#given that the Capulets were never portrayed as this great family and also Juliet was way younger

[magnificentposting-fabrizioart]

Still have to read @faintingheroine's inspired fic but I finished watching Spielberg's West Side Story, and I gotta say, F**K THE JETS (save Anybodys), and I'm not too fond of Maria either.

The Puerto Ricans were mostly right all along, imho, and even Chino murdering Tony ends up making peace happen, which means the biggest critique I'd have made to one of them is kinda praised by the movie, wtf.

All of my heart goes to Anita, anyway.

And no, that is not just in this version Ariana DeBose made her look and feel hotter than the Sun, but dammit, she did.

[arisefairsun]

How old was Olivia Hussey when she played Juliet? I'm getting so many different number ranging from 14 all the way to 17

Olivia was 16 when she played Juliet. She was born on 17 April, 1951, and filming started in June, 1967. However, the media kept saying that she was younger than she really was. (Many of them misleadingly stated that she was 15.) That’s probably why you found so many different ages on the Internet.

Zeffirelli was about not to cast her as Juliet, as he thought her overweight. He had a predilection for another actress, but Olivia was finally given the role when the other girl had her hair cut and lost the great impact she had had on Zeffirelli. However, special permission was needed to show teenage Olivia topless in the movie.

It’s interesting to consider that Zeffirelli was the first director to cast actual teenagers to play Shakespeare’s lovers on screen, if I’m not mistaken. In my opinion, Olivia was a marvelous choice; physically she is ideal in my eyes. She is so very young, her round face still resembling the features of a child:

Her youthfulness is exactly right—exactly what Shakespeare wrote in his play. Olivia is always running in the movie, always freeing her adolescent energy. She is even very mockingly disgusted by old people when she says that ‘many feign as they were dead; / Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.’ This is a very lively, very restless young girl—a great representation of teenage vitality. Born on the last day of warm July (always dwelling in extremes), Juliet’s youthful ardor is very palpable in the whole movie. She is very tender, very ingenious, also endlessly vibrant, fierce, all the way adolescent. 

May I share this small excerpt from Romeo and Juliet: Language and Writing? It is a reflection on Juliet’s extreme youth and it has some very intriguing points, all of which I think apply to Olivia’s Juliet very well:

We can usefully ask how it works, how Juliet’s reduced age affects the story the audience is invited to engage with. In the first instance, it renders her more vulnerable to the demands of her parents and makes her resistance to forced marriage the more heroic. Capulet’s threat to turn her out on the streets to ‘hang, beg, starve, die’ (3.5.193) is surely unforgivable at any age, but Juliet’s youth throws into relief the pathos of her plight. It would be a hard-hearted audience that shared the Victorian respect for obedience on these terms.

The younger the heroine, the deeper the conflict between generations and the more intense the pity of the tragedy. It is worth noting that the romances which lead to happy endings in Shakespeare are often facilitated by parental absence: Beatrice lives with her uncle, Rosalind’s father is thought to be missing in the forest, while Viola’s is dead. These protagonists are self-determining, while Juliet is shown at the mercy of a family and a wider community. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, thematically and chronologically closest of the comedies to Romeo and Juliet, the happy ending relies on a heavy father overruled by a benign Duke. In the tragedy Juliet herself asserts what little sovereignty she possesses when she takes her own life rather than remarry (or enter a convent) under duress.

Second, her youth also confirms her artlessness. She has not thought of marriage (1.3.67); she has never been in love before and her responses are ingenuous, the outcome of true love, not practice. As Juliet herself knows, the early modern courtship process is, or ought to be, long and difficult. When she innocently bids farewell to convention (2.2.89), Juliet willingly surrenders the succession of visits and serenades, the gifts and flattery, the coaxing and cajoling, and the coy refusals that might be the material of a different play.

I believe Olivia succeeds in portraying Juliet exactly this way: she is extremely young indeed, to the point that it may be easy for some to underestimate her. (Why do we still love to disregard young people’s feelings?) But once she starts expressing herself she unfolds the full force of her personality. Olivia’s eyes are so very insightful, very intelligent, penetrating. Her voice is forceful, the range of her facial expressions very varied. She shows a great command of her own body; her presence is always accentuated by the intensity of her acting.

She proves that, young and inexperienced though she may be, she can also be the most intelligent character: at the end of the movie it is not possible, at least for me, to ignore how brave and strong-minded and independent she is. Olivia takes advantage of most of her lines to portray Juliet as a self-confident, passionate, clever young girl, even if she was cut out many of Juliet’s greatest words. (I talked about her portrayal more extensively here.)

Her Juliet is so intense that Zeffirelli literally decided to cut out the potion speech, arguing that ‘she’ll get all the attention. The film won’t be Romeo and Juliet—it will be “did you see Olivia Hussey on that scene?”’. (This is the speech she used for her audition. It seems that she was excellent. Michael York, who played Tybalt, insisted that Zeffirelli would be ‘crazy’ if he didn’t cast Olivia as Juliet. I wish we could watch her perform it!)

Olivia added perspicacity to her youthfulness. The result is, for me, a very astute and ardent Juliet, very energetic—a true teenager, and a bold one. She proves that she should not be dismissed because of her youth; she refuses to be fooled by anyone. Inexpert though she may be, she has an answer to every question. A great choice by Zeffirelli—I just wish she wasn’t cut out so many lines.