But soft! Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet

With Valentine's Day around the corner, I have been thinking lately of one of my favorite movies: Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, which premiered in 1968. My first experience with the play Romeo and Juliet was not completely positive. I went on a class field trip to see a production of it when I was 12 or 13. Because I had never read the play before, I had some trouble understanding the dialogue. Even so, I remember not liking the cold, empty sets of this modernized rendition of the play.

When I was 14, I read the play in English class my freshman year of high school and immediately loved it. My English teacher only fed the fire when he showed my class Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.

I loved the movie because it played so well off of my imagination. I especially love that the lead actors, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, were so young. Earlier movie renditions of the play had cast older veteran actors in the roles of Romeo and Juliet. But I think that the angst and energy of Whiting and Hussey are a perfect match for the intense drama of Romeo and Juliet. And after studying abroad in Rome, I now appreciate even more the movie's beautiful setting of Renaissance Italy. I still get chills just watching the trailer.

While reading about the movie this week, I found an original review of the movie from The New York Times. I don't completely agree with everything that the review says. I would hardly describe the Nurse as "cold," for example. However, as I mentioned above, I heartily agree with the review's statement that the lead characters are "as young and full of life as they ought to be." If you have seen the movie, what do you think?