Romeo and Juliet (2013) Movie Blurb by Shale October 12, 2013 "Shakespeare may be good for an evening but not for all time." Attributed to George Bernard Shaw. Of course Shaw was a vocal critic of Shakespeare and might have been annoyed that the THIRD movie of a Shakespeare play was made since his death in 1950. But, a lot of Shakespeare admirers are also annoyed with this movie because unlike the 1968 Zeffirelli movie and the 1997 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this one does not stick to the Bard's words, which to many is the whole point of any reinterpretation. I have seen and got DVD's of both those movies and consider Zeffirelli's to be the definitive cinema version of the play, but this movie, still sounding like Elizabethan English is using a different script written by screenwriter Julian Fellowes. However, having been filmed on location in Verona Italy with great Renaissance sets & costuming and actors who look like they stepped off of a Caravaggio canvas, I have to say this movie was the most enjoyable. So, maybe Shakespeare's story, if not his exact words are for all time. And the story remains the same. Two families in Verona, Capulet and Montague have some longstanding feud and are causing havoc in the town with their constant swordfights. I won't go into detail on the story - you shoulda paid attention in high school English Lit. Just a rundown of the characters and who play them. Needless to say two young ppl meet; Juliet Capulet (Hailee Steinfeld) and Romeo Montague (Douglas Booth) and fall instantly in love. They run to Friar Laurence (Paul Giamatti) who secretly marries them. Romeo & Juliet Romeo's cousin Mercutio (Christian Cooke) gets into a fight with Tybalt (Ed Westwick) and it doesn't go well for him. Mercutio's Last Sword Fight Romeo ends up killing Tybalt and has to go on the lam and Juliet's father wants her to marry a nobleman. The friar comes up with a plan to fake Juliet's death so she can sneak off to another city with Romeo. Juliet & Friar But, Romeo doesn't get the memo and thinks she is really dead and drinks poison because he can't live without her. He dies just as she awakens so she stabs herself. (If this quick synopsis spoiled anything for anyone, I gotta ask, where you been for the last 400 years?) Romeo & Juliet Fin As I mentioned, I really liked this movie. It got the message of Shakespeare's story with language easier to follow. In Shakespeare's time his verse worked better but now a Revised Standard Version of English makes for a better screenplay. This is the only Romeo & Juliet movie that actually got an emotional response out of me. Maybe because I had a similar (if not deadly) affair in my youth, but more on that later.
You Never Forget Your First Love All thru the movie Romeo & Juliet, I somehow identified personally with the characters to the point of getting choked up emotionally at times. Tho that was the tale of two young ppl finding each other and instantly falling in into forbidden love over 400 years ago, it actually happened to me in my youth. She was 17 and I was 20. She, Moslem Turk, me Agnostic Infidel. We met on Buyukada a romantic resort island in the Marmara Sea. She smiled at me, I chased after her. She let me walk beside her when no one was near to see us. Our love was forbidden but her friend ran messages between us and we snuck around in the woods after her parents went to bed - and made love on my trenchcoat. Then that last visit to the island before I was to go back to the States her parents were away in Istanbul. We made love by candlelight in her house. I was so impassioned by her beauty, her warmth, her fragrance, her taste. That was October 1965. We wrote by way of a friend of hers in Istanbul a while after I left - her schoolgirl broken English sufficient and charming. I have kept those 8 letters all these years and on occasion will read them and reconnected. These many lifetimes later they still bring tears to my eyes. I know Halet is now 65 years old, probably has many grandchildren & great grandchildren. And yet I can feel that passion of these two young lovers as if it were yesterday. Or as if it were 400 years ago. The story of impassioned young love does not get old.