Simultaneously the worst and best movie ever made
Actually one of my teachers watched every single version of Romeo and Juliet with the original text in front of him to prove that this was the worst version, but to his great dismay its the most accurate film adaptation of it, with the lines closest to the original text and most similar stage direction and relayed emotions.
He proceeded to show it to us in class.
Dude, seriously. This version is actually very accurate.
My Shakespeare professor in grad school said the same thing.
I think most Shakespeare movies are just so classy and highbrow with their gorgeous period costumes and mandatory snooty elocutionary accents that people forget how goofy this play actually is. The lines, the characters, the motivations, the babyfaced teen stars, I just… oh my god it’s all so real. I’ve heard a lot of people blast Baz Luhrmann for making such a campy adaptation and it’s just like no, you don’t understand, that was all Shakespeare.
Sometimes I wonder if the real reason it’s disliked is because it was so damn popular with teenage girls.
hey shakesankle and alltheweirdkidsinoneplace
"Sometimes I wonder if the real reason it’s disliked is because it -was so damn popular with teenage girls."
Probably since almost everything that’s popular with teenage girls is devalued and put down. I might try streaming this or something if people want to watch it?
Actually this is my favorite adaptation and I have always shown/references this in classes.
Partly because it WAS so popular with teenaged girls. Partly because I was a teenaged girl when it came out. Partly because it’s an incredibly faithful adaptation.
But mostly because it’s fucking awesome.
The thing most people forget is that Shakespeare wasn’t writing SHAKESPEARE. He was writing pop culture for mass consumption. It wasn’t highbrow. It was bawdy and the actors changed lines and joked with the audience and the plays are full of snide social commentary that would have been appreciated by the contemporary Tudor audience.
Which is exactly what Baz did with his R and J.
The beautiful thing about this adaptation is that it really shows what Shakespeare was doing. Theatre wasn’t considered an art until after Shakespeare death. The fact that we have the first folio is almost accidental;the other company members wanted to do something in his memories and paid through the nose to get all of the plays he had worked on printed (which involved scrounging up all the actors’ copies). Printing was EXPENSIVE and reserved almost exclusively for poetry and real literary art. Which plays were not.
Plays were concerts. They were media for the masses, mainly created for the groundlings (the audience members standing directly on the ground in front of the stage, who had an insane power over the actors ad playwrights because if they didn’t like something, they’d let you know it!) Royalty went to them, of course, and Shakespeare had some powerful patrons. But no one really considered it ART the way we do.
Which is why this film is so successful and important. It shows what it is and also what it does. Because this is a tragic and beautiful adaptation, even while its wild and bright and silly. It captures perfectly the twist of this play—the fact that until act 3, this was most definitely a comedy—and the raw emotion that connected not only with the groundlings but with the lords and ladies and nobles that filled the upper seats as well.
Also, the directorial decisions made in this film regarding costume, character motivations, MERCUTIO.. it’s just phenomenal.
I loved this film so, so much. I was exactly the right age (like 13?) when it came out here and I fell wildly in love with it and Leonardo diCaprio. TRUE LIFE STORY.
Also one of the many great things about the Globe on South Bank is that they embrace the original spirit of the plays, as well as relatively authentic costumes and instrumentation. They’re gory and hilarious and the jokes are in the weirdest places and there’s audience interaction and it’s great. They’re really alive, even when it’s the middle of a fucking thunderstorm and half the cast and most of the audience are shivering.
(And occasionally they do original pronunciation productions and I really want to see one because then all the rhymes will work)
