Romeo and Juliet (1968) - film review

The peace of 15th century Verona is disturbed by the on-going feud between the houses of Montague and Capulet.  At a lavish banquet, Romeo, Montague’s young son, is captivated by 14-year-old Juliet and, not knowing that she is Capulet’s daughter, he proceeds to court her.  Deeply in love but fearing their parents may oppose their union, Romeo and Juliet persuade Friar Laurence to marry them in secret.  Their happiness proves to be short-lived.  After Juliet’s cousin Tybalt has slain his friend Mercutio in a duel, Romeo takes his revenge by killing Tybalt.  For this offence, Romeo is banished from Verona and risks being put to death if he returns.  Unaware that his daughter has married, Capulet arranges for Juliet to wed the wealthy Count Paris.  When she hears of this, Juliet is devastated - she would rather die than prove unfaithful to her beloved Romeo.  Fortunately, Friar Laurence has a cunning plan...

Undeterred by the lukewarm reception that his first Shakespeare adaptation - The Taming of the Shrew (1967) - had received, director Franco Zeffirelli threw caution to the wind and attempted another, even grander, retelling of one of the Bard’s great plays.  Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet was to be one of the most successful screen adaptations of a Shakespeare play ever, taking almost 40 million dollars at the US box office alone.   The film owed its popularity not only to its stunning production values but also to the fact that it was very much in tune with the Zeitgeist of the era.  Its tale of two adolescent lovers rebelling against the established order struck an immediate chord with the counter-culture generation of the late 1960s, and it helped that the lead characters were played by youngsters with whom a young cinema audience could immediately identify.  Zeffirelli took the unprecedented step of casting two unknown teenagers for the lead roles - Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, aged 17 and 15 respectively - and this gives the film a realism and poignancy that is often lacking from productions of Romeo and Juliet.

Visually, the film is stunning, and it hardly matters that it does not follow Shakespeare’s text to the letter.  The beautifully shot Tuscany locations and colourful Renaissance costumes bring the play to life and give it a startling vibrancy and immediacy.  With its cast composed predominantly of inexperienced young actors, you might think the film would lack credibility in the acting department, but this is most definitely not the case.  Whilst it is to be regretted that some of the longer speeches were trimmed to lighten the load for the principals, the performances are up to RSC standard and are not only true to the original text but also work to make the text relevant to a contemporary audience.   Somehow Shakespeare’s lines from Romeo and Juliet have an added charm and poignancy when they come from the lips of someone who has yet to go beyond the experience of that first traumatic love.  There is an innocence, purity and lack of self-awareness to Whiting and Hussey’s performances that makes this a particularly affecting interpretation of the play.

The film was not only a massive box office hit, it was also widely praised by the critics and was nominated for four Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Director), winning in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design.  Nino Rota’s evocative love theme became a hit single in various different versions and was used by the UK disc jockey Simon Bates for many years in his radio show.  With its heartbreaking yet true-to-life portrayal of adolescent love thwarted by circumstance and parental interference, Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is a film that speaks to all generations, but especially the young.  If you are not sobbing your heart out by the end of this film, shame on you.  Shakespeare’s tale of star-crossed lovers is the definitive weepy, and Zeffirelli certainly does it justice in that respect.  Never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo...

© Alex Sullivan 2011

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