The Zefferelli Romeo & Juliet is not aestheticly appealing to me, but it’s also a really terrible cut of the play. It’s the weepy teen romance that people who have never seen or read it before expect.

I’ve only seen 10 minutes of the Baz Lurhhman version, but it is what you said.

Now I think there are multiple versions of every, or nearly every, Shakespeare play filmed live at a number of the most famous Shakespeare theaters in the world, but when we were in highschool there probably wasn’t a good R&J available on film. The Complete BBC version from the ’70s has the best sword fight in the series and the screen debut of Alan Rickman as Tybalt, but it’s pretty uneven. Most teachers who didn’t show the Zefferelli version were probably showing that one.

I like Surrealistic Pillow as a whole, but the songs I already knew when I got it are the best songs. Not that that’s truly unusual.