But first, the Folger audiobook was ok. I understood the parts I already knew, picked up a few things I didn't know, but after watching the movie, realized I'd still missed a lot. 3 stars for it.
The Great Courses had two main points. What is a tragedy? Actually, I'm still not sure. He was making the point that some of the histories could be tragedies but I never picked up his final conclusion. He also talked about the continual undercurrent of and sometimes overt violence of this play, which was a different way for me to look at it, because I hadn't thought of that before.
If you'd asked me before I watched the movie, I would have said this play was a romance, but I don't feel that is primarily what it is after having watched it.
I think what this story is about the terribleness of these children's worlds and their realization of that. You have a sense that their edges of consciousness is aware of the ugly. Kids don't run around with guns, have their moms getting slapped around, and watch their family members having shootouts regularly without having some sense of how messed up their world is. But it's their world and they learn to survive and then one day they find each other and it's maybe the most good thing in their lives. And they suspect no one will let them have this good thing. So they hide it until one day, the ugliness of the world isn't subtext anymore. And it feels like the ONLY good thing is each other. And once the only good thing in the world is gone, well anyone would quail at the thought of living in a world with no good.
"Here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh."
Romeo is not just devastated that Juliet is dead. He's tired of this world. It's not just that Juliet is dead. It's that his friend is dead, he killed a man, he's been banished, the parents are irrational and poor adults. And Juliet is dead.
It is youth to feel that the present is eternal. And the reality is, it can be a long, long time.
Growing up in an often first generation immigrant community where star crossed lovers are still a thing, I saw this story first hand many, many times. And I think after I watched this movie, I finally understand why the stakes were so high for these young people that used to fight tooth and nail for one person. It wasn't that their worlds were as ugly as Romeo and Juliet's was. But it was the breaking down of youthful idealism and optimism that even the most cynical child holds and the fight to not let that go. These kind of stories always left devastation in their wake and I finally understand why.
This one was personal for me.
Small note: this is the second friar back to back in a Shakespeare play who came up with an amazingly ill-advised, roundabout scheme in order to unite lovers and if this happens again Missy and I are going to have to talk about what the heck friars were getting up to in Elizabethan times. MY experience is that clergy won't touch these situations with a ten foot pole.
As for the movie itself, phenomenal just for making me think. The nineties setting was nostalgic. There's a rug in Juliet's room that I think my childhood friend had growing up. Her parents probably still have it somewhere in their house.
All the angel and religious imagery was beautiful and also really atmospheric.
The modern setting was so seamlessly fitted into the play itself, that I actually watched this movie with the text next to me. I would be so amazed at how well it worked with the modern setting that I would have to check if it had been in the original. And yes, they followed the original pretty faithfully.
Of course, well done Shakespeare. But also well done, Baz Luhrmann.
By the way, Bollywood loves Romeo and Juliet because it's so easy to become starcrossed in that region. Some that I've seen are Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Ishaqzaade. The most famous one is Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela but I haven't seen that one.
Next is Othello. I hear this one is bleak. And it's rated R so I guess the lights will be on again. By now, you know I don't do well with blood and gore and Shakespeare loved himself some blood and gore. I am curious though, because Othello is a Moor and Moors are supposed to be Muslims, aren't they? This trailer doesn't give me any sense that the makers or even Shakespeare kept any part of his Muslim identity, just maybe the likely African, Arab, or Berber background. Is he supposed to be barbaric? I bet they make him barbaric.
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