Fortune’s fool
Have you heard the most recent update on the Franco Zeffirelli outburst earlier this week at the Rome Opera? In describing the apocryphal production of Traviata at Hamburg or wherever it was supposed to be (the one with the bidet, remember?) the legendary Romeo and Juliet director also said he saw upon the stage “”transessuali e froci.”
“Froci,” as perhaps you know, means “fags.” This last slur was not reported in the Corriere della Sera.
An audio document of the fateful Q&A.
Ciel, quelle langage!
Who was that woman? For second I thought it was Helen Thomas, but then things really got out of control. It sounded like a geriatric hot dog fight at Costco.
Can anyone clarify what is said after the question: “Who are you? Press?” “Yes, PRESS” then something that sounds like “Dradi”. Could that be a reference to the controversial artists’ manager/producer Mario Dradi or have I completely misundestood?
Well, she did provoke him, it’s true, but on the other hand he clearly pissed her off politically, and then he hardly kept his meet the press face on.
Only in Italia….
I’m not gay, but my boyfriend, Franco, is.
Nothing worse than self-hate is there? Sad sad old man!
Self-hate seems directed at the correct target here, no?
To clear a few things:
Quanto painy fakor: After he asks “Press?” She says, “Yes, press”, and then she adds she is from gothicnetwork.com, a site that played an important role in the demonstration against Berlusconi that took place in Rome last week (one million, she says, of people).
To il pene del mio cor: she did not provoke him. Zeffirelli was the first one who drag politics into this press conference, joking in very poor taste about Piero Marrazzo, who was the governor or Lazio, belonging to the PD (Partito Democratico, and therefore an opponent of Berlusconi), and who had to resign because of his patronizing Brazilian transgender prostitutes. At this point Livia Bidoli says: “Berlusconi as well. Let’s not say things like these, please. Let’s not drag politics into this. Berlusconi has a brothel in his own house. One is not better than the other, clear?”. (I am sure everyone knows that over the summer Berlusconi has been in the news for his own patronizing (female) prostitutes and even for “coohorting with minors”, as his own wife accused him).
At this point, Zeffirelli explodes. But he was not provoked. He was the first one to mention Marrazzo. On the contrary, one could say Bidoli was provoked.
Manou: why the correct target? The journalist was clearly upset that Zeffirelli tried to denigrate a political opponent during a press conference supposedly devoted to opera. Marrazzo had nothing to do with this press conference.
Cieca, cara, lovely photo to start the day with.
Is this by any chance a still from Frengo’s R&J film?
That would fit in so well with the way you so creatively
accessorize your threads.
Ercole – self-hate = Franco hating himself, ergo the correct target.
Oh, now I get it…a bit too late
Dear E Farnese, your clarifications are much appreciated. But what is the word that sounds like “Dradi?” I can’t make it make it out no matter how many times I play it.
She says: “We are those from last Saturday’s demonstration”, and he sarcastically says” Bravi!”, at which she replies “Bravi, sì, one million”..
The word you hear is Bravi, not Dradi.
Con dodici lavori da fare, si capisce che siete molto impegnato…
Perhaps Zeferelli’s next project is ‘Tea with Belusconi’ …no?
It is so very sad to reach our dodge amd not be able to accept ourselves. I truly feel very sad for Franco. YES, I am old, queer and proud!
Thanks so much. It’s all so ugly.
Maybe the treacherous old cow is so demented it forgets every 5 minutes ……
His Traviata ‘with cows’…..now we all know what the metaphor represented!!!!
I’m confused. Isn’t he an out gay man? He’s made press statements to that effect, correct?
You have to ask? That image burned itself into my brain in High School.
You are correct Cassy. But since when have gay men stopped putting each other down?
http://www.queerblog.it/post/5419/a-zeffirelli-fa-schifo-il-movimento-gay
In that interview he says
“Mai piaciuto mettere in piazza le mie cose segrete. Il movimento gay mi ha sempre fatto schifo. L’omosessuale non è uno che sculetta e si trucca. È la Grecia, è Roma. È una virilità creativa.
I have never liked to disclose my secret things. The gay movement has always disgusted me. A homosexual is not someone who sways his hips or uses make-up. It is Greece, it is Rome. It is a virile creativity”
Non vorrei un mondo omosessuale. La donna ha una funzione importante. Ama più di chiunque. Ma la dedizione più forte la trovi nell’uomo. La donna è incostante.
I would not like a homosexual world. Women have an important function. They love more than anyone else. But one finds the strong devotion in a man. Women are inconstant.
Have you ever loved women?
Ha avuto grandi amori femminili?
Ho scopato un bel po’. Anche perché ero molto bellino. Con molte delle mie attuali amiche ho cominciato facendo porcherie. Ma la maggior parte delle mie amicizie sono state di amore greco con uomini.
I have fucked around quite a bit. Even because I was very pretty. With many of my current lady friends, I started by doing filthy things. But most of my friendships have been Greek love with men.
I suoi grandi amori? Your biggest loves?
Fece scalpore quello con Visconti di cui ero aiuto. Un caso esemplare di maestro che ti insegna a dare il meglio di te. La donna ti dà amore, l’uomo la carica per diventare qualcuno.
The one with Visconti was a scandal. It was a classica case of master who teaches you to give the best of yourself. A woman gives you love, a man gives you the energy to become someone
Lei è credente? Are you a believer?
Non si può non esserlo. Lo è anche chi non crede di esserlo. Il soprannaturale ha il sopravvento.
One cannot not be. Even those who think not to believe are believers. Supernatural has the upper hand
L’omosessualità l’ha ostacolata nei suoi rapporti con la Chiesa?
Has your homosexuality hindered your relations with the Church?
Il peccato della carne è eguale sia se fatto con un uomo che con una donna.
The sins of the flesh is the same is done with a man or with a woman.
Then, commenting the case of two gay men who were arrested in Rome for kissing in public, he said:
quelli non sono omosessuali, ma due pazze che fanno l’amore come le bestie e che non posso sostenere. Ne disprezzo il modo di comportarsi al punto da sentirmi più vicino a Gentilini quando ventila la possibilità di mandarle nei campi di concentramento.
Thoseare not homosexuals, but two crazy ladies who make love like beasts and whom I cannot support. I despise their behavior, so much that I feel like closer to Gentilini when he ventilates the possibility to send them in concentration camps.
Note: Gentilini was the extreme right wing mayor of Treviso who said he wanted to send gays to concentration camps.
Let’s conject on what could be Franco’s last possible retirement project…… a spaghetti Bellini’s Norma (Desmond, that is)? Can’t you hear the batty creature now exclaiming “I’m ready for my big HD close-up now, Mr Gelb!”.
So when rejected, and frustrated : maybe Franco decides on a joint remix : Fellini’s ‘Ginger & Fred’ and ‘Last Tango In…. Italy’. Franco (remembering Maria C. had Onassis)-and not to be outdone (vicious queens will never tolerate that!) – decides to hook up and co- star with Silvio B.(the lizard – eyed Svengali). Starring then: as two silly nasty creatures dancing about on the sexual, cultural and political dance floors of Italy , in different forms of denial. Both saddened that their potential young candidates and fans are dwindling, for their respective forms of ‘dance cards’. So they retire to the wash room: one’s mental mascara is running, the other trying to check the Botox features and keep dapper applying more dye goo to its hair. Repairing their appearance as ‘drag’ human beings, so as to go on – dance Silvio’s own special house tango – and win top prize on a Silvio B – owned, TV reality talent show.
P,S I heard they had trouble withe censors….one star appeared to too much enjoying the ‘Buttering up the Butt’ scene, being done by the other star.
Cieca – that naked boy illustration — did you photoshop
it on your iMac? I have never seen such enlongated form;
his dimension from scapula to hip is remarkable. Are
you going to show us the front view?
Yrs
ROSINA
That’s a still from Zeffirelli’s 1968 Romeo & Juliet -the shapely body belongs to Leonard Whiting.
just like in an Opera….DRAMA
Wow. He is completely and utterly insane.
There might be more tough days ahead for Franco and his friends. Someone just sent his friend Silvio B to the hospital by smashing him in the mouth.
Ercole, your summary pretty much coincides with what I was trying to say: Zeffo makes an offhanded remark in poor (political) taste, the reporter takes exception to it and challenges/lectures him on it by bringing up Berlusconi’s peccadillos, he blows up, chaos ensues. By “provoke” I only meant that in this country reporters normally don’t react this way in press conferences. Maybe it’s different in Italy. But the Italian comments on youtube suggest that this was atypical behavior there as well. Don’t get me wrong, I think she was right to take him to task for it. It just seems unusual for a reporter to be doing that in a press conference.
Good grief, sounds like he’s been reading too much d’Annunzio. What a proto-fascist, like he walked straight out of Il conformista.
Your quaint use of the English language is so charming! The idiomatic expression would be “when have gay men stopped going down on each other?”
Not my “Fach,” but the Greek and Roman “classical antiquity” explanation strikes me as a little hackneyed and improbable.
What a nasty piece of work. Is there anything creepier than an old queen who is also a homophobe with fascist tendencies? (Think Roy Cohn a la “Angels in America.”) I thought the Log Cabin Republicans were bad news, but Franco is in a category of his own.
I seriously thought Zeffirelli was dead.
I think he has officially made the transition to the realm of Undead.
I’ve got news for Maestro Zefferelli:
Come out here to the mid-west of the USA and he’ll find LOTS of gay men AND women who don’t fit his discription of swaying hips and use of make-up.
quote: …A homosexual is not someone who sways his hips or uses make-up. It is Greece, it is Rome. It is a virile creativity…