The Heart of the Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet

By Adam Hincks, S.J.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage. – The Prologue

Aeroplanes are a great place to watch films that one wouldn’t ordinarily see, and it was in this way that I saw last year’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. It was a rather bold production, for the screenplay is a hybrid of Shakespeare’s script and the pen of the film’s screenwriter. The “new parts” are also in verse, complete with many rhyming couplets, and the writer attempts to emulate Shakespeare’s ingenious use of imagery, simile and metaphor. In the end, however, this endeavour falls quite flat: I was surprised at how easy it was to detect whose voice was whose, and the transitions from the contemporary poet to the immortal bard were jarring. I would have been happier with more of William and less of his imitator. Coupled with wooden acting from Hailee Steinfeld, who played Juliet, this made the film a failure in my estimation, despite its impressive production design, good score and an excellent performance from Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the mystery screenwriter, not only for his daring attempt, but also because of a distinctive Catholic voice to the screenplay: musings on the mystery of Providence, retaining a reference to purgatory and the greatly amplified role of Friar Laurence were all clues to this. When I came to write this article, I found that my intuition was correct: the screenwriter was none other than the English Catholic Julian Fellowes, most famous for penning Gosford Park and Downton Abbey, and whom I have mentioned before on this blog.

Downton Abbey and Human Goodness

By Adam Hincks, S.J.

itv.com

There is some soul of goodness in things evil, / Would men observingly distil it out.
–Henry V (Shakespeare)

Period drama is one of my favourite genres of film and television. When I was in graduate school I had a group of friends that would get together on Sunday evenings to watch fare of the Brideshead Revisited and Merchant Ivory variety, though we would sometimes branch out to Ingmar Bergman or other “haut” cinema. That being said, I am never up-to-date on the latest culture even when it comes to this genre, and it was only earlier this year that I began watching episodes of the wildly popular Downton Abbey television series. I was sceptical at first that it may be over-rated, but quickly discovered that the accolades are well-deserved. It is a very fine production.

A Jesuit companion who recently lent me his library copy of the second season (which, sadly, I had to return only a couple of episodes in) commented to me that the show’s strength is its depiction of human nobility. Each of the characters, whether “upstairs” or “downstairs”, has an opportunity to behave nobly, and, no matter how small the action itself, to do something great. I think this is a real insight. Indeed, I might go a bit deeper and say that it shows us something about human goodness.