One of the characteristics of Elizabethan and also Jacobean drama is the low number of stage directions and the lack of details they contain. As a logical consequence theatrical representations or film versions of these ages may allow an important quantity of freedom in the performance. In other instances stage directions and other important theatrical elements are consciously left aside in order to create totally different visions of the original idea. That is not the case of Baz Luhrman´s version of Romeo and Juliet filmed in 1996, which despite the numerous alterations of the original play still retains Shakespeare’s initial conception. On the question of setting, instead of the Verona of the sixteenth century in Italy, the action occurs in another Verona in the nineties, a coastal city dominated by two large skyscrapers belonging to the Montagues and the Capulets respectively, two adversary industrial powers.The places appearing in the play are barely respected, however the Capulet´s mansion including its walls and garden appear both in the play and the film due to the fact that the events taking place there are crucial because it is the place in which Romeo and Juliet´s first meet and develop their love affair.
Apart from this, they are forbidden for Romeo, so any other location would have reduced the tension of his intrusions. In addition to this, in the film the streets of Verona are repeatedly replaced by the beach, and so the friar Lawrence´s cell by his chapel. It is usual to find that whereas in a single scene of the play the events occur in a single space location, in the film it is possible to see more than one, as in the case of the first scene of the play in which a street of Verona is replaced by a road, a gas station, a police station and the beach. From all this it follows that these types of alterations produced in the setting are intended to give the story an faster pace and variety to avoid any sign of statism that is a general tendency of commercial films.When dealing with characterisation it is necessary to consider that in Shakespeare’s work neither the Capulets nor the Montagues are clearly seen as good or bad characters. On the contrary, Luhrman shows Lady and Lord Montague much more moderate and peaceful than the furious Lord Capulet and his frivolous and unfaithful wife. The representatives of both houses who fight in 1.1 are also depicted as good or bad characters.
The Essay on Romeo And Juliet Love Play Verona
EXTENDED TXT Discuss two ways in which a text you have studied effectively presented its ideas. In the text 'Romeo and Juliet' written by William Shakespeare, two ways he has used to effectively present his ideas are through the characters and setting. The characters Romeo and Juliet clearly illustrate the theme of romantic love through their actions and speech towards one another. The hot Italian ...
The Montagues wear bright and colourful clothes making jokes and having fun. On the contrary the Capulets appear wearing dark clothes, serious and defiant and in the fancy-dress ball scene while the latter are disguised as skeletons except for Tybalt, who is characterised as the Devil. Apart from this the Romeo appearing in the film seems to take their feelings to the limit, and Juliet is more than fourteen years old. The aforementioned Tybalt is still being the provocative and vindictive character whose behaviour provokes the tragic ending, however in Luhrman´s version he regrets having killed Mercutio and this is what does not let him neither kill Romeo nor defend from his shots. The most noticeable change affects Paris since from being the young gallant of the play he turns into an immature and ridicule millionaire.On the question of the text itself there is no crucial changes but many elisions, approximately one third, intended to get immediacy in the action, which gives the film the necessary dynamism of this kind of films as it occurs in the scene of the balcony (2.2).
Act five is the most striking example of this, since only one fourth of the text is maintained. By only shortening the original text, this scene has been changed leaving apart all the characters but Romeo and Juliet, who in this version are allowed to see and kiss each other. Romeo takes the poison, then Juliet awakes and after Romeo´s agony she commits suicide whereas in Shakespeare’s work, Juliet finds his husband already dead. Apart from these elisions, some passages or sentences are extrapolated as in the case of 5.3., when Romeo says: “thy drugs are quick” referring to the apothecary’s poison. This sentence only appears before Romeo and his friends go to the fancy-dress ball referring to the ecstasy tablet that Mercutio gives him. An interest case regarding to the text is prince Escalus’ last intervention (5.3.), that in Luhrman’s versions is performed by a newsreader on a t.v. who also performs the role of the chorus at the very beginning of the play.From all this, it follows that faithfulness is the key word since this version, unlike others as West Side Story by Jerome Robins and Robert Wise, retains the basic plot, metrics and literary devices in order to achieve a faithful and, at the same, time new vision of the Shakespeare’s work that keeps his poetic richness.
The Essay on Romeo And Juliet A Film 1996
How does Baz Luhrman, the director, aim this film at a younger audience? Romeo and Juliet was a play originally written by William Shakespeare in 1595. Baz Luhrman released a modern film of the timeless classic, but he directed it in a way for it to appeal to a younger audience. He cast Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes, as our two main characters: Romeo and Juliet. I wish to discuss the ...
