Teresa Palmer e Nicholas Hoult in “Warm bodies” (2013)
Summit Entertainment/courtesy Everett Collection
#12 – Romeo and Juliet by Carlo Carlei (2013)
Filmed in Italian locations (Verona, Mantua, Rome), with wonderful costumes and a young and captivating cast led by Hailee Steinfeld e Douglas Booththis scripted version by none other than Julian Fellowes (Famous for Downton Abbey) is, however, nothing more than a simple Renaissance adaptation, with horrible, obtuse and semi-Shakespearean dialogue. However, he is also in the cast Paul Giamatti.
Carlo Carlei with Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld on the set of “Romeo and Juliet” (2013)
Relativity Media/courtesy Everett Collection
#13 – Romeo and Juliet by Giovanni Veronesi (2024)
Understanding life as if it were theater and understanding theater as if it were life. It is in this mirror, between authenticity and masks that fall – as the French poet wrote Marguerite Yourcenar in the book Northern Archives (1977), “The eyes of the child and those of the old man look with the quiet candor of someone who has not yet entered the masked ball or has already left it” – which moves Veronesi’s comedy. The story begins with the great theater director Federico Landi Porrini (played by Sergio Castellitto) searching for his and
Juliet for the work that should definitively consecrate his prestige and conclude his
career. Vittoria stands out among the candidates (Pilar Fogliati) who, however, is excluded due to a shadow on her past.
Determined to get a role in the show anyway and with the complicity of her make-up artist friend (Gepi Cucciari), the young actress decides to try again under a false identity, to demonstrate all her talent. This is how she transforms into Otto Novembre, she proposes for the role of Romeo and gets the part of her. She doesn’t find it that complicated to play someone else, both on stage and behind the scenes, not even when her boyfriend (Domenico Diele) is chosen to play the role of Mercutio. However, take on the role of a man – as she already did Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in love (1998) whose character dresses up as a boy to embody the role of Romeo – will allow her to discover many things about herself, but above all about the people around her.
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Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shakespeare in love ” (1998)
©Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection
Romeo and Juliet even at the theater
Between ballets, musicals and prose works, Romeo and Juliet has nevertheless found its most natural dimension on the stage. However, a couple of productions from the last decade appear to be “cinematic” also thanks to their male performers. I think about Romeo and Juliet (2011), the show by the authoritative Valerio Binasco and Fausto Paravidino, capable of re-updating Shakespeare thanks to Riccardo Scamarcio (who for this performance won the Flaiano Film Festival as Best Theatrical Actor) and Deniz Ozdogan, and the musical Romeo&Juliet (2015) directed on Broadway by David Leveaux and played by one of the most acclaimed Hollywood stars of the moment, Orlando Bloomand his Juliet, the actress Condola Rashad.
Orlando Bloom (Romeo) e Condola Rashad (Juliet)
Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images
Riccardo (Romeo) and Deniz Ozdogan (Juliet)
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
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