Franco Zeffirelli's distinctive career reflects his reverence for the classics of music and literature. Nearly all his films are adaptations, lavish productions utilizing lush locations, extravagant sets and sumptuous costumes. In fact, the very qualities which embellish also tend to impair his work. His films are so well researched that the audience is often overwhelmed with detail. A daring filmmaker, Zeffirelli is not afraid to pursue risky projects which challenge the predictable world of commercial filmmaking.
Zeffirelli's roots are in the theater, especially opera. Ironically, his name is taken from a Mozart aria in "Cosi fan tutte." His mother chose the name "Zeffiretti" or "little breezes" from the aria, but his name was misspelled in the birth register as "Zeffirelli."
His formal education was in architecture at the University of Florence. However, after seeing Laurence Olivier's film of "Henry V" (1945), Zeffirelli decided it was the stage which truly ignited him. That same year, he began his career as a theatrical set designer, working as an assistant to a scenic painter in the Teatro della Pergola in Florence. It was here that he met his mentor, Luchino Visconti, who hired him as an assistant director on "La Terra Trema" (1948). Visconti's influence over Zeffirelli was profound, especially in their passionate attention to detail.
Although Zeffirelli would work with Visconti on two other films, "Bellissima" (1951) and "Senso" (1954), he spent much of the 1950s and 1960s immersed in the theater, designing costumes and sets and directing a variety of productions, from Tennessee Williams to Shakespeare, as well as guiding opera diva Maria Callas through some of her greatest performances. In 1967 Zeffirelli caught the attention of the film world with "The Taming of the Shrew." He managed to maintain a delicate equilibrium between his two stars, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and in the process created a film which was true to the spirit of the original play, though it was criticized as a bowdlerization.
In November 1966, while editing "The Taming of the Shrew," Zeffirelli heard of widespread destruction caused by flooding in Florence. He and a hastily assembled crew shot a documentary for Italian television depicting the devastation, and Richard Burton did the narration. The film helped raise over $20 million toward the restoration of the city and its valuable works of art.
Zeffirelli's name is still most closely associated with his next film, "Romeo and Juliet" (1968). In a bit of inspired casting, Zeffirelli chose two teenage actors, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, to play the leads. This version of Shakespeare's tragedy was consonant with the 1960s and included a nude love scene. A box-office smash, "Romeo and Juliet" also earned Academy Awards for cinematography and costume design.
Few Zeffirelli films since "Romeo and Juliet" have realized such widespread popularity. "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" (1973), the life of St. Francis of Assisi, was a box-office failure, although a recent resurgence of interest has elevated the film to a kind of cult status. Zeffirelli's television presentation, "Jesus of Nazareth," first broadcast in 1977, exhibited his masterful ability to direct spectacle and to render a sensitive subject intelligently. These qualities were also evident in "La Traviata" (1983). In this extraordinary film, his decision to deconstruct the images of the famed opera while sustaining the melody serves the opera most eloquently. Applying the same techniques to his next cinematic opera, "Otello" (1986), however, failed to produce the same results.
Though film critics have chastised him for his unabashed sentimentality (especially in his remake of "The Champ," 1979) and extravagant productions, these are also the qualities that have made him popular with film audiences, as well as theater and opera patrons around the world.