The Adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet for a Cinema Audience

The Adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet for a Cinema Audience

There are many difference between showing a play in a theatre and

showing it on film. The theatre is more of a writers medium and more

emphasis is shown on language, you could say theatre acting is more

dramatic. Film actors don't need to be quite so dramatic as the point

the actor is trying to make can be conveyed in other ways on screen

(such as through use of varied backgrounds). Also on stage the scenes

need to be longer, this is to avoid changing the stage regularly. If a

film had long scenes set in one place only, the audience would

probably become quite restless and wonder what the point of such a

long scene would be. In film however, the production is definitely a

directors medium as he or she has total control over what parts of the

texts are necessary and what parts are not. The director can lead an

audience's attention in film by moving the camera to various angles

and from various viewpoints whereas on stage this is limited as the

only way in which to catch the audience's attention is by moving the

spotlight on to someone at a certain part of the stage but even so

they can still look around to other parts of the stage. In films their

is a different chronology of events and intercutting is often used.

This could be because a director feels that it's necessary to have the

audience see what's happening in the other character's lives at the

time something crucial is perhaps happening in another character's.

This almost creates an air of suspense as the audience want to go back

to the action but are being forced by camera to watch what is

happening...

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... much as they can explain the play in other ways and do not

need his long winded speeches.

Out of the two films I personally preferred the Zeffirelli film as it

is more traditional and is in-keeping with the play text and the

theme. I think the film is more faithful to Shakespeare's intentions

and that it portrayed the tragedy and romance of Romeo and Juliet

better than the modern version did. However, I do think the Luhrman

film was adapted very well to a modern society, I believe it would

have been improved by using more modern speech as well to help the

audience understand what was going on better. I think the Luhrman film

should merely have been 'based' on the story of Romeo and Juliet, not

using all the language. Both plays worked in their own different ways

and both have been adapted well for a cinema audience.