Romeo and Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968)
Verona in period, with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey as the lovers.
Put the lovers in a Verona that looks lived in, and the play stops being a museum piece.
You want the play in period, made on a large scale, and you have two and a quarter hours.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the period, the plot and much of the verse.
Changes: the length and the emphasis: a film of two and a quarter hours that puts the faces and the streets first.
Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey as the lovers, John McEnery as Mercutio, Michael York as Tybalt, Milo O’Shea as Friar Laurence, Pat Heywood as the Nurse.
Whose story is it?
the lovers’, but Michael York’s Tybalt and John McEnery’s Mercutio make the street fights the film’s other centre.
How much time does it ask?
A feature, 2 hours 18 minutes.
Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, with Michael York as Tybalt and Milo O’Shea as Friar Laurence.
Where to find it
Other ways to get it: Find where it’s streaming — JustWatch · Blu-ray (Criterion) — Amazon
More ways into Verona: Romeo and Juliet (George Cukor, 1936) · William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) · Tromeo and Juliet (1996)