Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Director Baz Luhrmann's 1996 reworking of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a solid reworking of Shakespeare's classic tale. In the film two young lovers (Romeo and Juliet) are separated by a bitter and long-lasting family feud. Despite their family's terrible animosity toward each other, the two marry in secret. Juliet's cousin Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel, but Romeo refuses to fight back. Instead, Tybalt stabs Mercutio, Romeo's best friend, and Romeo kills Tybalt. Romeo is banned from the city, and a distraught Juliet plans to fake her own death to avoid marrying Paris. She sends word to Romeo of her scam, but her message does not reach him. He sees Juliet's seemingly dead body at the chapel, and consumed by grief, drinks a vial of poison. Juliet wakes up, sees Romeo dead, and shoots herself as she cannot bear to live without him.
Leonardo DiCaprio, as Romeo, and Claire Danes, as Juliet, give excellent performances. The rest of the cast, which includes John Leguizamoa as Tybalt and Brian Dennehy as Ted Montague, is also strong.
The plot, characters, and theme remain largely true to Shakespeare's original in Luhrmann's hands. While details like setting change (this version takes place in a modern city), Luhrmann keeps the original Elizabethan language. This helps retain much of the beauty of Shakespeare's prose, and lends a feeling of drama and authenticity to the film. Other details, such as costumes and lighting are also masterfully handled and attractive.
Overall, I feel that Luhrmann's film is a solid and creative reworking of Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet. His attention to detail in costume, lighting, and the use of Shakespeare's Elizabethan tongue give the movie a romantic and dreamy feel. The age-old plot is gripping and tragic in his hands, and the solid performances by actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes do justice to one of the English languages' most loved tales of romantic love gone awry.
References
Romeo and Juliet. 1996. Director: Baz Luhrmann.
Shot-by-Shot Analysis of Mercutio�s Death in Romeo + Juliet (1996)The scene begins with a low angled shot as Tybalt leaps into frame from a balcony to beat Romeo lying off screen out of frame below him. Shot two is over the shoulder of Tybalt, or rather over the hip, and shows Romeo in the sand being kicked by Tybalt. Shot three is a cut to Mercutio�s face full in frame
This makes the film Juliet seem more mature and alienated, although the cinematic portrait of Romeo as somewhat estranged from his boisterous male friends, such as Mercutio's dim view of women, is consistent with Shakespeare's portrait. However, in the Renaissance Shakespeare, Romeo does not attempt to physically touch Juliet in the first balcony scene. In the film the more 'knowing' lovers soon transgress the physical boundaries of the balcony. The
JULIET Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet. British actor, director and playwright Robert Rawles went one step further and used his passion and expertise of the theater and Shakespeare to rewrite Romeo and Juliet in a true modern-day language version called Rikki and Julie to help students better explore the play
play Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan Times in the late 1500s with four modern day movie adaptations: West Side Story directed by Robert Wise in 1961, Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann in 1996, Shakespeare in Love directed by John Madden in 1998 and Romeo Must Die directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak in 2000. The findings conclude that Romeo Must Die has little to
Romeo & Juliet Baz Luhrmann is an accomplished and visionary director. His 1996 rendition of the 16th century Shakespearean play, "Romeo & Juliet," is certainly a part of his accomplishments as well as his overall body of work. The scene of focus for the purposes of this paper is Act I Scene V, which is the scene of the title characters' first meeting. Over the course of the entire film,
" Perhaps because of this reference to contemporary political ideals, the romance of Shakespeare seems more archetypal than the immediately relevant sociological commentary of "West Side Story." Bernstein's musical is unapologetically topical, dealing with the 1950s obsession with juvenile delinquency and even common theories to explain it, as in the song "Gee Officer Krupkie" which suggests alternatively that delinquency is caused by society, psychology, and also a young thug being "no