Adaptations
The name of Romeo and Juliet has become synonymous with young love. Tony Howard concludes that "we inherit so many of our images of romance, generational discord and social hatred from the play that it's impossible to list all its cinematic reincarnations", citing works as disparate as the Polish 1937 Romeo i Julieta, the Swiss 1941 Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorf, the French 1949 Les amants de Vérone and the Czech 1960 Romeo, Juliet a Tma. As a result of this ubiquity, any film about young love and its challenges will court comparison with Romeo and Juliet, as Roseanna McCoy did in 1949, and two James Dean films - East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause - did in the 1950s.
In 1960, Peter Ustinov's stage parody of Romeo and Juliet, Romanoff and Juliet was filmed - dramatising true love interfering with the cold-war superpowers' attempts to control the fictional state of Concordia.
In 1980 an episode of the anime Astro Boy was based on the Romeo and Juliet story. There were two rival car and robot companies, which racer Robio falls in love with Robiette of the rival company. At the end the two young lovers get smooshed together by both their fathers driving into each other, and after that they two rivals give up the fight, and Astro remarks that now Robio and Robiette will be together forever.
The success of the 1957 stage musical West Side Story was instrumental in making Shakespeare a presence in modern popular and youth culture. The book was written by Arthur Laurents, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins. Widely admired, and the winner of ten Oscars, the 1961 film of the show - set among New York gangs - does not aim for a realistic portrayal of New York gang cluture: in the opening sequence the Jets and the Sharks trade dance-steps instead of blows. The Jets are a gang of white youths, equivalent to Shakespeare's Montagues; the Sharks, equivalent to the Capulets, are Puerto Rican. Unlike Shakespeare who included relationships between his young lovers and the older generation (the parents, and parent-substitutes such as the Nurse and Friar Laurence) West Side Story keeps its focus firmly on the youth, with only peripheral roles for Doc, the soda-shop owner, and police officers Schrank and Krupke. Tony (played by Richard Beymer, singing dubbed by Jimmy Bryant) is the play's Romeo and Maria (Natalie Wood, dubbed by Marni Nixon) is its Juliet. Maria's fiery brother Bernardo (George Chakiris) combines the Lord Capulet and Tybalt roles. The film's ending has been praised for achieving the tragedy of Shakespeare's play without recourse to magic potions or fateful bad timing.
In 1996, Troma Studios and director Lloyd Kaufman filmed Tromeo and Juliet, a transgressive "trash/punk" adaptation of the play, set in present-day Manhattan and featuring Lemmy (of Motörhead) as its chorus. Sporting the tagline "Body piercing. Kinky sex. Dismemberment. The things that made Shakespeare great.", Tromeo and Juliet premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and won several awards at independent horror and fantasy film festivals. Despite positive reviews from The New York Times, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly and Variety, Shakespeare scholar Daniel Rosenthal described Tromeo as "the nadir of screen Shakespeare", calling it a "tedious, appallingly acted feast of mutilation and softcore sex". The film's screenwriter, James Gunn, went on to have a successful Hollywood career writing the Scooby-Doo film adaptations and the critically acclaimed Slither.
Cheah Chee-Kong's 2000 Singaporean film Chicken Rice War (Jiyuan Qiaohe) adapts Romeo and Juliet as a lowbrow romantic comedy set amidst the rivalry between two adjacent rice stalls. The central characters (Fenson Pierre Png and Audrey Lum May Yee) are cast as Romeo and Juliet in a production of Shakespeare's play, staged in a car park, which their families manage to ruin through their rivalry. The comic mood is underpinned by cheerful songs from Tanya Chua. The film won the Discovery Award at the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival.
Marc Levin's 2001 Brooklyn Babylon set in Crown Heights features Tariq Trotter of The Roots as the two primary factions of the community, West Indian Rastafarians and the Lubavitch Jewish community come into conflict.
In 2005, Romeo and Juliet became a high-profile six-minute H&M advertising campaign, directed by David LaChapelle, featuring Tamyra Gray as Juliet and Gus Carr as Romeo, to a musical background sung by Mary J. Blige. The play has also been used to advertise Polo mints and Rolo. In 2006, Nate Parker debuted as a male lead in Rome and Jewel, a hip-hop take on Romeo and Juliet.
In the 2005 anime Basilisk the story about two rival ninja clans fighting each other but one of their members love each other is similar to that of Romeo and Juliet.
Read more about this topic: Romeo And Juliet On Screen