> Well, in Throne of Blood Kurosawa did MacBeth with Shakespeare's
> words, and it's the best MacBeth ever filmed by a long mile. He
> also did King Lear (Ran), probably the best Lear filmed.
But isn't it revealing that it was Macbeth and King Lear that intrigued Kurosawa? Romeo and Juliet would have stumped even the great director. R&J got only Franco Zeffirelli, Baz Luhrmann, and the like, failing to inspire the greatest. The only way that you can do R&J today and still make some kind of sense would be to set it in the West Bank, Kashmir, or some other divided territory. Then, "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy" might still resonate (it would be still corny but at least plausible).
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>