Even in the days of silent movies, Shakespeare's plays were brought to the screen, and in these efforts the language was, of course, reduced to a series of captions. How strange that this should happen again in the sound period, only now with the actors able to speak their own captions.

For the script of the latest Romeo and Juliet isn't just an abridgment of the play; it's a specimen of clip art. Boz Luhrmann, the director, has extracted from each scene just those few lines that ...