I see that director Franco Zeffirelli died a couple days back, and as always the Jackals Of The Press are talking about his “love of excess” and all the other irrelevant nonsense that they spout when they are confronted with genius.
The fact remains that of all movie adaptations of Shakespeare’s works, Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet is the greatest — the closest to the original play, some of the best characters / casting (the Nurse and Mercutio being the best examples), with excellent cinematography and costuming. It is quite possibly the perfect movie.
And then there’s Olivia Hussey:
And if for some inexplicable reason you’ve never seen Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet, buy or rent it today. No thanks needed; it’s all part of the service.
A beautiful woman and, although IMDB tells us that she has worked steadily since 1968, I can’t see a single memorable thing she has done since R&J. That may be enough, I guess, but still always wonder what life is like for someone whose career peaked at 15. I was also surprised to see that she is Argentinian by birth.
Seeing her roll over in bed was a defining moment in my early teenage years (and you know which moment!).
According to IMDB, she was unable to attend the London Premiere of “Romeo and Juliet” because she was under age 18 and the film contained a nude scene – – even though she was the one who was nude, and Zefferelli got special permission for her to appear topless (from whom this permission was obtained, IMDB did not say).
As (Dickens?) said, the law is an ass and an idiot.