Pippo Zeffirelli, the son of the late director Franco Zeffirelli, has spoken out against a sexual exploitation lawsuit filed by Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, the stars of Zeffirelli’s film adaptation of Paramount Pictures’ Romeo and Juliet.
A lawsuit filed last month alleges that filmmakers pressured actors into performing nude scenes and were sexually harassed on set.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit has been dubbed “embarrassing,” and Zeffirelli has defended the movie and refuted the accusations, insisting that the nude scene was “far from pornographic.”
He went on to say that his father was a “great artist and gentleman” who never condoned or condoned sexual exploitation or harassment on set.
“It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered an abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional discomfort,” Zeffirelli said, according to EW.
Zeffirelli
Ziffirelli, the president of the Franco Zeffirelli Foundation, has defended the late director in opposition to allegations of exploitation and sexual harassment made through actors Redgrave and Dench.
“[Franco] Zeffirelli himself was accused of being reactionary precisely because, over and over again, he spoke out against pornography,” he continued.
“The nude images in the film express the beauty, the transfer, I would even say the candor of mutual giving and do not contain any morbid feeling.”
Furthermore, Ziffirelli claimed that the producers of the film had consent forms from the actors’ parents, and added that Zeffirelli had spoken out against pornography throughout his career.
Redgrave and Dench are suing Paramount Pictures over a nude bedroom scene in the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, in which they starred as the titular characters...Read More
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Source: Music Observer