I watched the movie, ‘Letters to Juliet’, some years ago. It was at the time that my Dad would have turned 75 if he’d still been alive. I came across this little excerpt which I wrote linking the film to the opening scene of Acts 3. That passage involves the phrase ‘Silver and Gold’ – a combination which could also represent 25 + 50, that is, 75 years. (In ‘anniversary’ language.) The film also used the term ‘Caveat emptor’ in its theme – that notion that it is the buyer’s responsibility to find out if there is anything wrong with what they are being sold.
Caveat emptor [Buyer beware]
“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.” Psalm 135:15.
Yesterday marked the 75th (silver and gold) year since the birth of our Opa who died in 1999. The phrase ‘silver and gold’ features in Acts 3 which was the 2010 D-Day sermon passage. It is a chapter which centres around the notion of ‘Destiny’ – for it all happens at the gate called ‘Beautiful’, a word which captures that notion.
How striking, then, it was to be at the cinema the next morning watching Letters to Juliet, a movie where destiny is so explicit and prominent a theme. In addition, it starred Vanessa Redgrave who had also been in ‘The White Countess’, a film set around the time and place of Opa’s birthplace.
So what does Vanessa Redgrave think about love and destiny?
Vanessa: “I don’t believe in destiny at all. And yes, I believe in love. I think people get a lot of very idealized images from the media about what true love is. Apart from your family, I think you can only find true love over the years.”
To quote Juliet: Caveat emptor.
Despite this, the very same Vanessa met her Lancelot in Camelot and ended up marrying him in Verona – both on set and in real life! Destiny indeed!
But let’s not get lost in Verona or Shanghai, it is the swinging, groovy Caterina Caselli who is surely the big find in Letters to Juliet. I mean check out her eyes when she sings: Se guardo te. Sono bugiarda L’amore cè, è dentro di me. Groovy! It looks like a few other Italian men thought they had found their destiny back in 1967 when they saw that performance.