If you are had a high school English class that covered Shakespeare, you have probably seen this film. It is by far the most popular version of Romeo and Juliet ever produced. You can find it on Netflix. You can stream it on Amazon (for a fee). You can borrow the DVD from Minerva (in Maine). You can go into my cellar and find it on VHS. It’s everywhere.
There’s a lot to love about this movie. The language is beautiful (I mean, it’s Shakespeare), the cast is charming and attractive, the sets and locations are amazing, and Nino Rota’s score is spot-on.
The fight scenes are excellent. You can tell that Tybalt and Mercutio are just horsing around, even if Romeo can’t, and in the Romeo–Tybalt fight, the blind rage is palpable. Extremely well-executed.
Olivia Hussey is probably the best Juliet ever. Ann Hasson is awesome in the role, but Olivia Hussey is better.
Here’s the thing about setting Romeo and Juliet in a “real” Verona: Romeo and Juliet is a completely unbelievable story. The rules of society, place, and psychology all make a kind of sense within the story, but they don’t make any sense in any other reality. For example, that Romeo and Juliet would go from complete strangers to madly in love in mere moments. That they would go from madly in love to married to dead in less than a week. That Friar Lawrence would agree to marry two underage kids who met the night before and talked for fifteen minutes or so, and that he would agree to do this without their parents’ consent. That nobody would ask “How does a 14-year-old get ahold of a bottle of poison?” The audience has to suspend a lot of disbelief to make all this happen. The closer it gets to a real place, the harder that becomes. Shakespeare was writing for a blank stage that could represent any place or time. His audience was a bunch of Londoners who may have travelled as far as the countryside. A few of them had been to sea, and might have been to Italy or other countries, but to most of them Verona was as alien as the moon or Metebelis III, so they would be disposed to believe that people in this strange place would behave strangely. So, beautiful as the locations are, I think they actually take away from the film.
A bigger problem is the soundtrack. The audio is obviously dubbed. Mouths aren’t always exactly in sync with the voices, and the volume and clarity of the voices doesn’t match the images on the screen. The actor’s delivery is perfect, it just feels like the audio is coming through a wormhole. I looked this up online, and according to IMDB.com, the cameras that they used were so loud that they could be heard on the soundtrack, so it all had to be dubbed. I find it very distracting.
Also, the hair. Capulet’s hair and Friar Lawrence’s hair: They look like wigs. It’s OK to use wigs, as long as they don’t look like wigs. These look like wigs. I know, it’s not a big thing, but it bothers me. If you’re going for realistic, look realistic.
Despite these minor complaints, this is an outstanding production of Romeo and Juliet. As Zeffirelli’s Shakespeare movies go, I think it’s the best. If I were a high school teacher, I’d probably show this one to my class. For one thing, it’s got a little bit of nudity. That always keeps the kids interested. (According to imdb.com, Franco Zeffirelli had to get special permission to show Olivia Hussey topless, even for just a second, because she was only 15 at the time of filming. Leonard Whiting’s bottom, on the other hand, wasn’t a problem because he was 17 and perfectly legal under UK and Italian law. The story that Olivia Hussey couldn’t attend the opening because she was too young to see a film with (her own) nudity in it is a myth.)
For me, though, I still prefer the 1976 Thames Television production.
This production currently ranks as my second favorite Romeo and Juliet.
Here’s the overall ranking so far:
Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Joan Kemp-Welch. Perf. Christopher Neame, Ann Hasson, and Robin Nedwell. Thames Television, 1976. DVD, A&E Television Networks, 2005.
Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, and John McEnery. 1968. netflix.com, 19 SEP 2013.
Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Alvin Rakoff. Perf. Patrick Ryecart, Rebecca Saire, and Anthony Andrews. 1978. DVD, Ambrose, 2000.
Romeo and Juliet. Chor. Kenneth MacMillan. Perf. Angel Corella, Alessandra Ferri, and Michele Villanova. Teatro Alla Scala, Milan, JAN 2000. DVD, Euroarts, 2002.
Shakespeare Series: Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Larry Sullivan. Perf. Alex Hyde-White, Blanche Baker, and Dan Hamilton. Shakespeare Video Society, 1982. Amazon.com, 15 AUG 2013.
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