Page 58 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

Star-Crossed Lovers I 47

well as her own propensity to violence, which legitimizes her later
suicide. Romeo, too, is introduced through animal imagery; he's dis-
covered in a glen, pining away for his momentary object of affection
while sheep graze and a shepherd plays pipes. This establishes
Romeo as part of the pastoral tradition, a young swain swooning for
romantic love over aloof, unworthy Rosaline.
One traditionally troubling issue is how Romeo and Juliet share
their wedding night when he is not allowed near her house. Cukor
adds a sequence in which Juliet prepares a rope ladder to allow him
access, making her an affirmative, clever woman rather than a giddy
girl. Since the film was fashioned after heavy censorship hit Holly-
wood, Cukor discreetly suggests their night of bliss through mon-
tage. As the couple kiss, he cuts to lush images of rippling water,
blooming flowers, and the gentler side of nature, all set against soft
music. When he returns to the couple, there's no doubt as to what
has transpired.
Cukor freely interprets both Mercutio and Tybalt. The former is
not the eccentric purveyor of antic melancholia most directors opt
for. Barrymore plays Mercutio as a renown lover; in his entrance, he
woos a bevy of willing women. This is far from Shakespeare's con-
ception but proper for Barrymore's reputation (the Great Profile) as
an aging Lothario. His delivery of the Queen Mab speech, tradition-
ally a drunken intellectual's improvisation, here becomes a regular
guy's witty spiel. When he turns serious, Mercutio appears as a
Roman Stoic; during his death scene, Barrymore convinces all
around him that he has suffered only a mere "scratch," then slips
away to die privately. Rathbone's Tybalt seems less Prince of Cats
and Machiavellian perpetrator of mischief than stuffy and pompous,
a strutting, humorless foil for Mercutio's preferred courtier.
This film's Tybalt, having insulted Romeo, only to be told the lad
wants no trouble, accepts that statement and is ready to leave. Mer-
cutio, however, restrains him, not to keep Romeo from having to
duel by valiantly offering himself; rather, to instigate trouble where
none exists. This shifts the source of bloodshed from Tybalt to Mer-
cutio, making the Prince of Cats more sympathetic than usual while
rendering Romeo's subsequent killing of Tybalt an unnerving, out-of-
control act (here Mercutio merely gets what he was asking for)
rather than Shakespeare's righteous revenge.
Cukor includes the oft-eliminated apothecary scene as well as
Laurence's messenger to Romeo locked away with a plague victim.
The final sword fight between Romeo and Paris, the participants