. Anne Bancroft or Audrey Hepburn might have been better if the project had been done earlier and written better... Jeremy Irons is wince inducing: it is always unpleasant to watch an actor trying to make something out of nothing - the character of Larry is simply one-dimensional. Joan Plowright brings commonsense - a rare commodity in this film - to her few scenes.A few moments linger: Ardant, as Callas-Carmen, smoking a thin cigar before throwing her flower at José. Callas starting to seduce a hunky tenor, but thinking better of it after a little kiss.It is all very bizarre: outrageous Chanel product placement, saccharine gay subplot ( awww, the young boyfriend got a hearing aid so that he could hear Callas LPs), hideous punk rock music under the credits... and as others have remarked, the characters live in 1977, but the look is 2000.Basically yet another example of Zeffirellian effects without causes.