Italy has produced many important cinematography auteurs, including Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Ettore Scola, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Zeffirelli, Mario Bava, Sergio Corbucci, Lucio Fulci, Mario Monicelli, Marco Ferreri, Elio Petri, Ermanno Olmi, Umberto Lenzi, Lina Wertmüller, and Luchino Visconti.

Zeffirelli has been particularly praised, for his presentation of the duel scene as bravado getting out-of-control.

# Katherina's speech is ironic: she is not being sincere in her statements but sarcastic, pretending to have been tamed when in reality she has completely duped or is humoring Petruchio ( this is how it is presented in the 1967 Franco Zeffirelli adaptation ).

Although the film has been received as generally faithful to the Gospel sources, and more comprehensive than previous film versions, Zeffirelli and his screenwriters found it necessary to take some liberties with the scriptures for purposes of brevity and narrative continuity.

As an actor, he has worked with Franco Zeffirelli ( on whom he based the character of Uncle Monty in Withnail and I ), Ken Russell and François Truffaut.

Regrettably, a complete video performance of the tenor's searing portrayal of Canio in the Zeffirelli production of Pagliacci, which was to be paired with Cavalleria rusticana featuring Tucker's friend and tenor colleague Franco Corelli as Turiddu, was never telecast and has not been issued commercially, for legal reasons.

Director Franco Zeffirelli described his discovery, made from 300 youngsters who auditioned during more than three months: " He has a magnificent face, gentle melancholy, sweet, the kind of idealistic young man Romeo ought to be.

This movie also made Zeffirelli a household name-no other subsequent work by him had the immediate impact of Romeo and Juliet.

Zeffirelli also collaborated often with Dame Joan Sutherland, designing and directing her performances of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 1959 amongst others.

Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who also worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, and other roles in a number of Visconti's films and theatrical productions.

Also released in 1908 was the seven minute La bisbetica domata ( La bisbetica domata was also the name under which the 1967 Franco Zeffirelli version would be released in Italy ), directed by Azeglio Pineschi and Lamberto Pineschi.

She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957 – 1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 ( which was also her New York debut ), and as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in October 1960, directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli.

He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Eduardo De Filippo as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.

Designer / director Franco Zeffirelli also made his US debut there.

Thom Yorke also had the 1968 adaptation of the play ( Romeo and Juliet ) in his head: " I saw the Zeffirelli version when I was 13 and I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away.

He also became a friend, among others, of film directors Federico Fellini and Franco Zeffirelli and writer Dino Buzzati.

He was also greatly disappointed to discover Zeffirelli had dubbed his entire performance.

In 1990 Franco Zeffirelli, whose Shakespeare films have been described as " sensual rather than cerebral ", cast Mel Gibson — then famous for the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon movies — in the title role of his 1990 version, and Glenn Close — then famous as the psychotic " other woman " in Fatal Attraction — as Gertrude.

Director Bruce Robinson claimed to have been the target of unwanted sexual advances by Zeffirelli during the filming of Romeo and Juliet, in which Robinson played Benvolio.

In 2007, disappointed with the manner in which Pope Benedict XVI had been presenting himself to the media, Zeffirelli openly offered his services to the Pontiff as an image consultant.

Zeffirelli frequently cast unknown actors in major roles ; however his leads have rarely gone on to stardom or even a sustained acting career.

* February 12 – Franco Zeffirelli, Italian film and opera director

Franco Zeffirelli, KBE (; born 12 February 1923 ) is an Italian director and producer of films and television.

However, film director Franco Zeffirelli, who claims to have known her well, states in his autobiography that Magnani was born in Alexandria, Egypt to an Italian Jewish mother and Egyptian father, and that " only later did she become Roman, when her grandmother brought her from Egypt and raised her in one of the Roman slum districts.

It was during the run of this play that Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli first spotted her because of her beauty and theatrical skill.

She played Mary, the mother of Jesus in the 1977 TV production of Jesus of Nazareth ( her second work for director Zeffirelli ).

She returned the following year to perform in La traviata in a production by Franco Zeffirelli and in Medea, directed by the Greek director, Alexis Minotis, two of her infrequent performances in the United States.

The origin of the mini-series dates to a conversation Zeffirelli, who is Roman Catholic, had with Pope Paul VI in which the Pope asked the director to make a film about the life of Jesus.

Franco Zeffirelli was the first choice for director, and he met with Laurents, Sondheim, and Rodgers, who fell asleep during their discussion.

Her most recent English-language film was the Franco Zeffirelli production Callas Forever, in which she portrayed opera diva Maria Callas.

Although they are most remembered for the Death Wish sequels and Chuck Norris action pictures such as The Delta Force and Invasion U. S. A., and even the vigilante thriller Exterminator 2 ( the sequel to 1980 ’ s The Exterminator ), Cannon ’ s output was actually far more varied, with musical and comedy films like Breakin ’, Breakin ’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, The Last American Virgin, and the U. S. release of The Apple ; period romance pictures like Lady Chatterley's Lover ( 1981 ), Bolero, and Mata Hari ( 1985 ); science fiction and fantasy films like Hercules, Lifeforce and The Barbarians ; as well as serious pictures like John Cassavetes ’ Love Streams, Zeffirelli ’ s Otello ( a film version of the Verdi opera ), Norman Mailer ’ s Tough Guys Don ’ t Dance, Andrei Konchalovsky ’ s Runaway Train, and Shy People ; and action / adventure films such as the 3-D Treasure of the Four Crowns, King Solomon ’ s Mines, Cobra and American Ninja.

He worked as a disc jockey and traveled to Europe, where he got a job as assistant to Franco Zeffirelli.

In the line of operatic trades to cushion the budget, the Dallas Civic Opera will use San Francisco's new Leni Bauer-Ecsy production of `` Lucia Di Lammermoor '' this season, returning the favor next season when San Francisco uses the Dallas `` Don Giovanni '', designed by Franco Zeffirelli.

In contrast to Zeffirelli, whose Hamlet was heavily cut, Kenneth Branagh adapted, directed, and starred in a 1996 version containing every word of Shakespeare's play, combining the material from the F1 and Q2 texts.

Director Terry Jones noted, " They were all very knowing because they'd all worked for Franco Zeffirelli on Jesus of Nazareth, so I had these elderly Tunisians telling me, ' Well, Mr Zeffirelli wouldn't have done it like that, you know.

Zeffirelli was born in Florence as Gianfranco Corsi, the illegitimate son of a mercer, Ottorino Corsi, and his mistress, Adelaide Garosi, a dressmaker.

After two successful film adaptations of Shakespeare, Zeffirelli went on to religious themes, first with a film about the life of St. Francis of Assisi titled Brother Sun, Sister Moon, then his extended mini-series Jesus of Nazareth with an all-star cast.

Zeffirelli is openly gay.

Robinson says that he based the lecherous character of Uncle Monty in the film Withnail and I on Zeffirelli.

Their lively version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew ( 1967 ), directed by Franco Zeffirelli, was a notable success.

The 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film of Romeo and Juliet was issued as a 4-LP set, as a single LP with musical and dialogue excerpts, and as an album containing only the film's musical score.