Far From Fair Verona

I found I didn’t like this movie as well as M.A.‘s preceding 1960 & 1961 movies (Adventure & Night), but I don’t know whether that’s because it was done less well or because I’ve cooled to M’s style, you know. It’s not like, the Romeo & Juliet Italians, you know. Shakespeare wasn’t really considered “good” during his own time, whereas M.A. either is “good” or can pass for it, I think. There was a time when I was really attracted to that, you know—the calm intellectualism, the micro version of the “fragile peace”, you know. I don’t know. Anyway, he does do some themes and stuff probably about as well as in the other two, what the hell do I know—most strikingly in the kinda “factual”/noncommittal (and therefore rather disturbing) take on racism, and also of course romance and other relationships, and even business life in 1962, you know…. It was the Jazz Age, I guess, kinda that mid-century stilted version, and it was the age of the chess club, you know, even when people are quarreling on their dates…. Although, and I don’t know how much of this is watching the M.A. movies and how much is just the life-journey/life-cycle, but I find I’m no longer scared to look at the faces of people who are so pretty that they’re almost scary, you know. People who are…. Italian, lol. And yes, I’m not Gen Z; I still say lol—nothing against you kids out there, though, wherever you are! (laughing cat emoji).