After the great adaptations of The Bard by the Legends Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles, Italian director Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 cinematic interpretation of ROMEO AND JULIET must be considered the best one of any of Shakespeare's plays. The reason is fairly obvious to anyone who even has the faintest idea of the play itself, let alone read it or performed in any stage performance. It is quite simply the most beautiful and heart-rending love story of all time, one that remains timeless after four centuries and perhaps hundreds of thousands of interpretations, stage and screen alike (and this doesn't even include the two equally brilliant and heartbreaking cinematic versions of the great Broadway play WEST SIDE STORY, which is essentially this play slightly revised and set in the New York City of 1957).
The timeless tale involves a lot of dangerous shenanigans between two warring families, the Capulets and the Montagues, in the Italian city of Verona; because the cause of the enmity is never fully explained in the play itself, it is explicitly meant to be meaningless, hence enhancing what is to follow. Romeo Montague (played expertly by Leonard Whiting, who was a neophyte at the time) crashes what is supposed to be a masked ball staged by the rival Capulets...and then it happens: he somehow falls in love with Juliet (Olivia Hussey). As much as they may be opposite sides of a feud that has no explanation, they are nevertheless attracted in a way that is so poignant because it is imperiled from the second it starts.
Zeffirelli had already scored a huge commercial, critical, and artistic success with another Shakespeare adaptation, 1967's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW; and somehow he topped himself with this masterpiece. Both Whiting and Hussey were acting "rookies" by any standards when this film was made; but given the fact that so many versions of this play had the titular characters played by actors who were much older than those characters, these two teen/young adult actors do convey, with the utmost conviction, the romance and the love for one another that should have transcended and ended the pointless, petty, and violent bickering of the two warring families.
Surrounding Hussey and Whiting are some exceptionally great actors, including Michael York as the impetuous, ready-for-a-fight Tybalt; Milo O'Shea as Friar Laurence; Pat Heywood as Juliet's nurse; John McEnery as Mercutio; Bruce Robinson as Benvolio; and Robert Stephens as the Prince, who delivers the final verdict of the two warring families after the two young lovers seal their fate. And it is Lord Olivier himself who narrates this poignant story, with the final line, "For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo".
ROMEO AND JULIET, besides being a massive critical, commercial, and artistic hit, one of the biggest of 1968, not surprisingly, and justifiably, won Academy Awards for its gorgeous cinematography and costume designs. It is a film that, like its source material, will always be timely and timeless.
A '10' rating is absolutely in order for this heartrending masterpiece.
The timeless tale involves a lot of dangerous shenanigans between two warring families, the Capulets and the Montagues, in the Italian city of Verona; because the cause of the enmity is never fully explained in the play itself, it is explicitly meant to be meaningless, hence enhancing what is to follow. Romeo Montague (played expertly by Leonard Whiting, who was a neophyte at the time) crashes what is supposed to be a masked ball staged by the rival Capulets...and then it happens: he somehow falls in love with Juliet (Olivia Hussey). As much as they may be opposite sides of a feud that has no explanation, they are nevertheless attracted in a way that is so poignant because it is imperiled from the second it starts.
Zeffirelli had already scored a huge commercial, critical, and artistic success with another Shakespeare adaptation, 1967's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW; and somehow he topped himself with this masterpiece. Both Whiting and Hussey were acting "rookies" by any standards when this film was made; but given the fact that so many versions of this play had the titular characters played by actors who were much older than those characters, these two teen/young adult actors do convey, with the utmost conviction, the romance and the love for one another that should have transcended and ended the pointless, petty, and violent bickering of the two warring families.
Surrounding Hussey and Whiting are some exceptionally great actors, including Michael York as the impetuous, ready-for-a-fight Tybalt; Milo O'Shea as Friar Laurence; Pat Heywood as Juliet's nurse; John McEnery as Mercutio; Bruce Robinson as Benvolio; and Robert Stephens as the Prince, who delivers the final verdict of the two warring families after the two young lovers seal their fate. And it is Lord Olivier himself who narrates this poignant story, with the final line, "For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo".
ROMEO AND JULIET, besides being a massive critical, commercial, and artistic hit, one of the biggest of 1968, not surprisingly, and justifiably, won Academy Awards for its gorgeous cinematography and costume designs. It is a film that, like its source material, will always be timely and timeless.
A '10' rating is absolutely in order for this heartrending masterpiece.