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Criterion announces release of 1968 "Romeo & Juliet" on Blu-ray, at long last.

Sean C.

Sean C.

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Oct 27, 2017
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View: https://twitter.com/Criterion/status/1592579198563930112

Blu-ray as a format was first available commercially in 2006. Since that time, many, many movies have been released in that format in North America; none of those, however, were Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 classic Romeo & Juliet, starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, because Paramount fucking sucks and horrendously neglects their back catalogue. It regularly topped lists of films you would assume were available in Blu-ray, but actually weren't, and as streaming whittled away at the home media market over the years, many lost hope.

But at long last, the Criterion Collection is taking matters into its own hands to ensure that the classic Shakespeare adaptation is finally available in something above a long out-of-print DVD release.

And to conclude, obligatory reference to being able to see nudity in English class and/or teachers having to fast-forward through that part.
 
Jedi2016

Jedi2016

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Oct 27, 2017
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Sean C. said:
...obligatory reference to being able to see nudity in English class and/or teachers having to fast-forward through that part.
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Ah, so this was that one, then.. lol. Our teacher stood next to the TV with a pad of paper that she covered the screen with during the "naughty bits".
 
NateDrake

NateDrake

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Oct 24, 2017
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Remember when I learned Micheal York (Tybalt) was the actor that plays Basil Exposition in Austin Powers.
 
Aurica

Aurica

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The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
23,586
A mountain in the US
Loved this version in high school. It's been so many years that I only remember that it was good and that I liked it much more than Romeo + Juliet, which I hated haha. No clue what I'd think of either now.
mopinks said:
my english class definitely went wild at the two seconds of boob
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Holy shit. I was about to post the same thing.
 
mreddie

mreddie

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Oct 26, 2017
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Saw this in high school and when everyone saw the nudity, my teacher said "You all saw nudity before this, calm down now."
 
Z-Beat

Z-Beat

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Oct 25, 2017
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My english class lost their shit watching this when I was in gradeschool

Also the fact that the whole plot went bad because that dude stopped off at the side of the road with his back turned
 
butalala

butalala

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Nov 24, 2017
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Juliet's boobs get all the attention, but isn't Romeo's butt on screen for a whole scene?
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

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May 24, 2019
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We got the Polanski Macbeth as our high school Shakespeare movie 😎

edit: and that's 😎 for the violence, not the Polanski.
 
SoH

SoH

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Oct 25, 2017
5,741
I've never seen this version. I mostly know of it because Thom Yorke cited it as [one of] the main inspirations for Exit Music (For a Film).

"When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt 45 against her head, we started working on the song immediately. I had something with 'Romeo & Juliet' a long time already. I had a crush on Olivia Hussey, who played Juliet in the sixties, for a long time. I saw the Zeffirelli version when I was 13 and I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. The song is written for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff starts. A personal song."
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Duane

Duane

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Oct 27, 2017
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Yeah, they didn't censor it for us, but we did get a stern "there are going to be boobies for about two seconds, don't be immature about it" talk beforehand, lol
 
firehawk12

firehawk12

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Oct 25, 2017
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As seminal as it is (for English classes, it seems), I'm surprised it's been out of print and never made it to BD.

But there's always R+J. lol
 

Deleted member 12429

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Aug 19, 2022
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I'm glad we all agree the collective memory regarding this movie are the breasts. Middle school English for me, and I don't think the teacher knew. She was shook.
 
Altazor

Altazor

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Oct 25, 2017
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SoH said:
I've never seen this version. I mostly know of it because Thom Yorke cited it as [one of] the main inspirations for Exit Music (For a Film).
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Roger Ebert's review is quite good

His crucial decision, in a film where almost everything went well, was to cast actors who were about the right age to play the characters (as Howard and Shearer were obviously not). As the play opens, Juliet "hath not seen the change of 14 years," and Romeo is little older. This is first love for Juliet, and Romeo's crush on the unseen Rosalind is forgotten the moment he sees Juliet at the masked ball: "I ne'er saw true beauty until this night." After a well-publicized international search, Zeffirelli cast Olivia Hussey, a 16-year-old from Argentina, and Leonard Whiting, a British 17-year-old.

They didn't merely look their parts, they embodied them in the freshness of their personalities, and although neither was a trained actor, they were fully equal to Shakespeare's dialogue for them; Anthony Holden's new book William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius contrasts "the beautiful simplicity with which the lovers speak at their moments of uncomplicated happiness," with "the ornate rhetorical flourishes which fuel so much else in the play"--flourishes that Zeffirelli severely pruned, trimming about half the play. He was roundly criticized for his edits, but much that needs describing on the stage can simply be shown onscreen, as when Benvolio is shown witnessing Juliet's funeral and thus does not need to evoke it in a description to the exiled Romeo. Shakespeare, who took such wholesale liberties with his own sources, might have understood.
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maigret

maigret

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Jun 28, 2018
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We saw this in middle school English class, and later we also saw Michael Radford's 1984 which has considerably more nudity. That 1984 adaptation is actually a great film that I revisited as an adult.
 
Cross-Section

Cross-Section

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Oct 27, 2017
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Shame the one thing anyone really remembers this film for is the nudity.

Anyway, we watched it in the school theater and whole house went up in cheers at that part lol
 
Edmond Dantès

Edmond Dantès

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Speaking of Shakespeare adaptations, I wonder if Titus will ever get a Blu-ray release.

MV5BOTE0ZWY5N2UtZTlmMy00NGIwLTg4MGItMzkzYTY5OTYyOWIyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_.jpg



View: https://youtu.be/OvZRvKf78yY
 
RetroMG

RetroMG

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Pop-O-Matic said:
...our English class got the 1996 film. I fucking hated it.
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I was in high school and covering Romeo and Juliet when the 1996 film came out. My teacher gave us extra credit if we went to see it in the theater.

Years later, I did some video editing work for a community college professor who taught a literature and film class. He had me cut out the balcony scene from this version, and I remember being struck by how absolutely gorgeous Olivia Hussey was, (had no idea about how young she was) and I also absolutely loved the music. I always meant to get a copy of the full movie, but never got around to it.
 
Juraash

Juraash

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maigret said:
We saw this in middle school English class, and later we also saw Michael Radford's 1984 which has considerably more nudity. That 1984 adaptation is actually a great film that I revisited as an adult.
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It's funny, all the talk of the nudity reminded me of this exact same 1984 film. We had finished the book in class and the English teacher had clearly not previewed the film all the way through before showing us. He may have been more shocked than any of us were.
 
Primal Sage

Primal Sage

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Americans' memories of watching this in class is pretty funny. Meanwhile in Europe we watched Christiane F in class when we were 11 year old.

Christiane F is about a 13-year old girl who becomes a junkie, shoots up in dirty public toilets, and prostitutes herself (her boyfriend too) in order to finance her habit. Played by a 14-year old. There are sex scenes, hetero and gay, vividly realistic heroin taking scenes. And lots of great David Bowie music. It's a trip for sure.

The production was pretty crazy. They used the real locations and the extras were real junkies and prostitutes. From Wikipedia:

"Natja Brunckhorst recalled a scene which was shot on Kurfürstenstraße where her character is standing alone waiting for someone to pick her up. "It was a long lens shot so the camera team was far away. A car drove up and I was about to get in when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, some of the crew running towards me shouting: "No! No! No!" And it came to me: this was a real guy, not an actor, trying to pick me up. I almost got into a car with someone who wanted to sleep with a 13-year-old," she said"

It's a fantastic and very unpleasant movie. Marvelously effective at dispelling childish notions of drugs being "cool". Actually based on a true story.
 
Zoe

Zoe

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Oct 25, 2017
14,395
I think we had to get permission slips signed to watch the boobies scene.
 
Auron Kale

Auron Kale

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Oct 25, 2017
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I do remember seeing this in school just after we finished reading the story in my 9th grade English class. Funny enough, that's when Romeo + Juliet came out to theaters so my teacher offered everyone extra credit to not only watch it, but compare & contrast the two versions in an essay.

Not only did my friends and I go, but I can say that nearly everyone in my 9th grade basically packed the theaters over that weekend 🤣

I actually wouldn't mind owning this (and perhaps R + J) just to rewatch it.
 
Spine_Ripper

Spine_Ripper

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Oct 25, 2017
940
I remember seeing this in HS. I did not giggle at the booba and appreciated the artistic merits at the time. But now that I'm an adult, my tastes have changed and I would like to say LOL BOOBS
 
meowdi gras

meowdi gras

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Feb 24, 2018
12,679
Primal Sage said:
Americans' memories of watching this in class is pretty funny. Meanwhile in Europe we watched Christiane F in class when we were 11 year old.

Christiane F is about a 13-year old girl who becomes a junkie, shoots up in dirty public toilets, and prostitutes herself (her boyfriend too) in order to finance her habit. Played by a 14-year old. There are sex scenes, hetero and gay, vividly realistic heroin taking scenes. And lots of great David Bowie music. It's a trip for sure.

The production was pretty crazy. They used the real locations and the extras were real junkies and prostitutes. From Wikipedia:

"Natja Brunckhorst recalled a scene which was shot on Kurfürstenstraße where her character is standing alone waiting for someone to pick her up. "It was a long lens shot so the camera team was far away. A car drove up and I was about to get in when I saw, out of the corner of my eye, some of the crew running towards me shouting: "No! No! No!" And it came to me: this was a real guy, not an actor, trying to pick me up. I almost got into a car with someone who wanted to sleep with a 13-year-old," she said"

It's a fantastic and very unpleasant movie. Marvelously effective at dispelling childish notions of drugs being "cool". Actually based on a true story.
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Agreed, superb and unforgettable film.
 
ZeoVGM

ZeoVGM

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Oct 25, 2017
76,698
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Junior Asparagus said:
Hussey and Whiting just filed a lawsuit regarding the nudity in this film. They apparently weren't complicit in its filming.

www.nbcnews.com

'Romeo & Juliet' stars sue over teen nude scene in 1968 film

Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, now in their 70s, sued under a California law that suspended the statute of limitations for older claims of child sexual abuse.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
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Heard about this a couple days ago. Made this thread awkward to read through.
 
El Bombastico

El Bombastico

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Oct 25, 2017
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