12 replies to this topic

[nondon]

A. J. Raffles, on Jul 13 2006, 01:17 PM, said:

Tom Henrik, on Jul 13 2006, 01:06 PM, said:

Why the dual pictures?

Welcome, by the way

To say he/she likes Zefirelli?

well    It's accident that I put dual pictures..didnt mean that I likes zefirelli that much ,but I do appriciate his film "romeo&juliet" ,since it reminds me something about italy.

[A. J. Raffles]

Hmm, to be quite honest, I thought it dwelt a bit too much on costume, decorations and chandeliers and that sort of thing. It felt a little overdecorated to me. But then again, I never lasted through it...
By the way, Zefirelli's film is the one in which the camera apparently has a crush on Romeo, right? If not, then maybe I'm thinking of a different film.

[ManoFWar]

Well she is my Gf and she saw Romeo and Juliet for the one thousand time   now she almost know it by memory yes the film is by Franco Zeffirelli I don't know about the camera but anyway should be funny to see but maybe you wrong film with the other one with Leonardo di Caprio.Anyway I'm sorry to said to a moderator but should we go back on topic

[nondon]

A. J. Raffles, on Jul 15 2006, 08:39 AM, said:

Hmm, to be quite honest, I thought it dwelt a bit too much on costume, decorations and chandeliers and that sort of thing. It felt a little overdecorated to me. But then again, I never lasted through it...
By the way, Zefirelli's film is the one in which the camera apparently has a crush on Romeo, right? If not, then maybe I'm thinking of a different film.

well you got me..I dont know much about zefirelli but probably manofwar was right about it cause he's italain   By the way, it's good film I like a lot the music in the the film mmm.. expecially the main actress..she's juliet in version that I like a lot. she looked incocent, pure and very lovely..I can look at her again and again never be bored..she's different from other women that we could see nowadays. They look nice but only in one pattern "sexy" for me its very boring.  

[A. J. Raffles]

ManoFWar, on Jul 15 2006, 12:58 PM, said:

Well she is my Gf and she saw Romeo and Juliet for the one thousand time   now she almost know it by memory yes the film is by Franco Zeffirelli I don't know about the camera but anyway should be funny to see but maybe you wrong film with the other one with Leonardo di Caprio.Anyway I'm sorry to said to a moderator but should we go back on topic

No, I think I saw both versions. The one with Leonardo di Caprio was the slightly MTVish one called "Romeo + Juliet". That one was a bit hectic, perhaps, but as far as film versions of Shakespeare plays go, it wasn't as bad as I had expected.
R&J isn't really my favourite play, but some bits about it are interesting. For example the fact that it starts out like a comedy (if you ignore the Prologue, that is) but then it turns tragic on the death of Mercutio. Or that Romeo and Juliet actually only spend about ten minutes on stage together - if that much.
By the way, I'm going to see the latest RSC production in October, and I'm already looking forward to it. I already saw a production of it there two years ago, but that was a bit on the dull side - men in tights and an annoying main actress pretending to be Gwyneth Paltrow, ick. The best actor was actually the understudy playing Friar Lawrence..

Ahem, sorry. Don't get me started on English literature. I'll always get carried away like this.

[ManoFWar]

I see Romeo + Juliet it was somekind of modern reproduction of the story.Well its fun to see the two faction in the story made as typical New York gang and carry big guns instead of swords I think the poor Shakespeare wake up from his tomb to kill them all Anyway this is the immortal story that make him great so for this time you are safe Raffles and I will not ask you anything about your fevourite topic:english letterature  

[A. J. Raffles]

Well, the interesting thing about the Luhrman version was that it actually kept the original text. All it really modernised was the images.

[Mat]

A. J. Raffles, on Jul 15 2006, 09:00 PM, said:

Well, the interesting thing about the Luhrman version was that it actually kept the original text. All it really modernised was the images.

Absolutely - I thought the Luhrmann version was great, because the MTV rapid cutting made the play much more appealing to a teenage audience. Although he did cut out a lot of the text, at least he didn't change any of the material he retained.

I haven't seen the Zefirelli version, though the soundtrack is very familiar because it was played on BBC Radio 1 in the UK every day for years by the DJ Simon Bates. He used it as background music while he read a daily letter from a listener about a doomed relationship!

Mat.

[A. J. Raffles]

Mat, on Jul 15 2006, 03:33 PM, said:

Absolutely - I thought the Luhrmann version was great, because the MTV rapid cutting made the play much more appealing to a teenage audience. Although he did cut out a lot of the text, at least he didn't change any of the material he retained.

I agree.  At first I thought it was horrible, actually, because all that cutting made me feel dizzy (I wasn't MTV-trained), but once I got used to that style I realised the film must have worked remarkably well for its audience. A bit like that strange Loncraine version of Richard III - the WWI/WWII theme seems odd at first, but it actually works surprisingly well.

Oh, and welcome to the forums, by the way.

[BeefontheBone]

ManoFWar, on Jul 15 2006, 02:51 PM, said:

I see Romeo + Juliet it was somekind of modern reproduction of the story.Well its fun to see the two faction in the story made as typical New York gang

Rio, I think you'll find

I enjoyed Luhrman's version, although I still don't understand why anyone would cast di Caprio in anything EVER. The opening sequence is wonderful, and the soundtrack album is great too

Moulin Rouge, on the other hand ... ick. When it got to the point where you could see which song they were about to do 10 minutes in advance (Roxanne, anyone?) and Ewan MacGregor (who I like as an actor - especially in A Life Less Ordinary) still couldn't carry a tune I decided I'd wasted a couple of hours.

[A. J. Raffles]

BeefontheBone, on Jul 15 2006, 09:01 PM, said:

I enjoyed Luhrman's version, although I still don't understand why anyone would cast de Caprio in anything EVER.

Well, to please the intended target audience of fourteen-year-old girls, of course. I remember that after the film came out, my best friend had a large poster of in her room, and admitted to being a di Caprio fan. Today, she denies it, of course, just as she denies having thought David Hasselhoff an amazing singer when she was seven years old. It's just a phase some of us have to go through (and in retrospect, I'm glad I was an elitist little twit who refused to go through the same phases as everybody else).
Incidentally, the same friend dragged me to the cinema to see The Man in the Iron Mask a few years later, as she was growing out of that phase. I thought the film was hilarious and was extremely surprised to find it wasn't actually meant to be funny...

[BeefontheBone]

Surely some of it was meant to be funny? I thought it was hilarious too

[A. J. Raffles]

BeefontheBone, on Jul 16 2006, 02:13 PM, said:

Surely some of it was meant to be funny? I thought it was hilarious too

Yes, that's what I thought as well, especially the ludicrous bit about D'Artagnan being the biological father of Louis XIV. But then I read the rave reviews on imdb...