Thursday, October 23, 2008

"Three Civil Brawls . . . Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets": Silent Romeo and Juliet

Romeo Turns Bandit [Roméo se fait Bandit]. Dir. Romeo Bosetti. Perf. Max Linder. 1909. Othello. DVD. Keno Video, 2002.

I have not had the chance to see this film in its entirety, but I gather that it takes the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and turns it into a comedy.  When, as the title card says, "Montagu [sic] refuses to give Romeo his daughter," Romeo kidnaps her (that's the bandit part of the title) and they marry!  It's not clear when—or if!—she falls in love with him, but let's hope that she does.


Links: The Film at IMDB.

The film is included on a DVD entitled Othello.
Click below to purchase it from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest