Divas don't come much more demanding than Maria Callas (Fanny Ardant) in Callas Forever, an enjoyably risible biopic about the final days of the opera singer that's full of foot-stamping tantrums and high-pitched hissy fits. Jeremy Irons co-stars as the promoter who tempts Callas out of reclusive retirement to shoot a movie based on Carmen. Yet as she lip-synchs to recordings of a performance she gave when her voice was in its prime, Callas begins to wonder if she's sold her soul for her art.
Giving a customarily brilliant performance, the ravishingly beautiful Ardant turns this queen of the opera house into a booze-soaked, pill-popping has-been. At first she's appalled by the idea of lip-synching to her past recordings, but the cut'n'paste soundtrack idea eventually snags her interest. Basking in the warm glow of fandom, she's willing to do anything to recapture her youth - even signing the vocalist's equivalent of a Faustian pact.
"UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS"
There's something perverse about Ardant's over-expressive lip-synching as she plays Callas lip-synching to Callas. It gives the proceedings a hysterically exaggerated feel that the film's affected air does little to dispel: "Fanny Ardant is dressed by CHANEL" proclaim the opening titles; at night Callas is forced to confront the (very literal) ghosts of her past performances; and Irons gives a fey turn as a gay, black leather jacket-clad, pony-tailed rock promoter who gets to spurt lines like "It's not a disaster! The Titanic was a disaster, get a sense of proportion!"
Reducing Callas' final days to unintentional comedy, Franco Zeffirelli comes not to honour the diva but to bury her in a deluge of sniggering giggles. Perhaps excessive hero(ine) worship is to blame: the filmmaker claims that Callas is one of the three most important women of the 20th century along with Mother Teresa and Margaret Thatcher. Unintentionally hilarious, this high camp outing is unlikely to convince anyone to give a Tosca.
Callas Forever (2004)
