Critical response to Franco Zeffirelli's film Romeo and Juliet

Zeffirelli's Romeo And Juliet

This movie version of Shakespeare's classic play breaks up the text more than is necessary, relying too heavily on the camera's ability to direct focus and not enough on the text to tell the story. To begin with, the sonnet shared between the two young lovers the first time they meet at the Capulet's ball is completely broken up, with long pauses coming even in the middle of the metrical line, as if no thought had been given to the text (Zeffirelli). Doubtless Zeffirelli felt justified in updating and adapting this script for film, as well he should have, but the beauty and continuity of the text could be preserved and used to enhance the film's quality, rather than be seen as a liability that gets in the way of the camera.

That being said, Franco Zeffirelli's interpretation of the script is far truer to the characters of Shakespeare's play than most of the perennial high school and community theatre productions, which emphasize the romantic love generally thought to exist between the two characters. While this film is far from denying such a love, Jennifer Martin is absolutely correct when she notes that "Zeffirelli makes much of the fact that the two lover share an intense physical passion" (Martin, 42). It is the sexuality apparent in Zeffirelli's production that truly brings the story to life on the screen -- we are watching a group, or groups, of hormone-driven adolescence who are prone to violence and infatuation based on physical desire.

This is made just as clear in the fight sequences of the film. The opening fight is an ugly, all-out brawl that "seems to affect the entire village" (Martin, 42). The fight between Tybalt and Mercutio occurs with a large crowd of onlookers; teenagers and young adults of the fighters' age, mostly Tybalt's companions, who cheer on the two youths to more and more violent ends. Again, the rashness of you is emphasized, this time in regards to violence as opposed to the sexual feelings that the title characters of the film are so quick to interpret as love. In Zeffirelli's version, the mortal wound Mercutio receives is a complete accident. When Tybalt (Michael York) notices the blood on the end of his sword, he stares at it first in shock, then in growing dismay, as though he had never participated in any real violence before (Zeffirelli). He even looks as though he is going to stay, and make sure that Mercutio is alright, but he is rushed away by the tide of his fleeing and insistent friends. The repeated suggestion that these characters, many of whom are little more than children and none of whom, apparently, have any of the wisdom that is supposed to come with age, do not understand the affects and implications of their actions strengthens rather than undermines the tragedy at the heart of the film, and mirrors the utter meaninglessness of the feud between the Montagues and Capulets that fuels the entire drama.