CREATIVE LIFE:Franco Zeffirelli

[RonPrice]

Watching SBS1 TV doco(1) on Franco Zeffirelli yesterday made me think about the comparisons and contrasts between the life of a writer and that of a producer and director. Of course, I became especially interested in how his creative activity was similar or different from mine. Each writer, each producer and director, has a different story. Zeffirelli will soon be 90 and I will soon be 70; he was an entre deux guerres(2) baby and I was a war baby; he has achieved fame and wealth; I am an unknown, financially comfortable but far from wealthy. My wife would call us poor. -Ron Price with thanks to (1)”Franco Zeffirelli,” SBS1, 2:30-3:30 p.m., 5 February 2011; and (2) French expression for 'between the wars.'

Comparisons are odious,(1)
but inevitable in life, and
more inevitable for some
of us as we journey life’s
path…...Your mother died
when you were 6 & mine
when I was 33; you went
for the theatre in your 20s
and I went for university &
a teaching career..……..You
went for Catholicism and I
went for the Baha’i Faith!*

Homosexuality seemed to
be in your bones while the
heat of sex turned me into
heterosexuality—and both
of us kept our sexual-style
all our lives.…By the 1990s
and 2000s you were getting
knighted and receiving so
many honours and I was
retiring from decades of
work as a teacher…I wish
you well, Franco, in your
years on this mortal coil
that remain with Jesus in
the very depths of your
spirit as Baha’u’llah is in
mine: two men, one spirit.(2)

(1) Comparisons are odious, Proverbs 141; comparisons are odorous, Much Ado About Nothing, act 3, sc. 5; Sir John Fortescue (c. 1394-1476), comparisons are odious. De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ. Chap. xix.
2 Franco Zeffirelli, Wikipedia, 6 February 2011

Ron Price
6 February 2011
Updated for: ConceptArt.org
On: 17/5/'11 and 11/12/'11

[Gislebertus]

I don't entirely understand your post. But for the record, I adore early Zeffirelli. I am especially fond of his Romeo and Juliet and Brother Sun, Sister Moon. He used a very soft lens in those films and his costumes were superb. He also had a great ear for composers.

[RonPrice]

Belated thanks, Gislebertus, for your frank response. When I write prose-poetry I generally try to link some aspect of society with my own life and my values, beliefs and attitudes. Writing for me is an integrating mechanism.-Ron