Page 66 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

Star-Crossed Lovers I 55

Rosaline was, however, questionable. For us to accept the developing
"true love" of Romeo for Juliet, it is necessary to earlier witness his
romantic infatuation with Rosaline. This immature Romeo, a
teenager in love with the idea of being in love, gradually gives way
to the mature Romeo, truly and totally in love with a human being.
We cannot appreciate the lofty place he arcs to if we haven't
glimpsed the ordinary point at which he began.
One intriguing element of the Castellani and Zeffirelli films is
the manner in which both directors attempt to communicate Shake-
speare's mixed feelings about Friar Laurence. Shakespeare's Laurence
is a decent man; he believes in the need for order, hoping to end the
feud while ensuring that the teens do not engage in premarital sex.
However, he uses his cell as a place to experiment with forbidden
arts.
In Zeffirelli, Laurence is first glimpsed in nature, picking herbs, a
devilish glint in his eye. Later, in his cell, Laurence is framed by
surrounding alchemy equipment, suggesting that he is unknowingly
trapped by his own ungodly experiments. In Castellani, our intro-
duction is a shot of Laurence's rectory, the camera closing in on a
bird's nest over the entrance, implying that nature has unwisely
been allowed to intrude into this pocket of civilization. His room is
upstairs, with wide windows, opening onto the natural world out-
side; he himself is more open to nature than a religious man should
be. After devising the scheme with Juliet, she leaves; suddenly, a
white rabbit hops in through the window, sitting—unafraid—before
Laurence. He smiles and pets the creature; the symbolic significance
of rabbits to ancient Wiccans as a symbol of unrepressed reproduc-
tion suggests his devilish side.

I Defy Thee, Gen-X Stars
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Twentieth Century-Fox, 1995; Baz Luhrmann

Australia's Baz Luhrmann, veteran of music videos and the dance-
musical Strictly Ballroom, hoped to outdo even Zeffirelli in making
Romeo and Juliet "relevant" to youth. He sensed that in 1996 the
story must be given an up-to-the-minute ambience. Having studied
Zeffirelli's version and retaining most of its carefully cut script,
Luhrmann updated the setting (though not the dialogue) to a gang-