#franco zeffirelli
Leonard Whiting on set of Romeo and Juliet
oliviahusseyand leonard whiting
oliviahusseyand leonardwhiting
Olivia Hussey as JulietCapulet, 1968
Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting in Romeo and Juliet, 1968
Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting in Romeo and Juliet, 1968
The Champ (1979). Billy Flynn is an ex-champion boxer who was KO’d by booze and gambling. When the wealthy, estranged mother of his young son begins trying to lure the boy away from him, Flynn must return to the ring to provide for his child.
I’m a bit of a sucker for a boxing movie. There’s something about the way they tend to allow space for male characters (and actors) to be vulnerable, as if the violence of the sport opens up a sort of personal tenderness. This movie has that in spades with Jon Voight playing a father desperate to stay connected to his son, and he really plays well into Billy’s flaws and needs. The plot does veer into melodrama, but still. It’s pretty good. 7.5/10.
Romeo and Juliet(1968)
Aladdin(1992)
InAladdin, the balcony scene also adopts a parodic mode, which is nonetheless more favorable to the image of women, and less disparaging of Shakespeare. Aladdin, dressed up as a Prince in order to woo Jasmine, climbs up her balcony (or, as a matter of fact, just flies to it on his magic carpet). The passage is titled “Aladdin – the Balcony scene” on Youtube. This gem of a scene is a perfect illustration of the PBS documentary mentioned earlier: in the rewriting of the balcony scene, Jasmine/Juliet is in control of the situation and the conversation, criticizes Aladdin/Romeo’s rhetoric, an element which is, although she sounds quite fierce, more in keeping with Shakespeare’s Juliet. Germaine Greer’s words (“she shuts him up in the balcony scene”) apply to Jasmine as well.
Moreover, this is really a palimpsest of a scene, as intertexts are multiple. The genie very clearly offices as a prompter in a situation that recalls Cyrano de Bergerac whispering words to Christian for him to repeat them to Roxanne. The scene in Aladdin hence works as a twofold parody in which both scenarios go awry: Romeo wants to woo Juliet but she turns him down and shuts him up. Cyrano wants to help Christian but the words he comes up with are simply inadequate – although the extract ends with a feast of puns.
-Frédéric Delord, “Shakespearean Echoes in the American Musical: Balcony Scenes”
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Saturday Night Fever(1977)
directed by John Badham
screenplay by Norman Wexler
based on “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” by Nik Cohn
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Endless Love (1981)
