Romeo and Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968)

After reading Romeo and Juliet, my high school English class watched the 1996 Baz Luhrmann adaptation.  Everybody loved it, as I recall.  More recently, I tried to watch it again, and couldn't get through more than 45 minutes before reaching sensory overload.  Luhrmann, like Christopher Nolan, is one of those directors whose lustre has faded since I was a teenager.  (The Andersons, Wes and P.T., are still among my favorites, however.)  So after reading the play again, as part of my mad Shakespeare enterprise, I went looking further back, to the 1968 version, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who previously helmed the excellent Taming of the Shrew, with Liz Taylor shrieking, and Richard Burton humming along to his own theme music.

I was not disappointed - this one is undoubtedly the best adaptation.  The first thing to notice is that the leads are the right age.  Romeo,16, and Juliet, just 15, put in incredibly raw performances - this should still be the go-to adaptation for high schools, and would be, if it wasn't for our society's growing discomfort with the (tame) scene of nudity.  But the energy in this movie is phenomenal - especially noteworthy is the fight scenes leading to the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt (played by a fierce young Michael York).  And while many scenes are omitted, this adaptation is more accurate than Luhrmann's - Juliet doesn't get to watch Romeo die.  Also, the characters are far easier to understand - Luhrmann sped up the dialogue seemingly out of impatience.  Finally, these characters are just beautiful - Olivia Hussey's face looks like the young and naive version of Maria Falconetti's in Passion of Joan of Arc.

I found the play to be full of surprises, reading it a second time.  Our memory tends to strip the plot to its bare essentials, but Shakespeare adds so much nuance - the joy of the Capulets preparing for a wedding that will never take place, for just one instance.  We remember Romeo and Juliet as a tearjerker, but many scenes exist for no other reason than to add humor.  With all the missed connections and bad timing, the play could be considered a darker version of Comedy of Errors.

Romeo and Juliet is well beloved, but has a mixed reputation among scholars.  Though it has few great speeches - the "rose by any other name" bit is extremely overrated - the dialogue feels natural, and for the first time in this Shakespeare marathon, I feel like I can fully relate to these characters, born hundreds of years ago.  But that's no surprise, since our entire concept of romance was built around this play.