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| See below for the 1936 poster |
When I think about the late
Franco Zeffirelli, the lush romantic music of Nino Rota enters my head, my mind
flies back to the year 1968, and I’m once again young and in love. Of course
I’m thinking of one of Zeffirelli’s earliest and best films, Romeo and Juliet.
Over a long career much of his most acclaimed (not to mention most
controversial) work involved opera, Nonetheless I think Zeffirelli’s opulent
touch was extraordinarily well suited to the filming (within the walls of
medieval Italian towns) of Shakespeare’s great early tragedy. .
When, as a college student, I
first watched Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, my reference point was the
classic 1936 black-&-white version from MGM. As befit one of Irving
Thalberg’s prestige projects, the cast was chockful of stars from the MGM stock
company: John Barrymore as Mercutio! Basil Rathbone as Tybalt! Edna May Oliver
as Juliet’s nurse! Even Andy Devine in the small comic role of the nurse’s
servant! Young Romeo was played by not-so-young Leslie Howard, who at 43 was
still a go-to guy for romantic leading roles. His Juliet was 34-year-old Norma
Shearer, a demure beauty who just happened to be Mrs. Irving Thalberg. It’s by
no means a bad film, but under the direction of George Cukor the actors are
formal and a bit stiff, playing at the Bard with a capital B. There’s no way that anyone of my generation
would have connected emotionally with this story of long-in-the-tooth star-crossed
lovers. It was something we could watch dutifully, as for an assignment in an
English class.
Then in 1968, at a time of
high emotion for the youth of America, along came Zeffirelli to transform the
time-worn story. Yes, the settings were beautiful and the well-choreographed street
brawls unmistakably alive. But what really sold this version was the decision
to cast in the leading roles actual teenagers not far removed in age from the
lovers in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Leonard Whiting was 18 years old when the film
was released, while Olivia Hussey was 15, just two years older than the storied
Juliet. Their shaggy hair and youthful impetuousness made them seem like our
peers. At a time when we were discovering love, sex, and the fact that our
parents weren’t always right, their on-screen passion struck a chord with Baby
Boomers. (I’ve since learned that the movie’s morning-after scene, with a nude
Whiting artfully stretched out on the coverlet of the bridal bed, came as a delightful
shock to certain young men who thereby discovered their own sexual leanings.)
One last example of how Cukor
and Zeffirelli’s approach differed: Romeo first espies Juliet as she dances at
the Capulet ball. In that instant, his infatuation with a certain Rosaline
fades away as he reverently murmurs, “Oh, she doth teach the torches to
burn bright!” In the Cukor version, Romeo is watching a formal dance number in which Juliet, framed by a
symmetrical arrangement of handmaidens, sways prettily while (as I recall)
holding a floral wreath. Zeffirelli shows us instead a huge circle of Capulets,
all shapes and sizes, all happily executing the moves of some period
couple-dance. Juliet is not the best dancer of the bunch, and the dance formation
doesn’t set her off as a rare object, or a prima donna. But she’s young, she’s
lovely, and she’s just the right age . . .
so of course Romeo falls in love on the spot. .
It’s the youthful exuberance
of love that Zeffirelli shows us. Perhaps the film may not hold up today, but
what youthful love affair does?
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