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romeo and juliet luhrmann movie essay
analysing Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet
romeo and juliet luhrmann movie essay
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Baz Luhrmann’s Adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet is a complete butchery throughout the movie. First of all most of the characters are a parody of Shakespeare’s originals, exaggerated to the point of mockery. Second, The Washington Post phrases this perfectly “The barrage of stylized violence, gymnastic camera shots, and other visual effects overpower the verbal poetry – which used to be the most important part of a Shakespeare play” (Howe). Third, the settings are so altered and far from what they were in the original play that they change the whole sense of some of the scenes. These three points lead to the fact that Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation fails to convey the true meaning and emotional impact of Shakespeare’s original. The first butchery of this adaptation is that of the characters. As The Washington Post mentions “Luhrmann… turns the Montagues into flower-shirted, Miami Beach-like punks, who sport 9mm revolvers…. The Capulets are street princes in funeral black, also armed to the teeth” (Howe). Tybalt is an excellent example of this. Although Shakespe...
The costuming in the beginning of the scene were unfaithful to the text. However, the prop presented in the film could relate to one of the themes in the play; Impulsiveness of Youth, making it faithful to the text. The middle of scene was completely faithful to the text when talking about costuming, performance, and lighting. The end of the scene was both unfaithful and faithful to the text. The performance of Mercutio and his relationship with Romeo was unfaithful to the text. Yet, Romeo’s and Benvolio’s costuming in this scene was faithful to the text and its
Chloe Fleming investigates Baz Luhrmann’s capability in embodying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in his own modern film adaptation and praises the hell out of it.
...ended. While Zeferelli’s version held true to the way the play has been written, only to take liberties with some of the dialogue, Luhrmann set the play in modern times. With his updated version Luhrmann was able to bring Romeo and Juliet to an entirely new, and younger audience. He directed the film so that today’s teenagers could relate to it. While the language may have confused some of today’s teenagers the majority understood the story. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a timeless, and romantic story that everyone at some point can relate to. This is not a fairytale it doesn’t have a happy ending, but it is a love story. Romeo and Juliet is a play that can be updated time and time again without ever loosing its original luster, and brilliance. I can only hope that when my children are teenagers another inspired director will bring this love story to life again.
The Deaths of Romeo and Juliet Was it just one person’s fault, or a mixture? In this essay, I will include many different reasons as to why Romeo and Juliet die. I will explain in detail each point and put forward my own opinions. I will use quotes to back up each point and explain why the historical context is relevant.
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic love story about two young lovers who are forced to be estranged as a result of their feuding families. The play is about their struggle to contravene fate and create a future together. As such, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would try to emulate Shakespeare’s masterpiece. This had been done before in many films. Prominent among them were, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.” Both films stay true to the themes of Shakespeare’s original play. However, the modernised Luhrmann film not only maintains the essence of Shakespeare’s writings, Luhrmann makes it relevant to a teenage audience. This is done through upgrading of the setting, the renewal of props and costumes, the use of water symbolism and the reconstruction of the prologue, whilst preserving the original Shakespearean language. Out of the two, it is Luhrmann who targets Romeo & Juliet to a younger audience to a much larger extent than Zeffirelli.
Zeffirelli’s ultimate goal for his version of Romeo and Juliet was to capture Shakespeare’s original intentions for the play while targeting the teenage audience of his generation. Luhrmann’s intentions were different however; he changed the way an audience looks at Shakespeare’s masterpiece by modernising the props, costumes, and sets. Obviously, to match film time quotas Zefirelli and Luhrmann has both cut many lines out of the play.
The environment surrounding the star-crossed lovers in the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet can influence audiences who may interpret the scenes in different ways. The audience can be greatly affected in their interpretation of the story by the mise-en-scene, costuming, and the hidden symbolic meaning. This great piece of literature was edited in two unique and intriguing forms, one Zeferelli directed which was filmed in 1968, and the modern version produced in 1996. The different scenes throughout the length of the party were the most influential to me in that I saw how different these movies were directed, and the different meaning I experienced from watching these movies. Focusing on the environment of the scenes and the costuming helped me in my interpretation, because I found hidden symbolism from these two qualities.
Romeo and Juliet presents an ongoing feud between the Montague and Capulet families whose children meet and fall in love. Markedly, the meeting scene depicting love at first sight continues to be praised by today’s critics. Romeo and Juliet then receive the label of star-crossed lovers whose tragic demise is written in the stars. In fact, Shakespeare 's work is well received and its numerous adaptations have made it one of his most enduring and notorious stories. The cinematic world brings to the screens a disastrous approach by Baz Luhrmann to do the play justice. A glance at Baz Luhrmann’s productions allows audiences to assume he delivers movies which are unlike those of any other filmmaker today, or perhaps ever. Therefore, blending a delicate
Luhrmann modernised Romeo and Juliet through regular amendments of the props and costumes. In updating these aspects of the film, Luhrmann makes the play more relevant to our everyday modern environment. The actors in Luhrmann’s version carry guns instead of swords. Luhrmann, in an act of ingenious brand the guns with titles such as “Sword,” thus, enabling the original Shakespearean language to be preserved. Costumes differ dramatically between both versions of the film. In Luhrmann’s depiction of the motion picture, the Montagues have buzz cuts and pink hair whereas, the Capulets’ dress in vests and mainly dark clothes. All of these adjustments to the original play contribute to the popularity of the fil...
Romeo and Juliet is a play about two lovers who have to risk their lives in order to demonstrate their love and will to stay together, regardless the feud between their families. By the end, the death of Romeo and Juliet finally bring the reconciliation to these two families. It is fate that the two most shall-not meet people fall in love and it love that eventually won against hatred. Since then, there have been many different versions of Romeo and Juliet, whether it was for film, stage, musicals. These different recontextualised adaptions change the original play by many ways, some modernise the language, environment, props as well as changing the original characteristics of some characters. Out of all the different adaptions of Romeo and Juliet, two stood out the most. One was the Romeo and Juliet (1996) and directed by Baz Luhrmann and the other one was Romeo and Juliet Broadway (2013) play version,
Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo and Juliet is compelling when communicating the main ideas of the play by providing the audience with a modern translation of the play using the motifs in the film which correlate to the play.
In conclusion, Lurhmann uses a lot of modern filming techniques to make Romeo and Juliet appeal to a contemporary audience. By relating certain aspects to situations in modern society, it makes the audience understand the ideas behind the original play and he simplifies the complicated old English of Shakespeare by adding exciting and dynamic visuals. Lurhmann tried to create a modern version of Romeo and Juliet and he was completely successful in his aims. Lurhmann defied all odds by making his film appeal to a modern audience and not only is this film very clever, it is a must see for any film lovers.
Being a director in a production such as Romeo and Juliet is no easy task, and I enter into this paper with that in mind. My goals are to be creative, and do things differently from the many versions of the play we have viewed in class. Each of those directors took the original text, written by William Shakespeare, and turned it into a unique version of their own; unique in the sense that they changed the tragedy by taking out lines, conversation or even entire scenes to better suit that particular director’s needs.
...e tragic celebration of young, forbidden love told by William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, has been tailored for many motion picture adaptations. The most famous of these adaptations are Franco Zeffirelli’s version and Baz Lurhmann’s film produced in 1996. These two films applied Shakespeare’s most well-known work as a basis for their motion pictures. Both films had similarities, but the differences were much more apparent. Ever since William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been debuted, it has and forever will be an artistic influence for playwrights, directors, and other artists.
In the 1968 version, it accurately portrays what people usually wear in the medieval time period, which is similar to the play. For example, men wear tights, frills and Robin Hood like hats. It also uses the color difference to distinguish between the Montague actors and the Capulet actors. The Montague family wears dark color clothes like dark blue and grey, whereas the Capulet family wears bright color clothes like orange and red. The custom also depicts the social class difference. In the party, Juliet wears a red beautiful dress, which creates a strong contrast with the Nurse who wears servant clothing. In the 1966 version, the customs are more modernized. Female wears more make up and fancy dress. Male wears Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. The color of customs between Montague and Capulet also changed. Montague wears bright color clothes, with pink hair and tattoos. While, Capulet wear dark clothes, vests and tattoos. Besides, actors use guns not sword as their weapon to fight. The above shows that the 1996 version is more modern and more applicable to our daily