West Side Story

[EvRobert 1684]

1 hour ago, taylorannephoto said:

I could have sworn they mention that with Juliet but now I'm not positive because it's been so long since I've read it.

Also, I looked this up, a specific age isn't given for Juliet but The Nurse mentions that Juliet hasn't reached 14 years of age

[taylor anne photo 11311]

A good quote from what I just posted -

"In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what's right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency. Juliet begs them - screams, cries, manipulates, tells them outright 'I cannot marry, just wait a week before you make me marry Paris, just a week, please,' and they ignore her, and force her into increasingly desperate straits, until at last the two young lovers kill themselves. The message? This violent, hate-filled patriarchal world is unsustainable. The promise of regeneration is cut down with the deaths of these children."

[taylor anne photo 11311]

7 minutes ago, EvRobert said:

Also, I looked this up, a specific age isn't given for Juliet but The Nurse mentions that Juliet hasn't reached 14 years of age

Okay I was convinced I wasn't making up her age. Jane Austen does the same when stating Elizabeth's age in Pride & Prejudice. At one point Lady Catherine asks her age and she says, "I am not yet One and Twenty," so you are then led to believe she is 20 but is obviously within the year experiencing her 21st birthday.

[EvRobert 1684]

5 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

Okay I was convinced I wasn't making up her age. Jane Austen does the same when stating Elizabeth's age in Pride & Prejudice. At one point Lady Catherine asks her age and she says, "I am not yet One and Twenty," so you are then led to believe she is 20 but is obviously within the year experiencing her 21st birthday.

Yeah it's one of those turns of phrases I had to look up and double check on

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

On 3/21/2019 at 5:17 PM, Cameron H. said:

I’m commenting as I’m listening, and I hate to break it our hosts, but yeah, Maria doesn’t date again. She doesn’t move on. We have to check our cynicism at the door and accept that what Tony and Maria has is True Love. You don’t just move on from that. And remember, this is Romeo and Juliet. And while Maria may not physically die like Juliet, her notion of romantic love certainly does. She will not recover from Tony’s death.

So I realized yesterday I hadn't finished the podcast yet, so this comment existed partially in a vacuum to me and I didn't realize it.  It was one of the comments that made me wonder what people's take on R+J was.  On the question of, "does she date again?", there's two angles here. 1 - the idea the movie puts forward and 2 - realistically, how we think these fictitious, heavily stylized personality characters would act in reality (which, as I write it, I know sounds like a very self-contradictory self-experiment).  Going off of my adolescent memory (and skewed take of WSS), it felt like it took the popular perception view of R+J that they have true love.  I think the images you presented, lend weight to that.  And my inclination was to assume they wanted something metaphorically similar to the suicides.

I think Amy was thinking more in terms of angle 2, which is a, "yeah, she'll get over him.  it wasn't really true love."  Which is closer to how we're all taking R+J in this thread (and a number of us appear to believe the bard, Billy Shakes, also thought of it).  I'm going to say, I think in the reality take, I'll still disagree with Amy.  While I think it's wasn't necessarily true love, getting someone gunned down in front of you is traumatizing.  When it's the person you think you're in love with, very traumatizing.  When the person who gunned him down was the person you were arranged to be married, well, I guess it's better than a family member doing it, but still, it's someone you knew (my memory isn't good enough to remember Maria's opinion of Chino was).  I'm just going to say, in reality, that'll emotionally scar you.  I don't think necessarily become a nun because I know I'll never love again, but... I could see it undermining all her future relationships in a way that letting the relationship run its course wouldn't have.  As I typed thought that through, surprisingly similar to the plot of Hiroshima mon Amour (which I mentioned in our last relationship, metaphorical/literal suicide thread, Sophie's Choice).  Though since that's from the perspective of the woman who is an adult, the film/she acknowledges that her resolving her feelings about her teenage romance from the past is irrational and that it was stupid teenage romance.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

I should clarify that I think Billy Shakes* is primarily criticizing the feud between the family as the real tragedy.  The take on Romeo & Juliet's romance does make the difference between:

Romeo & Juliet have true love: this feud is destroying a wonderful, beautiful thing (and the beauty of the romance is a more important thematic part of the story).

Romeo & Juliet have a highly, over the top, teenage romance, and act irrationally.  To the point of self destruction.  And the adults of the family aren't behaving any better with their mutually destructive feud.

*: I want to just keep calling him this, just because it's fun to say.  Just rolls of the tongue.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

On 3/24/2019 at 6:50 PM, grudlian. said:

I've definitely read theories that Romeo and Juliet was meant to be one of Shakespeare's comedies. I don't know that I'd go that far, but it could be played as one without much changing it as I recall.

My Shakespeare reading was mostly limited to high school (I'm sure I saw film adaptations as an adult, but really not that many), but did he have any other comedies where the main characters died at the end?  To get to evRoberts comment about the absurdity of the situation, I would also use that language, and say, this play reads more like a dark comedy to me.  But I think that's more of my personal take from modern sensibilities.  I don't think that's how it was intended and am not sure if the notion of dark comedies existed back then (at least, like they do today).

 

[EvRobert 1684]

11 hours ago, ol' eddy wrecks said:

My Shakespeare reading was mostly limited to high school (I'm sure I saw film adaptations as an adult, but really not that many), but did he have any other comedies where the main characters died at the end?  To get to evRoberts comment about the absurdity of the situation, I would also use that language, and say, this play reads more like a dark comedy to me.  But I think that's more of my personal take from modern sensibilities.  I don't think that's how it was intended and am not sure if the notion of dark comedies existed back then (at least, like they do today).

 

The closest is Troilus and Cressida which is considered one of Shakespeare's "problem plays" (plays that swing wildly from dark tragedy and dark comedy)