I just watched Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet with my thirteen year old son, and we both enjoyed it so much. I last viewed it when I was a Freshman in high school, nearly forty years ago. I recall being very moved by it, but doing my best to keep my enthusiasm for it hidden from my classmates. I still have many lines from it committed to memory thanks to my ninth grade English teacher.

In viewing it now: my goodness what an amazing production. The costumes, the sets, the locations, the cast are all superb. This has got to be one of the best film versions of a Shakespeare play ever made. One of the things I found quite arresting was the duel scene; the sweat and dirt and grit and athleticism of the cast made it feel startlingly real. The same is true of the passionate desperation with which Romeo and Juliet fall for each other. Completely reckless and irresponsible, as the young so often can be.

There’s the beauty of the language, of course–my son remarked with surprise at several points in the play, when he realized where some famous quote came from: “A plague on both your houses!” “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” On and on it went. Only in reading and seeing these plays performed do you get a true appreciation of how magnificent they are, and how much of our culture owes a great debt to Shakespeare.

I found this tragedy terribly sad as a fourteen year old, so upsetting that I didn’t much want to watch it or read it again. I have read it a few times since then over the years, but now that I have children of my own, the story was far more wrenching to me. When you’re young I don’t think you really know just how inexperienced and innocent you are. The passage of time and a different perspective have made this play much greater in my eyes.