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(2011) Valuing films, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Franco Zeffirelli was born in Florence in 1923 and got his break in cinema in 1947 when he and Francesco Rosi acted as assistant directors on Luchino Visconti's neorealist film, La terra trema. Rosi has made fewer films than Zeffirelli, but attained the status of auteur and a grand celebration of his 80th birthday by the Italian President. Zeffirelli became Visconti's lover and, like him, has been an acclaimed theatre/opera director and designer as well as filmmaker. Zeffirelli's film output includes many opera films, a popular comedy (Camping (1957)), religious epics (Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), Jesus of Nazareth (1977)), classical adaptations (The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Romeo and Juliet (1968)) and biopix (Young Toscanini (1988), Callas Forever (2002)). It also includes Sparrow (Storia di una capinera (1993)), which has been adopted by the nunsploitation movie website, the weepy The Champ (1979), the tear-jerker teen romance Endless Love (1981), and the semi-autobiographical costume drama, Tea with Mussolini (1999). Zeffirelli is addressed as "Maestro" in Italy, but has not achieved the status of a "great" film director, at least with respect to certain forms of critical value, which will be explored through the course of this chapter. However, his design and directorial skills have garnered him two Oscar nominations, and many prestigious nominations and awards both for his long and heterogeneous career and for individual films.
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Full citation:
Wood, M. P. (2011)., Delivering the quality experience: Franco Zeffirelli, in L. Hubner (ed.), Valuing films, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 183-197.
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