Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Romeo and Juliet (1968), directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
After warming up with the funny and frantic The Taming of the Shrew (1967) (thank Burton and Taylor for giving him the job) Zeffirelli continues with Italian Renaissance Shakespeare, notable this time for using teen leads more closely matching the original play. By comparison, Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer were 43 and 34 in Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Pioneering modern movie Shakespeare, Zeffirelli's great strength is in the intelligibility of the story. The lines make sense even if the wording might be obscure in print. Wisely, he is willing to show rather than tell and trim long speeches as needed.
Olivia Hussey is the shining star here: "she doth teach the torches to burn bright". Her reaction in the first balcony scene is the best I have seen. He: "O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" She: "What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?" (He saves it with a good come-back). On the downside: her dubbed in moans and sobs are excessive.
The famous poster was suggestive: she is halfway down his chest with the implication that she might be sliding down farther, which wasn't allowed in 1968:
Notes:
We never hear Romeo's dream. He is about to tell it when Mercutio interrupts with "Queen Mab".
Eerie, ominous fate hangs over the story. Romeo fears "some consequence yet hanging in the stars" and after the disaster says "then I defy you, stars".
Lady Capulet plans to have Romeo poisoned in Mantua, but he buys his own poison there.
Capulet: "The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she", meaning Juliet is his only living child. He argues that 13 is too young to marry and wants to wait a couple of years. Paris: "Younger than she are happy mothers made". Capulet: "And too soon marr'd are those so early made", clearly thinking of his own wife.
Is something going on between Lady Capulet and Tybalt? They share a fiery spirit.
Shakespeare uses a race image: "It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear". It is a lovely picture, but Juliet is the gem and the Ethiopian the background.
Most of the cruder sexual jokes are omitted, although we have this naughty usage when reading the clock: "the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon".
"At lovers' perjuries, they say, Jove laughs". Put that in the Romantic Comedy Handbook.
"Women may fall when there's no strength in men".
"These violent delights have violent ends" -- the motto of Westworld (2016).
In this version Mercutio and Tybalt are not seriously fighting, just dueling and putting on a show for the crowd. When they become heated Romeo intervenes. Mercutio: "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm". The crowd laughs through his dying lines, thinking he is clowning.
The final third is much compressed. Having set up the ending I suppose audiences want to get to the death scene, but we skip Juliet's horror-film debate over whether to take the potion, Romeo's visit to the Apothecary and his fight with Paris at the tomb.
We ought to spend more time with Friar Lawrence's uncertainty. How does he know this drug works and lasts exactly 42 hours? How often has he used it?
Juliet had two funerals. That must have been unprecedented.
Bruce Robinson plays loyal and earnest Benvolio. He later became a writer and director and says the fruity Uncle Monty from his Withnail and I (1987) was based on Zeffirelli. Robinson had to fend off the director's sexual advances.
Score by Nino Rota. The lyrics are not from the play. As with Michel Legrand's music for Summer of '42 (1971) the love theme was so popular that everyone became sick of it eventually.
Available on Blu-ray. Image quality is only fair, but that may be limited by the film source.
