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12 hours ago, alison said:

Whether "likeable and sympathetic" is what you want from a Paris might be debatable, though :) 

 

I thought that it intensified the tragedy to have a Paris that I felt Juliet could have married & been happy with were it not that she happened to meet Romeo & fall madly in love with him just after meeting Paris.

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This thread sent me back to read the "Persons Represented" in the introduction to the play. Romeo is son to Montague. Juliet is daughter to Capulet. Benvolio is nephew to Montague, Tybalt is nephew to Lady Capulet. Paris is a Young Nobleman, Kinsman to the Prince, Mercutio is Kinsman to the Prince, and friend of Romeo. So they sort of balance each other in pairs, and I would imagine are all of a similar age with perhaps Tybalt and Paris a lttle older.

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I'm not sure I need a Paris so likeable that he becomes Romeo's rival for our sympathy, or that I imagine Juliet would be happier with him, but the libretto does have him remaining in the crypt when everyone else has gone.
I suppose the primary dramatic function of his presence there is to show how blind and heedless with grief Romeo is at this point when he kills Paris, but it also shows that Paris mourns Juliet's death, and I like it when a dancer has portrayed Paris up to that point in such a way that his grief is believable, particularly as he once seemed enough of a brute (or simply a man of his time) to try to make Juliet yield to him by force.

 

I've personally found Tomas Mock's acting very nuanced and unforced in the roles I've seen him in, no matter how small, so although I didn't catch him in R and J last year, I'm glad to hear he's good as Paris too.  

 

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But there’s no getting away from Paris’s attempt to take Juliet by force, encouraged by her father and where her mother’s passive acceptance is chilling. The scene is truly shocking even if a fair depiction of historical marriage arrangements. So I find it very hard to see Paris as ‘likeable’ and think it works effectively that Paris is dispatched so swiftly by Romeo.  I’m pleased Kenneth MacMillan does not depict Paris’s dying wish to be laid near Juliet nor Romeo’s agreement.

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9 hours ago, JohnS said:

But there’s no getting away from Paris’s attempt to take Juliet by force, encouraged by her father and where her mother’s passive acceptance is chilling. The scene is truly shocking even if a fair depiction of historical marriage arrangements.

 

7 hours ago, Pas de Quatre said:

That's a MacMillan addition - he often likes to spice things up with a bit of sexual violence. It doesn't appear in the play.

 

I've been interpreting that scene as Paris trying to force Juliet to give her consent to the marriage rather than sexual violence. He's surely not about to rape her or anything like that with her parents in the room?!

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I’ve always found this scene very disturbing.  Capulet is in effect saying to Paris ‘make Juliet your wife by whatever means you see fit’.  Seems pretty brutal to me and so I find it hard to see Paris as ‘likeable and sympathetic’.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

The film hasn’t been shown here in cinemas (yet), and so I was discovering it on Arte last night.

It was great to see the Royal Ballet again as the most recent cinema broadcast that I attended goes back some time.

I was bowled over by Francesca Hayward’s portrayal of Juliet, the little details, the slight change of emotions on her face, sometimes just the raising of an eyebrow. I guess it will have been the first time that I saw Matthew Ball in a “baddy” role, and I found him superb (and the scene in the tavern really added something to Tybalt’s character). Marcelino Sambe, what can I say, wonderful solos, plus pirouettes at astonishing speed. Kristen McNally’s acting, her devastation at Juliet’s death, wow.

I found the film extremely atmospheric with the camera positions right in the midst of it, as if standing right there, next to one of the dancers, behind a bush, etc. The change of light depicted the time of day/ night for the balcony PDD and the bedroom PDD, it made if feel real but also slightly more difficult to see. The messy clothing, all wet and torn at the end of the duel scene in Act 2 (but why was it raining?) The beautiful scenery. I hadn’t read this thread beforehand and didn’t notice the bush in one of the PDD but I did find the bars/ wooden poles in some of the scenes a little obstructing.

The aspect I was struggling with relates to some of the camera positions, and having now read this thread, I realise I am very much in a minority position here. The close ups were great in the acting scenes e.g., when Juliet and Romeo take notice of each other at the ball and are thunderstruck, something that I don’t always catch in a live performance of R&J. Equally when it came to the acting scenes following Juliet’s death. I also enjoyed the camera angles that showed aspects that remain hidden in a live performance e.g. Juliet’s friends discovering her “dead” in the crypt. As for the crowd scenes, however (and here comes the minority view), the close ups in combination with the frequent changes of camera positions (as if being right in the middle and the action all around me) & the fast movements were too hectic for me. This relates to the crowd scene at the start of Act 1 and the duels in Act 2 with fights in close up plus some (blurred) movements in the background plus at times some movement in the foreground plus a number of changes in camera positions, all at the same time. I was watching the film on my laptop and was thinking that seeing this on a – much larger – cinema screen, the crowd scenes would have been rather overwhelming for me.

I agree with the comments about understanding who is who at the start by someone who hadn’t seen the ballet previously. I sensed that the many close ups at the start of Act 1 put the focus a lot more on the key individuals rather than the two families as distinct groups, and the key individuals as part of them.

Despite all of this, I much enjoyed watching the film, it was great to have seen it & The Royal Ballet again, and I am much hoping for other films to follow in the future.

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54 minutes ago, SPD444 said:

 

Unfortunately it appears it is not available in the U.K. and it does not tell us where it is available.

 

It appears on the French and German sites of Arte i.e., https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/088015-000-A/romeo-et-juliette/ and https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/088015-000-A/romeo-juliet/https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/088015-000-A/romeo-juliet/, whether it is accessible through a pay channel from the UK / other countries, I am afraid I don't know :-(

 

 

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  • 3 months later...

I've just caught up with this interview with William Bracewell

 

  

On 19/12/2020 at 11:31, oncnp said:

Interview with Royal Ballet first soloist William Bracewell

 

 

 

and discovered that he spends probably the last quarter of the interview largely discussing the filming of Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words.

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