baz luhrmann romeo and juliet film review essay

Baz Luhrmann, Romeo and Juliet 1996

Read a review and overview of Baz Luhrmann’s classic Romeo and Juliet 1996.

Romeo and Juliet is arguably the classic romantic story of all time, so it’s little wonder that Shakespeare’s play has been reproduced on the silver screen so many times. In 1996 Baz Luhrmann’s version was released to great critical acclaim, grossing close to $150 million, and receiving nominations for a host of awards around the world.

Romeo and Juliet movie starring Claire Danes and Leonardo Di Caprio in Baz Luhrmanns 1996 version

Claire Danes and Leonardo Di Caprio in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo and Juliet movie

Although Lurmann’s Romeo and Juliet is the familiar timeless story of the ‘star crossed’ lovers it’s updated to a modern Veronese suburb – Verona Beach – where the teenage members of the Montague and Capulet families carry guns, and when the trouble starts they shoot at each other without restraint. The film retains the original Shakespeare dialogue, but the text is pruned and the story is told mainly through vivid and exciting cinematic images.

Shakespeare’s plays have a timeless quality and have been comfortably interpreted by four hundred years of producers and actors to present them as relevant to their time and the fashions of the time. This film loses nothing of the play’s integrity while catering for the modern teenager’s taste for fast-moving, spectacular visual and musical effects. The music is loud and the camerawork offers what the most popular action thrillers do, driving the audience through the story, hurtling the ill-fated lovers towards their doom.

Luhrmann has created a world in which the extreme wealth of the two families is evident in the pastimes, dress, and lifestyle of their younger generation. They wear expensive outfits, drive fancy sports cars and wield big shiny guns. The fight at the beginning of the play becomes a spectacular gunfight at a petrol station and the party at the Capulet mansion is a sumptuous rock-star style bash. Deafening pop music plays throughout.

The difficulty Luhrmann has to confront is the need to marry his cinematic vision with the language of Shakespeare, and he does this admirably. The key is the convincing way in which the actors speak the lines. Shakespeare’s blank verse iambic pentameter was written as a way of imitating the rhythms of natural speech and all of the actors exploit that quality in the poetry to create that effect. DiCaprio, who has gone on to become a major film star, shows that early promise in this movie. He has an instinctive grace and creates a Romeo whose gut-wrenching emotion is entirely convincing. Danes’ yearning Juliet is exactly right for a strong determined young girl caught up in this powerful emotional swirl. Paul Sorvino as Capulet presents a convincing modern tycoon who can’t understand any form of dissent from his authority and Pete Postlethwaite’s hippy guru, Friar Laurence , is a joy.

Anyone coming to Shakespeare for the first time will enjoy this film, but there is an extra dimension of enjoyment for those who know the play. Some of the character motivations are obscured by Luhrmann’s desire to realise his cinematic vision but knowledge of the play would make everything clear. This movie is a rich addition to the canon of Romeo and Juliet films .

Romeo and Juliet 1996 Cast

The montagues:.

Brian Dennehy as Ted Montague, Romeo’s fathe
Christina Pickles as Caroline Montague, Romeo’s mother
Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo Montague
Dash Mihok as Benvolio Montague, Romeo’s cousin
Jesse Bradford as Balthasar Montague, Romeo’s cousin
Zak Orth as Gregory Montague, Romeo’s cousin
Jamie Kennedy as Sampson Montague, Romeo’s cousin

The Capulets:

Paul Sorvino as Fulgencio Capulet, Juliet’s father
Diane Venora as Gloria Capulet, Juliet’s mother
Claire Danes as Juliet Capulet
John Leguizamo as Tybalt Capulet, Juliet’s cousin
Vincent Laresca as Abra Capulet, Juliet’s cousin
Carlos Martín Manzo Otálora as Petruchio Capulet, Juliet’s cousin
Miriam Margolyes as Nurse, Juliet’s nanny

Romeo and Juliet 1996 Playlist

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Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet at 25: is this the best Shakespeare screen adaptation?

baz luhrmann romeo and juliet film review essay

Senior Lecturer (Media Studies and Production), University of Southern Queensland

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Daryl Sparkes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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It is 25 years since Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann released his gloriously spectacular version of Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet , starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the doomed lovers.

While some praised the film as “clever and well-executed” and “genuinely inventive” , others labelled it “a very bad idea” and “a monumental disaster” . How could one film be so polarising?

Lurhmann was not presenting us with a reinterpretation of the stage play, but a complete re-imagining of its universe. Gone was the sense of theatre. Gone were the long soliloquies. Gone were the 16th century costumes. Instead of Verona, Italy, we are on Verona Beach, California.

The Capulet and Montague patriarchs do business in adjacent skyscrapers while the younger generation wage a vicious war on the streets. Tattoos, gold chains, loud Hawaiian shirts, leather vests, and silver teeth adorn them. Swords are replaced with Uzis and pistols.

The soundtrack dispenses with classical strings, replaced by 90s bands such as Radiohead and Garbage. Even the “and” in the title was replaced with a + sign. In every way Lurhmann made this film scream “gangsta”. It feels dangerous.

Read more: Marx, Freud, Hitler, Mandela, Greer... Shakespeare influenced them all

Fast and loose

Many critics compared the film to Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. While Zeffirelli’s film is visually sumptuous, it still plays it safe with the material, with few changes in tone or historical period.

Lurhmann, in contrast, plays fast and loose with every element of his production. To me, the films are in different stratospheres in their approach to the material and thus totally incomparable.

Shakespeare adaptations set in different time periods had happened before Lurhmann. As You Like It (1992) was performed in an industrial wasteland. Richard III (1995), was set in 1930s Britain; and Twelfth Night , made in the same year as Luhrmann’s film, was set in Victorian times.

However, Lurhmann didn’t just take the words and characters from the stage play and insert them into new environments. He created a completely stylised pastiche of visuals, dialogue, character and action.

It’s all quite over the top, as exemplified by the scene where a drag-queened Mercutio dances to Young Hearts Run Free . This is really Shakespeare for a specific demographic — youth. Some have argued Luhrmann’s film was beloved by attention deficit teenagers who later regarded it as “embarrassing” in adulthood . But I think this simplifies things.

I can understand why traditionalists, who didn’t mind the other adaptations set in modern times, don’t like this one. Much of the humour is pure slapstick, the acting can be over-exaggerated and lines are over-emphasised. There are large parts of the film which don’t have any dialogue at all, it’s all just visuals and music.

But the onscreen chemistry between Danes and DiCaprio is electric. Their scenes are genuinely emotionally charged, often heightened by the musical accompaniment.

And Lurhmann was making a film that would appeal to those who loved or loathed, or were indifferent, to traditional Shakespeare. A Shakespeare accessible to everyone.

This can be seen in the dialogue delivery of actors such as John Leguizamo, who plays Tybalt. As he venomously spits out, in modern gangsta rap style, lines like, “Now by the stock and honour of my kin, To strike him dead I hold it not a sin”, you actually forget you are listening to words written 500 years ago.

Read more: Shakespeare had fewer words, but doper rhymes, than rappers

My favourite scene has always been Mercutio’s death. In the minutes leading up to, during and after he dies, Lurhmann dispenses with glitz and glamour, concentrating solely on the engagement between DiCaprio, Harold Perrineau (Mercutio) and Leguizamo. This is raw, visceral acting, no exaggeration, no contrivance.

Fluid works

Some have argued making such radical changes to the text is unnecessary and harms the essence of Shakespearean drama. The nuance and poetry of Shakespeare’s language is lost in all the flash and sparkle.

But pop culture critic Tori Godfree contends that Lurhmann’s incorporation of contemporary jokes, music and pop culture into his film is exactly what Shakespeare did in the original play. Shakespeare’s works should not be treated as sacrosanct icons but as fluid works open to reconstruction and modernisation.

Read more: Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare - how the Bard sexed things up

Luhrmann’s approach worked. The film grossed over ten times its $14.5 million dollar budget . No other direct Shakespeare adaptation has come close to this sort of monetary success . Others have since embraced gangsta style violence in their own Shakespeare adaptions, notably Australian director Justin Kurzel, with Macbeth , and David Michod’s The King .

Juliet as an angel, Romeo as a knight. He goes to kiss her hand.

Romeo + Juliet catapulted Luhrmann into the A-list, where he was given free reign on his next film, Moulin Rouge . Unfortunately, I think Lurhmann’s love of visual excess overwhelmed this and his further films, which were much more focused on screen imagery and design than story, character or meaning.

Perhaps the difference with Romeo + Juliet is that Luhrmann had a great script to start with. One can justly say of this lush, loud film, “For I never saw true beauty till this night”.

Romeo + Juliet is being re-released in selected cinemas from February 11 to mark its 25th anniversary.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet is as irreplaceable as ever.

2020 has been a strange year for cinema, but its unpredictability has made room for reassessment. The lack of new Shakespeare adaptations hitting U.S. theaters provides us with an opportunity: to revisit Baz Luhrmann ’s “ Romeo + Juliet ,” released 24 years ago this month. A modern spin on the romantic tragedy defined by Luhrmann’s affective style, Jill Bilcock ’s frenetic editing, and that banger of a contemporary soundtrack, “Romeo + Juliet” was a runaway success that made the romantic tragedy an obsession for a new generation of viewers. Leonardo DiCaprio ’s face helped, of course. For millennials of a certain age, the smoldering glare of his introduction, set to Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host,” remains a formative spark of sexual discovery. But DiCaprio at the peak of his blonde-banged allure isn’t the only draw here: costars Harold Perrineau and John Leguizamo are forces of nature whose performances add much-needed diversity to a story that too often—like so many Shakespeare adaptations—is imagined as a monotony of whiteness.

As Mercutio, Romeo’s hotheaded best friend, and Tybalt, Juliet’s ( Claire Danes ) volatile cousin, Perrineau and Leguizamo, respectively, are hurricanes of charisma every time they appear onscreen. As Black and Latin American men, the actors bring complexity and depth to Luhrmann’s depiction of Verona Beach, and their presence complicates our traditional ideas of tribalism. As the conversation about diversity, inclusion, and representation in film has taken on a more impassioned tone in recent years, Perrineau and Leguizamo demonstrate the value added of such equity. Frankly, they’re phenomenal, their highly tuned performances giving “Romeo + Juliet” the thrill and danger needed to make its calamities even more impactful. Although “Romeo + Juliet” wasn’t singular in this casting approach ( Kenneth Branagh ’s 1993 version of “Much Ado About Nothing,” for example, included a very good Denzel Washington and a trying-his-best Keanu Reeves in its ensemble), it remains iconic for how intentionally it subverted our expectations of Shakespeare’s world and the characters who could live within it. “You want me? F---ing come and find me,” Thom Yorke sneers in “Talk Show Host,” and how convincingly Perrineau and Leguizamo made real the antipathy between the Montagues and Capulets helped immortalize “Romeo + Juliet” into a film that has since proved impossible to replicate or replace.

“I will burn for you Feel pain for you I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart And tear it apart.” —“#1 Crush,” Garbage

The tale of Romeo and Juliet—feuding families, star-crossed lovers, the whole thing—is ubiquitous, and from its very first frame, Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” works to undermine what viewers might already associate with it. A wood-paneled television’s staticky screen floats in a sea of deep, impenetrable black, coming closer and closer to us, until a news broadcast switches on. The first person we see, the individual who will guide us through this tale and whom we therefore implicitly trust, is a Black anchorwoman (Edwina Moore). “Civil blood makes civil hands unclean,” she informs, complemented by a pleasantly retro graphic illustration of a broken-apart wedding ring, and Luhrmann then smashes us forward into the crumbling metropolis of Verona Beach.

A chaotic mélange of images lays out the scene: Verona Beach is ruled by two families, the Montagues and the Capulets, who have loathed each other for years. Their skyscrapers are situated directly across from each other; the city is almost divided down the middle by their de facto armies; and their violent antics infuriate Police Captain Prince ( Vondie Curtis-Hall ). The city’s entire journalism industry covers the feud with breathless abandon. And yet even for all Captain Prince’s stern warnings, and even for all the bad press, the rivalry does not let up. The film’s first quarrel captures the heat of all this: At a gas station, the Montague Boys end up insulting the Capulets ( Jamie Kennedy ’s panicked, then combative, reaction to “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” sells it), and it’s an immediate mistake. The Montagues are goofy and undisciplined, and compared with Tybalt Capulet, nicknamed the Prince of Cats, they’re badly outmanned. But could anyone step to the relentlessly put together, obviously dangerous Tybalt? His side part and sideburns are lacquered in a way that evokes the baby-hair styles championed and worn by Black and Latin American women. His bright red vest with a torso-length portrait of the Virgin Mary on it announces his Catholic faith; she appears also on the handles of his guns, as does the Capulet family crest. His black leather boots are decorated with silver toes and heels; on the latter are engraved the face of a wildcat. Double gun belts complete the look. He can, and has, killed a Montague without a second thought, and he always looks exceptional doing it.

Tybalt’s introduction has all the bombastic qualities of a man who has studiously built a formidable persona, and who knows that a certain performance is part of maintaining it. His loathing is genuine—the tight close-up on Leguizamo’s face as he hisses, “Peace? Peace? I hate the word as I hate Hell, all Montagues, and thee” is perfect framing—and his tactics have the intensity of a true believer. How he stamps out a match, viciously twisting his toe in those formidable boots, to fully concentrate on the upcoming fight. How he takes a stance like a bullfighter to duel, guns held high. How he whips off his jacket and drops into a kneel, as if he’s at confession, before reloading his gun, kissing it, and aiming it at the departing Benvolio ( Dash Mihok ), Romeo’s cousin. In a film with so much aesthetic style, Tybalt’s every movement is titillating. Leguizamo’s intentionality exudes menace: The cherry-red sequined devil horns and vest he wears to the Capulets’ fiesta-style ball could be construed as feminine but lend him demonic glamour. The kiss he shares with Juliet’s mother at that same party is positively carnal; aren’t they supposed to be cousins? Rarely has a man looked this attractive while smoking; as Tybalt watches Romeo leave the party and takes a drag, his “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall/Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall” is a promise.

On the one hand, you could argue that Tybalt is just another personification of a series of stereotypes about Latin American men and Chicano culture that Luhrmann, production designer Catherine Martin, and costume designer Kym Barrett rely on to depict the Capulets. Tybalt’s henchman Abra ( Vincent Laresca ), with his “SIN” grill and gigantic religious back tattoo, gets riled up quick. Juliet’s father Fulgencio ( Paul Sorvino ) is a bully and an abuser, a man who knocks around women and essentially sells his daughter to Paul Rudd ’s Paris (“You be mine, I’ll give you to my friend”). But the specific grounding of an ethnic identity for the Capulets (that is not Shakespeare’s original Italian) allows the film not only celebrate certain rituals (like the carnival aspects of the Capulets’ costume party, and the calaca costumes worn to it by Tybalt’s henchmen) but also allude to certain questions of race- and class-based friction and ownership of place. In a city where white and Latinx people are at war, how much of this conflict is tied to power, who gets to wield it, and who is denied it?

At the highest level, the Montague and Capulet parents seem similar in terms of the privilege that wealth allows: they travel exclusively in chauffeured limos; other people hold umbrellas for them in the rain; they’re called before the police captain but never fear retribution. But their heirs and their proxies are the soldiers in this war, and they move between surprising spaces. The Montagues use the beach as their hangout, often surrounded by people of color who tolerate these young men with a level of bemusement. The Capulets are ensconced in a gigantic mansion with a security staff who is mostly white, aside from Juliet’s Nurse ( Miriam Margolyes , broadly playing Latina; the brownface isn’t great), who detests having to visit the beach where the Montagues congregate. There is fluidity to who these characters are, what they act like, and what they represent in the story that is more than just cultural tourism. “Romeo + Juliet” did film in Mexico City and Boca del Rio, Veracruz, as well as Miami, but the atmosphere Verona Beach most suggests, save for the gigantic Jesus statue, is California’s Venice Beach. Long a location for quirky artists, wanderers, and lingering hippies, Venice Beach has been increasingly gentrified in the past few decades, its original inhabitants pushed out by skyrocketing real estate prices and corporate developers. This Verona Beach mimicry, with its decaying Sycamore Grove stage plopped right on the beach, much-loved carousel and Ferris wheel, AC-deficient pool hall, and various murals, including that gigantic L’amour painting in Coca-Cola style, might be closer to what Venice Beach used to be like than any part of the community that still exists.

Back to Tybalt: Is it ironic that a man so blunt in his scorn toward an entire lineage would also have a tattoo of a sacred heart upon his chest—a Catholic symbol meant to represent the means of Jesus’s death, and the restorative power of divine love? How can a man so unrelenting in his derision also make space in his soul for such a meaningful depiction of faith? “Romeo + Juliet” thrives on these contradictions, employing them in the film’s arsenal of narrative and anachronistic mashups. How the piety of a man like Tybalt doesn’t quite jibe with his murderous infamy. How someone as wise and revered as Friar Laurence ( Pete Postlethwaite ) would come up with such a convoluted plot to protect two lust-addled teenagers. And how the silver-tongued, inimitably cutting, delightfully roguish Mercutio, so dismissive of best friend Romeo’s mooning over first crush Rosaline, might have a very good reason for his irritation: He might be in love with Romeo himself.

“Oh, young hearts run free Never be hung up Hung up like my man and me My man and me Ooh, young hearts, to yourself be true Don't be no fool when love really don't love you Don't love you.” —“Young Hearts Run Free,” Kym Mazelle

Perhaps as a mischievous response to the fact that women couldn’t act onstage during the time of his output, Shakespeare’s plays are full of gender experimentation. “As You Like It,” “ The Merchant of Venice ,” and “ Twelfth Night ” all include female characters who dress like men, and whose disguise then raises additional questions about their identity or sexuality. Was that precedent what inspired Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce to transform what was Mercutio’s coarseness in the play into a different kind of boldness onscreen—a willingness to laugh in the face of others’ expectations, and look damn good doing it?

“Romeo + Juliet” is already packed with lively characters by the time Mercutio shows up, but Perrineau is dizzying, dynamic, and irrepressible. His entrance is delightfully manic: introduced in the middle of a peal of laughter, a Marilyn Monroe-style wig covering his dreadlocks, blue-red lipstick smudged on his lips and smeared on his teeth, speeding behind the wheel of a Mitsubishi 3000 GT with custom plates. In a sequined halter bra top and miniskirt, matching glittery T-strap heels, and a gun strapped across his body, Mercutio is a walking “F--- you, look at me ,” and a stark contrast to the Montague Boys, dressed as miniature versions of the grownups they admire (Kennedy’s Sampson as a Viking; Benvolio as a priest; Romeo as a knight). But there’s no judgment here: They’re delighted by Mercutio’s outfit, they cheer him on as he tantalizingly pulls up his skirt to reveal one butt cheek, Romeo laughs when Mercutio pulls his invitation to the Capulets’ party from between his legs. They know who Mercutio is, and they love him for it. And, as Perrineau plays him (note that “Prick love for pricking” line delivery!), Mercutio adds enough queer subtext to the film to incorporate another dimension of rage and grief to Romeo’s retributive murder of Tybalt.

There’s the drag, of course, but so much more—even though Perrineau is in fewer than a half-dozen scenes, his mercurial performance bends the entire film around him. His flirty offering to Romeo of an Ecstasy pill, which is ostensibly what he’s high on when he delivers his entrancingly enraged Queen Mab speech. The smirking tone of his “And then they dream of love” line, and then the shattering anger of his screamed “This is she!” His startled reaction when Romeo touches his shoulder, and his quick recovery. How clearly he steps into the role of ringleader of the Montague Boys, and then abandons that to wave and sway like a pageant winner boosted up on the backseat of the car during their drive to the Capulets’ party. The effervescent, riotous joy of that “Young Hearts Run Free” performance, and the preparation that must have gone into it: an even-more-voluminous, Diana Ross-style wig, the meticulously fastened thigh highs and garters, the choker necklace, the cape, the gloves. Luhrmann allows his actors to gaze directly into the camera every so often, and Perrineau takes full advantage of that freedom here. He shimmies, he shakes, he gyrates, he wags his fingers at anyone who considers being anything less than true to themselves. Is this, even in its artifice, Mercutio’s most authentic self? Or is it later on, when amused by Romeo—who jumps out of their car as they leave the party, running back to sneak onto Juliet’s balcony—Mercutio calls out, “Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!”? Is the latter a guess of who Romeo was to become—or perhaps who he already was, at least to Mercutio?

So much of this reading is based on Perrineau’s vibrancy, and his next scene demonstrates his range. Gone are the sequins and the lipstick. Gone too is Mercutio’s patience. This is the renegade version of the character, and his costuming—sheer shirt, slim-fitting jeans, dreadlocks now free, gun casually on his hip—aligns him more with his Montague comrades. “Where the devil should this Romeo be?” he spits out, each syllable in “Romeo” crisp in his mouth, and it is here that Mercutio’s explosivity becomes plain. With Benvolio, he’s a roll-with-the-punches bro; the two pretend to duel on the beach. With Romeo, he’s more physical, wrestling him down into the sand before being confused, and then annoyed, by the Nurse’s presence to deliver a message from Juliet. And as a hurricane brews over the water and Tybalt and the Capulets drive up, Mercutio is ready to attack first with his words (mocking Tybalt’s sexuality, “Could you not take some occasion without giving?”) and then with his fists (when Tybalt turns the innuendo around with, “Thou consortest with Romeo?”). Does Mercutio decide to fight Tybalt because Romeo refrains out of newly found loyalty now that he’s married to Juliet, or because Romeo offers Tybalt love instead of him? Whatever the context, Perrineau’s final moments as Mercutio are the film’s strongest acting and its most compelling heartbreak. The braggadocio still lacing his laugh as he insists Tybalt’s attack was just “a scratch, a scratch,” and then the collapse of his face when the camera pans down to his gaping wound and then back up again to capture his expression, and then the bitterness in his tone when he curses Romeo and Tybalt both: “A plague on both your houses!”

Mercutio’s death finally sparks Romeo’s vitriol, and Luhrmann’s shot composition is exquisite: After cradling his best friend’s body to his chest, Romeo leaves him on the sand before the Sycamore Grove stage. As Mercutio remains in the foreground, Romeo sprints backward to his car, followed by the too-slow Benvolio. Storm clouds gather. Sand whips around. Mercutio grows colder. And in the background, an argument between Romeo and Benvolio—and then Romeo peels out to track down Tybalt. When Romeo shoots him before that gargantuan statue of Jesus, does he pierce Tybalt through the sacred heart tattoo, creating an eerie similarity between the Prince of Cats and his believed savior? Maybe. But at that point, do the details of a death really compare with its utter finality? Of everyone in “Romeo + Juliet” who dares to utter a wish, only Mercutio’s comes true—Tybalt and Romeo will both be dead in a matter of days. “A plague on both your houses,” indeed.

“I know you’ve been hurting, but I've been waiting to be there for you.” —Quindon Tarver, “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good)”

The 1990s belonged to DiCaprio and Danes, and all of the surrounding pieces of “Romeo + Juliet”—Leguizamo, Perrineau, Luhrmann’s extra-ness, that soundtrack—work in collaboration with their perfect embodiments of Romeo and Juliet. The actors exuded the youth necessary for their characters (DiCaprio, who stayed baby-faced into his 20s, was 21 during filming, while Danes was 17), but more importantly than that, infused each with the besotted fragility and wild desperation needed to convince us of their refusal to “love moderately.”

DiCaprio was already becoming a teen idol after his work in “This Boy’s Life,” “ The Basketball Diaries ,” and “The Quick and the Dead,” but “Romeo + Juliet” jettisoned the actor to another level of omnipresent stardom. You can ascribe a certain amount of that fame to DiCaprio’s face, of course—to whatever inexplicable combination of genetics and luck provided those aquamarine eyes, angular cheekbones, and impish grin. Those looks would become so desired and so tied to discussions of DiCaprio’s acting ability that after the one-two punch of “Romeo + Juliet” and “ Titanic ,” he literally retreated behind metal in “ The Man in the Iron Mask ” and slathered himself in grime in “ The Beach .” DiCaprio’s lengthy partnership with filmmaker Martin Scorsese would deepen his expertise at playing characters prone to obfuscating themselves: a 19th century gangster lying about his identity in “ Gangs of New York ,” a reclusive genius hiding away in “ The Aviator ,” an undercover police officer in “ The Departed ,” a U.S. Marshal experiencing a mental breakdown in “ Shutter Island ,” a businessman defined by his immorality in “ The Wolf of Wall Street .” Regardless of DiCaprio’s eventual discomfort with his own physical appeal, however, the introduction he’s given in “Romeo + Juliet” amps it up. A slow pan shows us first his cigarette and journal, then his open shirt collar, then those begging-to-be-smoothed-back blond bangs; silhouetted against the golden sunlight of a setting sun, DiCaprio’s Romeo is as tortured in isolation as he is unquestionably beautiful. His first direct look into the camera is a challenge for us to look away, but why would you?

Romeo’s playfulness and impetuousness come out around the Montague Boys, with whom he has an easy, self-deprecating bond. They’re as united in their razzing of each other as they are in their resentment toward the Capulets, which is of course complicated once Romeo and Juliet meet. The story about Danes’s casting goes that Natalie Portman had been cast as Juliet first, but the age gap between her and DiCaprio urged Luhrmann to go in a different direction. Enter the erstwhile Angela Chase: Danes brings wide-eyed optimism and self-aware skepticism to a character who avoids easy classification as a “good girl.” She rolls her eyes at her mother’s romantic scheming—and unlike Romeo, has no initial stake in the feud between their families—but takes to heart the Nurse’s encouragement to “seek happy nights to happy days.” Something elemental happens when DiCaprio and Danes lock eyes through that aquarium at the Capulets’ costume party, and Luhrmann lets us in on it, rotating between the pair as they rapidly tumble into love, retreat into the elevator for their first kiss, and then commit to vows in Juliet’s balcony pool. Danes is deliberate in her portrayal of Juliet as a young woman aware of the far-reaching ramifications of choosing Romeo, and the little nod Juliet gives DiCaprio’s Romeo once she meets him at the church altar for their wedding is an acceptance of whatever may come.

All Romeo and Juliet get together is one happy night amid Juliet’s crisp white sheets in a room decorated with numerous offerings to the Virgin Mary before Romeo has to flee Verona for killing Tybalt as revenge for Mercutio; before Juliet’s parents abandon her to Paris; before a scheme involving a sleeping potion goes horribly wrong; before Romeo and Juliet end up taking their own lives rather than be forever separated. The final scene of “Romeo + Juliet” is an opulent display of grief—neon-lit crosses, thousands of burning candles, a sea of mourning bouquets—but what resonates is the soul-shattering pain that both DiCaprio and Danes communicate. Friar Laurence’s “These violent delights have violent ends” warning is revealed as an omen. Romeo’s gasping breaths and panicked eyes as he realizes, while dying, that his wife is alive; Juliet’s sole broken sob as she slides her wedding ring back on her finger before picking up Romeo’s gun. “Romeo + Juliet” continues past this scene, with the Capulets and Montagues both appropriately shamed for their actions, but regret has never brought anyone back to life.

“We were born to die.” —Capulet, “Romeo + Juliet”

So much of what Luhrmann accomplishes with “Romeo + Juliet” is thanks to his purposefully excessive approach to adapting the text: the fast cuts and handheld camerawork unsettling our perspective; the use of water as a means of privacy; and the infectiousness of the soundtrack, in particular Quindon Tarver’s cover of Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” which does exactly what the film is doing: update a classic through fresh eyes. Luhrmann would use these methods over and over again throughout his ensuing filmography—2001’s “ Moulin Rouge !”, 2008’s “ Australia ,” and his reunion with DiCaprio for 2013’s exquisite “The Great Gatsby”—but “Romeo + Juliet” stands apart for the immensity of Leguizamo and Perrineau’s performances, the passionate commitment of DiCaprio and Danes, and how the film’s entire ensemble captured the simmering lustfulness, reckless willfulness, and inclusive possibility of fair Verona.

Roxana Hadadi

Roxana Hadadi is a film, television, and pop culture critic. She holds an MA in literature and lives outside Baltimore, Maryland.

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I Panned <i>Romeo + Juliet</i> in 1996. Now I Think It’s One of the Best Shakespeare Adaptations

I Panned Romeo + Juliet in 1996. Now I Think It’s One of the Best Shakespeare Adaptations

Romeo and Juliet is rarely lauded as the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays, an honor that usually goes to Hamlet or Macbeth or King Lear. Yet Romeo and Juliet might be the most important Shakespeare: It’s the one almost everybody reads first, the one that entices our young, unformed selves to struggle with its language, initially so strange to modern ears. It’s a story of gang wars fueled by testosterone, love at first sight, and melodramatic, I-can’t-live-without-you double suicide, but it’s also the gateway drug to one of the richest, most resonant bodies of work in the English language. Romeo and Juliet is a crazy-beautiful play, and although there are thousands of ways to adapt it, from staid to gonzo, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet —25 years old this week—is, among film versions, perhaps the most purely alive.

Because actors ostensibly need training and skill to navigate Shakespeare’s words , most productions of Romeo and Juliet cast performers who are older than the characters as he wrote them: Juliet is 13 (“she hath not seen the change of fourteen years,” according to her father); Romeo’s age is unspecified, but he’s thought to be around 17. Luhrmann wasn’t the first filmmaker to cast age-appropriate actors: In his 1968 adaptation, Franco Zeffirelli cast Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, 17 and 15, as the star-crossed lovers. The film became a staple of junior-high literature classes for years. (If you came of age in that era, you and your classmates probably giggled over Leonard Whiting’s naked ass.)

But the actors in Luhrmann’s version, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, aged 21 and 17 at the time of filming, are even more luminous than Zeffirelli’s gorgeously youthful duo, and in today’s context, their performances are even more touching than they were 25 years ago. The film overall has aged better than you’d think—which is to say it has hardly aged at all. Although Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce had to trim the play to fit into a reasonable two-hour runtime, their script largely preserves the original language. Watching Romeo + Juliet today is to be reminded of the wonder of Shakespeare, a writer whose work is so capacious and elastic that it can enfold countless interpretations and reinventions, winning over one generation after another with ease.

Lurhmann and his longtime production and costume designer Catherine Martin (also his wife) re-envisioned the play’s Verona setting in Mexico City and Veracruz, incorporating real-life locations—like Mexico City’s extravagantly decorated Immaculate Heart of Mary Church—into the story. Guns, rather than swords and daggers, are the weapons of choice, and like many of the props and costumes used in the film, they’re adorned with vibrant Catholic iconography—a handgun decorated with a benevolent Virgin Mary makes for a particularly vivid and painful irony. The Montague gang, a bunch of blockhead yobbos who favor tropical shirts unbuttoned over bare chests, stand off against the Capulet guys, a crew of slickly dressed urban cowboys in Cuban-heeled boots, with a hatred that’s white-hot. The Capulet Tybalt ( John Leguizamo ) is a sly devil with a soul patch and twin spit-curls, a sexy hothead who’s been carrying a grudge so long he has no idea how it started.

That’s the essential tragedy of the Capulets and the Montagues: They have no idea why they’re fighting, but their warring ways mean that the union of the Montague Romeo and the Capulet Juliet is hopeless. In Luhrmann’s vision, the most affecting casualty of the gang wars between the two is Romeo’s bestie Mercutio—a loyal companion who is possibly in love with his friend—played by Harold Perrineau as a glittery-gorgeous heir to disco legend Sylvester.

Luhrmann’s film is a dizzying assemblage of fast cutting and mad camera swirls; scenes sometimes chop off abruptly, leaving you reaching out, longing for more—but even that is part of the movie’s brash, prismatic lyricism, and because of it, Perrineau’s entrance is one of the most memorable in all of 1990s cinema: He arrives on the scene—a crumbling seaside amusement park—leaping out of a convertible in a two-piece silver mini-shorts outfit and heels, wearing a white candy-floss wig, his lips a smear of red lipstick. The song that heralds his arrival is Kym Mazelle’s version of the Candi Staton hit “Young Hearts Run Free.” He’s here, he’s queer, get used to it: Perrineau’s Mercutio is a bold pirouette of freedom. His death at Tybalt’s hand—which occurs just as, in real life, a storm was brewing in Veracruz, where the scene was being shot—leaves a hole in the film. It’s a turning point that feels like a personal wound.

Read more reviews from Stephanie Zacharek

That’s just one example of the piercing immediacy of Romeo + Juliet. And the film’s array of gifted actors—some of whom are completely comfortable with Shakespearean language, others attempting it for possibly the first time—is part of its ever-unfolding delight. The late Pete Postlethwaite is both rousing and affecting as Father Laurence (his name a slight variation on the play’s Friar Laurence), an optimistic man of the cloth who hopes that the love between two young people will heal the rift between warring families. The marvelous character actor Miriam Margolyes is effervescent as Juliet’s loyal, adoring Nurse. Paul Rudd makes a beaming, squeaky-clean “Dave” Paris, the suitor Juliet’s parents (played by Paul Sorvino and Diane Venora) have chosen for her, never mind that he’s all wrong.

Because there’s only one true husband for Danes’ Juliet, and you know it from the moment the two meet, at a costume ball at the Capulets’ swanky mansion. DiCaprio’s disguised Romeo spies his Juliet from the other side of an aquarium shimmering with polychrome fish. First he sees just one coquettish eye: it’s framed by a piece of coral, like a jewel. The moment the two spot one another is so radiant with possibility it defies language. This is how a great filmed version of Shakespeare can unlock a whole world, especially for a young person who’s anxious about comprehending the language.

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DiCaprio’s Romeo—first glimpsed in a moody moment by the sea, as he writes in his journal—is practically alight with a charming, nonthreatening openness. But it’s Danes who’s most heartrending: Her features have a malleable softness. In her moment of deepest despair, her face crumples—it is one of the most naked instances of ugly-crying in the movies, and Danes raises her hand to her face almost instinctively, to shield us from Juliet’s pain, and to afford her character some privacy.

When Romeo + Juliet was first released, many critics scoffed. I was one of them—I believe I referred to the film as “garish junk” in my review. But in the days after I filed that review, I kept thinking about the movie, about those young faces—about that ugly crying, about the way Romeo comes to Juliet on the night of their wedding, after he has killed Tybalt, and how the shelves in her bedroom are lined with her childhood dolls. I found myself longing to see the film again, and so I did. The second time, I got it. The fast cutting no longer annoyed me—once I went along with the current, the movie’s rhythms made complete sense. I realized that this was not only not a bad movie; it was one of the most beautiful film versions of Shakespeare I had ever seen. I recall friends complaining that DiCaprio and Danes had no idea what they were doing, that they had no mastery over the material. But that’s exactly the point: their Romeo + Juliet is one of pure feeling, a flame burning fast and clean. Movies are neither made nor received in a vacuum, and they have a life beyond what we can initially imagine for them. That’s why so many of today’s grownups who saw Romeo + Juliet as kids will never forget it. And that is how a play lives forever, reinvented again and again across the centuries, even as its bones and its heart remain intact.

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A Close Reading of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’

Revisiting the classic on its 20th anniversary

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I was 10 or 11 when I saw Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet for the first time. Despite a very advanced PG-13 rating, my mother took me and a friend to the theater to see it; she considered it educational. Shakespeare for pre-tweens. She regretted this choice after the first scene — a bullet-riddled, profanity-laced showdown between the Capulets and Montagues — and I sort of did too. “We can leave and go back to my house and play Barbies,” I suggested to my friend. She hissed back, “No! I want to stay. This movie is so good!”

And that is the opinion I accepted for the next 20 years. “Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is so good.”

A brief refresher on the 1996 movie adaptation of Romeo and Juliet for those of you who were not in middle school at the time and thus likely do not cling to the film as a landmark Leonardo DiCaprio discovery vehicle: It is a lot. Luhrmann Michelle Pfeiffered the shit out of his Shakespeare, turning it into a messy, trippy pastiche of modern-day gang violence and rave culture. All of the colors were flamboyant. The pacing was frenetic. The dialogue was still in verse, because it was the ’90s, and that was the cool thing to do? It was big and audacious and batshit in a brave way.

Romeo + Juliet was also meant to be romanticized in pop culture, perfect for clipping and Tumblring and eventually memeing. The fish tank meet-cute will be forever enshrined on #relationship goal Pinterest pages; Claire Danes’s chin wobble remains one of the most beautiful things in the world. There will never be a better Leonardo DiCaprio. Romeo + Juliet is the perfect encapsulation of an era: peak ’90s, peak Leo, peak rave, peak soundtrack.

But that doesn’t make it a good movie. In fact, after revisiting the movie on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, I developed a sneaking suspicion that it might even be … bad? Overdone? Embarrassing at the very least. Romeo + Juliet is a prescient collection of social media moments, but is it watchable for anyone past the age of 10?

Our task today: to definitively answer that question. Join us as we present Are We Sure It’s Good? — Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.

First, let us start with its positive attributes. Here is a list of definitively good things about this film, even in 2016:

Young Leonardo DiCaprio: Sometimes I imagine Leo looking back at the babyfaced, lovesick version of himself in Romeo + Juliet and using it as source material for his anguish. “How would Jay Gatsby feel looking across at Daisy’s green light? Oh, how I feel looking at my old face.” “What face should I make while eating this bison heart? Oh, the face I make while looking at my perfect teenage face.” Leo really was a perfect Romeo, with hair that flopped perfectly and eyes that could moon like none other in 1996. He was so handsome that you didn’t even mind that Radiohead played during his first moment on screen. Also, fun fact: Romeo + Juliet was the Leo Is Hot movie for trendsetters and early adopters. If you didn’t realize Leo Was Hot until Titanic (1997), you were late to the game, dweebs.

Young Claire Danes: Remember her on My So-Called Life ? Danes spent 1994–95 as Angela Chase, which means she spent 1994–95 staring at Jordan Catalano with damp lashes and wide, emotive eyes that begged, “Love me, you floppy-haired fool, or I will literally die.” It was a season-long audition for Juliet, and it turned out to be perfect casting.

Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio together: Watching the movie now, I wouldn’t say Claire and Leo had chemistry, exactly, but their pairing in the same frame had the same properties as a Renaissance painting — composed, proportionate, with little halos around them both. You would hang them in your locker in 1996, and you would briefly consider Instagramming them for a #TBT in 2016. That is true beauty.

The fish tank scene: Thank God this scene is safe; thank God this Des’ree song is safe. (Remember Des’ree? She hasn’t released any new material since 2003! Come back, Des’ree!) The fish tank is still one of the all-time love-at-first-sight scenes, and you should feel no shame about trying to re-create it each time you see a lobster tank in a seafood restaurant.

“Lovefool” by the Cardigans: The Romeo + Juliet soundtrack was a study in how to be cool in 1996. Butthole Surfers, Garbage, the Wannadies (a band so cool I have no idea who they are!). But it was mostly notable for the inclusion of “Lovefool” by the Cardigans, a Swedish band that toured radio station Jingle Balls for years on the strength of this one hit. “Lovefool” is a plaintive love song for people who are way too hip to like plaintive love songs but still need something to sing at drunken heartbreak karaoke even 20 years later.

Hawaiian shirts: In Luhrmann’s Verona, Romeo spends a lot of time in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. Is this the best possible case for a Hawaiian shirt? To be unbuttoned, floating about Leo’s bare chest? Yes.

John Leguizamo: Looking back, I really wonder why Leguizamo didn’t win some sort of nomination for his portrayal of Tybalt. Here’s a brief list of things he manages to make look awesome : iambic pentameter, soul patches, gun holsters, very angular sideburns, red leather vests with the Virgin Mary on the chest, gunfight choreography that looked like a bullfight, temper tantrums.

Paul Rudd: Looking back, I also really wonder why people don’t talk about Paul Rudd’s performance as (Dave) Paris, the guy whom Juliet does not want to marry. I wouldn’t say “Oscar,” but I wouldn’t not say “Oscar.” He has maybe five minutes of screen time total, but Rudd’s dancing in an orange astronaut suit during the masquerade ball? Gold. Rudd’s awkward fluttering hand motions while he tries to flirt with Claire Danes? Gold. Also, Rudd’s comeback from this doofy-guy casting to be one of the great alt-heartthrobs of the late 2000s? What a guy.

This little boy singing “When Doves Cry”: Never forget Quindon Tarver, absolutely slaying a version of “When Doves Cry,” backed by a child gospel choir. It was probably the best three minutes of this movie.

OK, so three solid casting choices and one perfect aquatic moment. Should we be grateful for what we have? Possibly. But first, let us consider the list of definitively bad things about this movie:

The Baz Luhrmann of it all: If you love Luhrmann’s other work — Moulin Rouge! , Strictly Ballroom , Australia — you might think, “Man, this movie does not have enough Baz! Give me more Belle Epoque Police covers!” If you’re a more traditional moviegoer, or a person with only five human senses, then you might not be able to endure the super-fast camera cuts, hyperactive line readings, and general Technicolor intensity. Good lord, sit still for one minute; this story is technically a tragedy.

Young Claire Danes and Young Leonardo DiCaprio acting: When they are very quiet, making out, or staring into each other’s eyes, Claire and Leo are the best. But once the murder and poison and teen suicide and anguish parts of the movie kick in, Claire and Leo are like two high school students trying to out-emote each another. Who can do the uglier cry? Who can drop to their knees and cry out to the heavens louder? Who can sweat, drool, and cry at the same time?

The masquerade ball: Typically, movie parties are the best parties — parties you want to go to and live in, parties that make you think, “Man, I wish I were a better host!” Not Romeo + Juliet , which features one of the worst, most suffocating party scenes in cinematic history. Romeo is on ecstasy and can’t handle it. Juliet is dressed like an angel, but everyone else looks like a horrifying monster. Everybody is pretending to have fun by screaming and dancing wildly, but as a viewer it becomes stressful to watch. “Young Hearts Run Free” by Candi Staton is now the single scariest song in disco, thanks to this party.

Mercutio: I respect Luhrmann’s decision to make Mercutio a sexually fluid black man who looks amazing in drag. But Harold Perrineau’s performance was one-note, and that one note was a loud, sort of grating and exhausting “looook at meeeeeeeeeeee!” His death scene was incredibly moving, though I’m not sure if that was just because I was so glad Mercutio wouldn’t yell-act at me anymore. (To be fair, though: He really did look amazing in that white sequined skirt.)

The Montague boys: A baby Jesse Bradford, Jamie Kennedy with pink hair, Dash Mihok (who?), and Zak Orth (who?) — not exactly the Pussy Posse here. (Question: What, exactly, was Tobey Maguire doing in 1996, and would it have prevented him from a few days of work on Romeo + Juliet ? I think not.) Also, while we’re here, Bradford’s character, Balthasar, is basically responsible for Romeo’s death, which is not so much his fault as the story’s, but still — not a great look for a sidekick.

The pacing: This could be Shakespeare’s fault, but it takes forever for Romeo + Juliet to meet the dumb fate that was announced at the very beginning via telecaster announcement. Also, to be perfectly honest, getting married on your second date is extremely ludicrous in a world where televisions and cars and other modern conveniences exist. Where are the studio execs with the “Can we develop this relationship?” notes when you need them?

The whole “mail delivery” plot: I know this is an old horror movie complaint; I’ve seen the supercut. But cellphones did exist in 1996, and nobody had to rely solely on messenger service. Two people literally died because my man did not do a signature-required delivery!

Also the whole Friar Laurence poison thing: We have drug stores now? Again, this is a “Shakespeare problem,” but if you’re going to take liberties like making the Montagues drive around in a yellow lowrider, I feel like we could have addressed this. Also, Laurence, you’re a grown-up, man! You can’t just give children poison as conflict resolution! Did he go to prison? Why didn’t he go to prison?

Did everyone shop at Beacon’s Closet? In Luhrmann’s world, the costumes should be sumptuous and whimsical and “I’m a friend of Anna Wintour” excellent. Maybe it’s because it’s early Baz, but everyone’s costumes sort of look like they got high and went to Beacon’s Closet.

Not enough Quindon Tarver: Why didn’t he just sing the entire soundtrack and act all the parts and write the movie and direct it? Twenty years later I’m still wondering.

In conclusion: Romeo + Juliet is not good. It is a mess, with plot holes and questionable acting and a soundtrack that does not do ’90s angst any favors. But 20 years later, we live in a cultural landscape that tolerates — and occasionally enjoys — regular live musicals on NBC. There is still space for something as schmaltzy and high strung as this particular Romeo + Juliet. We no longer have to call it good, but we can love the movie for what it was: the best Leonardo, the best “Lovefool,” the best Leguizamo, the best time Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio spent an hour and 45 minutes trying to out-ugly-cry one another. Your teenage years were not very cool, but they still matter.

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Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996)

By baz luhrmann, romeo and juliet (film 1996) study guide.

Perhaps no other work by William Shakespeare—and certainly none of the Bard’s tragedies—has been adapted for the stage or screen in a looser manner than Romeo and Juliet . The popularity of the play and its expansive potential for adaptation is in part due to the story of star-crossed lovers being more universal than, say, the story of an ambitious gangster or identical twins crossing paths. Romeo and Juliet 's performance history demonstrates that universal stories about doomed love easily transcend not just time and space, but genre and medium. Romeo and Juliet has been told, for instance, as a musical about interracial romance set in New York's Upper West Side, as a romantic drama set in an all-male high school military academy, and as a severely compressed play-within-a-play that requires actors to perform the text in under ten minutes.

What director Baz Luhrmann realized after choosing Romeo and Juliet to be the follow-up to his breakthrough film Strictly Ballroom was that staging a simple representational version of what is perhaps Shakespeare's most well-known play seemed not only outdated, but fruitless. Especially when a dramatic work has saturated the fabric of society so entirely, directors and producers are under pressure to innovate in order to defamiliarize and re-introduce a new and compelling artistic product. Consider for example how "fair Verona" vibrantly becomes, in Luhrmann’s film, the seedy and violent Verona Beach—ostensibly a heightened, theatrical version of present-day Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California (though much of the film was actually shot on location in Mexico City). Consider, too, Luhrmann's decision to make the film's first image a television set, immediately establishing a jarringly contemporary media environment. Ironically, Luhrmann has also declared his irreverent, populist cinematic vision to be very near to what a film version of Romeo and Juliet directed by William Shakespeare himself would look like.

Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet was distributed in a wide release in American theaters on November 1st, 1996, by 20th Century Fox, and grossed around $147.5 million dollars worldwide—the most profitable Shakespearean adaptation in world history, then and to date. This is in large part owing to Luhrmann's fierce commitment, which he related in interviews, to the idea that his film should exemplify Shakespeare's own crowd-pleasing approach to providing dramatic entertainment: "We don't know a lot about Shakespeare but we do know he would make a 'movie' movie...his competition was bear-baiting and prostitution. So he was a relentless entertainer." It was according to this logic that Luhrmann transformed Romeo and Juliet, the Elizabethan manuscript, into William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet— a shimmering collision of visual and sonic ideas that gleefully plunders from genres and styles as disparate as the Hollywood action-thriller, the soap opera, silent film, the nightly newscast, the MTV-style high-concept music video, the young adult/coming-of-age narrative (Claire Danes was best known then for her role in the high school drama My So-Called Life ), among many other genres and styles.

The film, which re-imagines the Capulets as a Catholic Latin-American family and Mercutio as a queer African-American drag performer, also channels the increasingly multicultural and queer-friendly promise of the Clinton era, laced throughout with the recklessness and decadence of youth/street subcultures like rave, punk, hip-hop, and ball culture. Its setting transforms the Capulet and Montague feud into a racially tinged, all-out gang war in Los Angeles, echoing a number of 90s-era political controversies, such as the publicity surrounding L.A. "gangsta rap" artists like N.W.A. and the real-life gangs that produced them, and racially polarizing events like the 1992 Rodney King Riots and the trial of O.J. Simpson. Christian themes and imagery also pervade the film, especially in scenes with Tybalt, Father Laurence, and Juliet's maid, alternately symbolizing the grace of love, and the judgment of fate. A slightly modified crucifix even works its way into the film's stylized title, which replaces the word "and" with the symbol "+".

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Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996) Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996) is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

What does benvolio's gun say

The camera zooms on Benvolio's engraved gun's name, “sword.”

What role does religion play in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet?

Religious themes and imagery saturate the film, present in nearly every scene. The title of the film, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, itself incorporates a cross into the title in place of the word "and." In the title card "A pair of star...

Where does the opening fight scenes take place?

The opening fight scenes take place on the streets of Verona Beach.

Study Guide for Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996)

Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996) study guide contains a biography of Baz Luhrmann, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

About Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996)
Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996) Summary
Character List
Director's Influence

Essays for Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996)

Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996) literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996).

Romeo and Juliet: A Film Study
Appropriating Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Media Sensationalism in Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
Mercutio in Two Romeo and Juliet Films
Religious Imagery in Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet

Wikipedia Entries for Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996)

Introduction
Differences between the film and the original play

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Baz Luhrmann’s Greatest Failure Yet: Film Romeo + Juliet

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Romeo and Juliet Film Review

This essay will provide a review of a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” It will assess how the film interprets the classic play, its fidelity to the original text, the effectiveness of its cast and direction, and its appeal to contemporary audiences. At PapersOwl, you’ll also come across free essay samples that pertain to Film.

How it works

Many iconic creations of literature have been turned into modern, motion films. Shakespeare’s famous Romeo and Juliet is a play that has fallen victim to creators’ hands. Having been recreated a different number of times there is going to be many representations. Directors like Baz Luhrmann and Franco Zeffirelli, both from different decades, have very different ideas of how Shakespeare’s words were perceived. Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet is more successful than Zeffirelli’s 1968 Romeo and Juliet in representing what Shakespeare wanted to have due to the fact of the emotional aspect Luhrmann introduces and Zeffirelli’s more joking portrayal of the scene.

For a movie to be successful in depicting Shakespeare’s magnificent ideology there has to be four main points it has to hit. Act three is the whole climax act where Lady Fortune turns her wheel to the downfall. But it’s so much more, and Luhrmann was the one to capture that. Starting out with the joking around with Benvolio and Mercutio we see Shakespeare showing some foreshadowing of what’s going to happen throughout the scene. “For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.” (III.i.4) can be translated to the exact mood of the play. Outside of the life of Romeo and Juliet hatred fills the air as the family’s feud continues. Even the peacemaker of the play, Benvolio, has a head full “of quarrels as an egg is / full of meat” (III. i. 21-22). That means the first element a movie has to depict is the very mood of hidden hatred behind everyones eyes. Continuing on, advancing a little bit to when Mercutio is dying he says the phrase “A plague a’ both houses!” (III.i.89). This phrase is very meaningful because he repeats it again during his death speak.

Shakespeare most likely wanted that phrase to stand out to make Mercutio look like an bystander pulled into a fight because of the feud. Shakespeare then carries forward on this emotional rollercoaster with the death of Mercutio. While it brings tears to Romeo’s eyes it brings hatred to his heart too. “Away to heaven, respective lenity, / And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!” (III.i.122-123) is the exact moment when all peace is thrown out and the built up hatred Romeo has comes out. Finally after Romeo kills Tybalt he yells very iconic words “O, I am fortune’s fool!” (III.i.133). This exact moment is the downfall of love, when the fire is at its highest and hottest point. Shakespeare intends this point to be where love dies, and where regret swoops in to take Romeo away. The four requirements for making an accurate Romeo and Juliet are all there and Luhrmann did it better.

Romeo + Juliet is a better version of Romeo And Juliet because it better meets the requirements for making a good representation of Shakespeare’s play. Starting off with number one, the mood. Luhrmann sets the mood Shakespeare was trying to catch through the weather. When it gets to the darkest of parts a storm starts. A dark sky with some rough winds shows how things are going to be harsh. Next, Luhrmann uses Mercutio to express lots of emotion, which in Shakespeare’s plays is what’s supposed to happen. Yelling time after time “A plague a’ both houses!” shows the emotion for the hatred of the feud Mercutio has. It’s so pure yet so hate filled and that is what Shakespeare wanted from the jokester Mercutio. Progressing onto the third requirement, Romeo’s hatred for Tybalt after he kills Mercutio. Luhrmann’s choice adds dramatic effect to the whole scene. He brings a Juliet scene talking about her love for Romeo up to intersect between the crying of Romeo to him screaming.

Full force screamin, driving a car at high speed. Luhrmann uses special effects and such to get the scene to show the anger and hatred take over just as Shakespeare had wanted. Finally after everything is said and done Romeo takes the essential line, looks up to the sky and screams “I am fortune’s fool!” as thunder cracks in the background. If Shakespeare could, he would have definitely done that in his plays. It adds the dramatic effect he tries to achieve while also focusing on the regret. Luhrmann’s version just better demonstrates what Shakespeare was trying to get out of Act III than Zeffirelli.

While Zeffirelli’s version isn’t bad, it has some downsides which make rank it under the 1996 version. First off, he doesn’t set the mood. Instead of having it be dark and stormy it’s more of a playful mood. Especially because at the beginning Mercutio is in a fountain. Also while fighting Mercutio is joking around with Tybalt instead of having any anger until Tybalt gets triggered from an insult. Next, Mercutio sounds like he’s joking around in his death speech and while it is very good at representing what Shakespeare was trying to say it just doesn’t get to the point enough. When Mercutio dies Romeo seems more blank than sad or angry. He has some anger but his anger isn’t full force rage taking over; it’s more like he’s choosing to be angry. Finally, Romeo doesn’t seem like he regrets killing Tybalt. He’s more confused and just again, blank. Zeffirelli just does not add enough emotion which Shakespeare was trying to get out of all of it and that is why his film was not as good as Romeo + Juliet.

All in all Luhrmann’s film better illustrates Shakespeare’s than Zeffirelli’s. Adding emotion and setting a better mood he achieves the effect Shakespeare was trying to give. While these two movies are heavily compared they are both magnificent works of art and should not be judged over just one little scene. That’s why the original is always the best, Shakespeare’s!

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Baz Luhrmann interviewed for “Romeo + Juliet”

From the archives!

Here is my interview with filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, first published in November 1996.

What was your motivation to jump from a musical to Shakespeare?

Baz Luhrmann – We don’t just do films, we make things. We do operas and have made films and I don’t think of it like that. I was interested in dealing with Shakespeare in film in perhaps the way that Shakespeare may have addressed doing a movie if he were here today. That was just an interest I had in doing. How did I get into this project? We have a simple philosophy – we make the things we want to make. We don’t take jobs. We decide to do something and just do it. I wanted to address Shakespeare in a filmic way rather than be shackled by all these rules and beliefs that are really spurious notions, made up from the 19th century; not 400 years ago but 100 years ago.

NB – The ‘we’ Luhrmann frequently refers to are his longtime collaborators, in particular production designer Catherine Martin and screenwriter Craig Pearce with whom he studied at NIDA during the early eighties. The creative team has grown since the Strictly Ballroom days to include producer-art director Martin Brown, picture editor Jill Bilcock and choreographer John ‘Cha Cha’ O’Connell. Hence, their company now called BAZMARK Productions

Why do you think that Shakespeare is so popular?

Luhrmann – Classic text is, to me, that which survives time and geography. The idea of which and the execution of which transcends and moves through country and time. Shakespeare does. There were other writers when Shakespeare wrote who were considered great artists. People wrote Shakespeare off at the time as an uneducated popularist. Yet, 100 years later they started taking his work seriously. What’s terrible is it has become more and more about being in an exclusive club. In fact, it began as the most popular art form you can imagine. It’s just about reclaiming Shakespeare for the popular audience for which it was written. For everybody. His audience was everybody from the street sweeper to the Queen of England. He was an absolutely relentless entertainer. If you look at the plays there would be a joke, a song, violence, tragedy all in one package. There was no such thing as a consistent style. It was about entertaining, communicating and revealing a story. People say it’s an MTV interpretation but I didn’t take my cues from MTV. We meticulously researched the Elizabethan stage and every choice we made came from there. Stand-up comedy next to a music piece. Shakespeare used popular song. We used popular song. It was simply about grabbing the attention of the audience and making it available to everybody. I am shocked that it’s the number one film in America this weekend. Everyone is running around saying, ‘How did that happen?’ Not in the history of cinema has Shakespeare been number one at the box office. Well he’s a hell of a good story teller. I can’t imagine he’d be too displeased about selling a few tickets.

Is there a set of criteria you used to decide which elements you’d use to make it contemporary?

Luhrmann – Yes. The criteria came from a direct analysis of the Elizabethan stage. An understanding and also a simple equation; How do you make the story clear, and reveal the story through the language. Everything was an invention based on that and it just really was a whole lot of devices that you make up. For some people it’s too over the top or whatever. It’s the way we tell stories, in the Opera work that we’ve done, as well as the films.

It is flamboyant and it may not be suited to all things —

Luhrmann – We invent the style based on what we need to do. When we do theatre work it can be quite minimal. It depends, we invent the cinematic or theatrical language based on the pieces. Strictly Ballroom, again, actually belongs to a particular style. That is taking a classic, primary myth and interpreting it in a language where you, the audience, I hope, are aware that we, the story teller, are there. This is not social realism or naturalism. It is a style where, not unlike a forties musical, you know how it’s going to end. In the case of Romeo and Juliet we tell you in the prologue. Enjoying the journey and being fresh or different or, if you like, flamboyant in the telling is what the fun of the game is. It is a particular style. This idea that you pluck style from books. The whole idea about making something is invention. You invent your way. There are filmmakers that I just love and adore and admire but it’s their way. For every Martin Scorsese, there are 35 people who mimic it and are shooters.

What was the wildest Shakespeare you’ve ever seen?

Luhrmann – A lot of wild stuff doesn’t work – it becomes about being groovy for the sake of being groovy. I could tell you about some great productions I saw. I worked with Peter Brook very briefly – two weeks – on The Mahabharata – and his production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , which I’ve seen on video, is fantastic. But I remember, actually, one production. We have in Australia somebody who I think is a genius, don’t you think Pauline, and that’s Neil Armfield. He did a production of Twelfth Night , which went on to be, sort of, a film. I remember going to the theatre, I was at NIDA at the time, and I was, like, ‘Yeah Shakespeare’s good, but hey, it’s hard work.’ And I went in and it was fantastic. It was set in Club Med and there was a Latin band playing and champagne was being given out to the audience. I thought, ‘This is good already.’ And the music was building, and suddenly bang! It goes dark. A door opens. There is a slash of white light, this guy comes out, Robert Grubb in a white suit, and he goes, ‘If music be the food of life – play on.’ Bang – the band starts up again and from that moment I was focussed. Then after two hours it finished. We were, like, ‘Let’s do that again!’ It was like people were speaking with their own language and people used their own accents and brought the language to themselves. So you just realised, take a great story and covert it into a way in which the audience receives it. That was absolutely influential on me. No question. That had a sensational effect on me.

You’ve put a lot of effort in the decoration of your film.

Luhrmann – Yes, we have. In fact it is a visual language that we’ve used. Let’s talk about that cinematic language. You get a lot of people saying, ‘Oh my god, you change style every 5 minutes. How MTV.’ Well, have you ever seen a Hindi movie? Please. That idea of low comedy one minute, a song, then Rebel Without a Cause, is aligned with Shakespeare’s need to keep changing style, to keep clarity, to keep surprising the audience, to keep ahead of them. Is it more visual than Shakespeare? Absolutely. Most people ask me, ‘Why have you changed it from classic Shakespeare where people run around in tights on big sets?’ Well, none of those things had anything to do, whatsoever, with the Elizabethan stage. [Baz mimics a plummy voice] ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?’ is a fashion from the thirties. The Elizabethan accent, certainly as spoken to me by Peter Hall and as ratified by Anthony Burgess is incomprehensible. It’s a rolled ‘r’. There is a joke in Romeo and Juliet about it. The Nurse says, ‘R – his name begins with ‘r’. That’s the sound a dog makes.’ It’s a joke on their rolled ‘r’. The idea that there is a correct way to speak Shakespeare – there has been a fashion for speaking it in a certain way and I do love the Olivier films, they are voice beautiful. But they are a fashion. On the Elizabethan stage, people wore last year’s fashions and got up and declaimed. Two comic actors came up – ‘allo, ‘allo, ‘allo – and got them laughing. Then a boy would come out in a dress as Juliet. It was funny. The play is meant to be funny. Are we more visual? Absolutely. For that reason we cut things like ‘Here come the horses over the hill’. That’s why you cut a third of it, as it is visual description. Things which you cannot see. ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?’ There was no light breaking from yonder window, it was daytime. So you had to say it. Our cinematic language is just the way we tell it. That’s what changes, not the story I hope.

There are a lot scenes of water in this film, what are the ideas behind that?

Luhrmann – In truth, with Romeo and Juliet I’ve dealt with their world as if their parents are like a Busby Berkley musical on acid and it’s coming at them all the time and it won’t shut up. When you get to Paul Sorvino in a dress you just think please – no more. Next thing, Romeo is under water – click – silence. It’s not a big symbolic thing, but Romeo and Juliet escape into water. They use water for silence and peace and their ‘There’s a place for us’ moments. That final image when they kiss under water – it’s just silence. It comes from a personal experience of mine. My father used to talk a lot and we’d be in the pool and I’d just go underwater to hide from him. It was always so peaceful. That’s where that comes from. It’s a theatrical device. Everything is about telling the story. The alchemy or the power or the magic is something the audience has and there is a gap or a distance between the experience that audience has, which can be profound, and the act of making it, which is ultimately mechanical. It’s motivated by a heartfelt spirit, and obviously you tap things within your own mind, but ultimately it’s mechanical.

What do you think about the themes of Romeo and Juliet today? Sometimes the film is a parody and sometimes you take it very seriously.

Luhrmann – It was written that way. Actually, it’s less parody cut with tragedy than in the play. Father Lawrence comes in at the end and makes jokes. He says, ‘I will be brief,’ and then goes on for three pages explaining what happened. The idea of parody is in line with the Elizabethan execution of it. When you’ve got a large, declamatory comedy – it’s the lowest kind of puerile, stupid humour you can imagine, cut with high tragedy. Yes, we’re uncomfortable with that because the fashion is, particularly with cinema, is style coherence, that everything is smooth, it belongs to the one world. We’re happy with that. But go and see an Indian movie – one minute you have got people leaping about in costumes, doing a musical number singing ‘We’re so happy!’ then the next moment you’ve got incredible violence. The style of storytelling is fashion. What doesn’t change is the content or the idea. Are people being moved by it, do they get it? Are we putting ourselves so much on the story that we are standing in the way of it? I don’t know.

Romeo + Juliet is the story about love. What is your idea of love – is love not possible?

Luhrmann – I believe in love. Sounds like a song, but I do. All my works have essentially been about some degree of love. It may be a word, but in truth it’s a profound emotion that is, in your body and your veins, chemical. Do I believe in the extraordinary, passionate mad things people will do for love? Yes. Is young love a lethal and dangerous drug, in a world of learned hate, where you are being told to hate someone because of their name or skin colour, then you’re gonna have a tragedy. Do I believe in that primary myth? Absolutely I do. Am I telling it in a offhanded way to disarm people, yes. But do I ultimately hope that you are moved by that tragedy, yes.

Do you think love is the same now as it was at the time the play was written?

Luhrmann – Yes. I think everything human is the same at all times. I don’t think the human condition changes. The conditions around us change, but what makes us human beings does not change.

This movie shows us it hasn’t changed that much. ..

Luhrmann – Read his other plays. I know Hamlet . I know so many 33 year olds going round saying, ‘I don’t know — what am I gonna do, man? What’s the point of living on past 33?’ The genius of Shakespeare is not his stories. He did not write Romeo and Juliet , he stole it a long poem that was based on an Italian novella. He stole it, but his genius is his understanding of the human condition and his ability with words. One quarter of the English language was manufactured by William Shakespeare.

Was your intention more to tell the love story or was it more to bring a classic into our day?

Luhrmann – The intention was to reveal the power of that myth, which is actually not about young people so much as if you pass down to an incoming generation your hatred, you anger and bitterness, then you are going to end up with a tragedy, it is going to come back on you. It is really much more about what hand on to the next generation.

Why are you shocked that your movie is number one?

Luhrmann – I thought it would stir up an interest. But we were being relentlessly told that youth are uninterested in Shakespeare and that they would not want to see Romeo and Juliet. We’re not just number one, but by three times. Some critics have come out and said there are bad films, there are worst films of all time and then there’s Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. To them it is that bad and confronting and I understand that but we told it in our way.

The sound track has sold out too —

Luhrmann – Yes, they printed 75,000 copies and they don’t have enough.

How much of the success of the film is down to the casting?

Luhrmann – There’s no question that you have in Leonardo and Claire two young actors — remembering that when I cast Leonardo, two years ago, he was unknown. He had just been nominated for Gilbert Grape . Claire was just on television. They absolutely have a following and are responsible for people being interested but remember this – Leonardo has not opened a film on his own. He has not even done vague box office. Claire has never opened a film. So are they alone responsible for the box office? Obviously somewhat, and also they’re good actors.

Why did you choose them, when they weren’t that big?

Luhrmann – Well, ‘D’ I just looked at and thought he looked liked Romeo. Sort of like James Dean, and Romeo was your first ‘rebel without a cause’, your first Byronesque ‘I’m rebelling but have no political cause to rebel against’ character. So I rang him up and he and his father came down to Australia and spent their own money and flew economy. They came down twice and we shot a workshop on video and finally convinced the studio to let us do it. Claire, I searched the world – I saw actors all over the world – and Jane Campion, who lives near me in Sydney said, “Have you seen Claire on ‘My So Called Life?'” Which I hadn’t seen so I went back to the US and Claire came in. I was looking for someone who was sixteen but who had the strength of character to deal with Leonardo, because he is a formidable opponent in the acting stakes. Plus most of the young girls were like, [Baz mimes swooning and heart fluttering] ‘My god, Leonardo!’ so that’s undermining, to work with someone you find attractive when you’re sixteen. She just walked right up to him and said, ‘Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?’ and kissed him. They were strong. It is crucial because the film is so frenetic that when they get together, you need time to stand still. I don’t expect everyone to get it but I think they do achieve that. I think they do bring a stillness to the film.

Did you not want Natalie Portman for that role?

Luhrmann – Natalie was in the first workshop with Leonardo and she was absolutely fantastic, she is a star and gorgeous. But next to Leonardo she looked two-years-old. She’s a tiny little girl. And Leonardo, which I didn’t realise it at the time, is six foot tall.

How did you choose the music for the film?

Luhrmann – I worked with Nellee Hooper, Marius deVries and Craig Armstrong – three brilliant music people who have worked with Madonna, Bjork, Massive Attack. I know the guys from Massive and Craig does a lot of their string work – he’s a brilliant composer. Marius has done a brilliant job of composing as well and Nellee is a music producer. We worked together on the music and it was about popular song. Shakespeare just stuck popular songs in that said something.

Regarding the problems of working in Mexico –

Luhrmann – Look, first let me say I would not swap a day that I spent in Mexico for anything in the world. It was the most adventurous time. Having said that, it is true we were there months longer than we needed to be. We had hurricanes that wiped out the set. We all got sick. Shooting shut down for a week while I had a temperature of 110. The hair and makeup person, Aldo Signoretti, who worked with Fellini was kidnapped. We paid $US300 to get him back, I thought rather a bargain. I was not there, he was kidnapped. The bandidos rang up and said for $US300 you can have him back. So Maurizio, who is about this high, goes down clutching the money to outside the hotel holds it up, chucks them the bag and they threw him out of the car and broke his leg. So we had adventures. It was an incredible quest. It wasn’t a walk in the park and the fact that the kids did what they did and put up with what they did was amazing. The reason the film is like it is, is that we embraced everything in the film. For example, Mercutio dies in that storm. Well that was the hurricane that came and blew our sets away. The wide shots, which you could never get, I asked the guys if the cameras could handle it – we got out and did the wides and caught the storms then we came back and did the close ups with wind machines. For a budget of ours, which is between $15 – 17 million you can’t achieve that short of massive CGI’s.

What was the most challenging aspect of making the movie?

Luhrmann – Getting it made. It was very difficult to convince people, to convince Fox. It’s hard to believe that a studio made this film, at the level at which it is financed, made this film which is essentially experimental in its execution. People say Hollywood is in love with Shakespeare. That’s not true. Some of the mini’s are financing Shakespeare but no major is doing a Shakespeare as far as I can recall. I thought Kenny Branagh did a terrific job with Much Ado About Nothing and I particularly liked his Henry V but the grosses for those films are $20 million domestic. they’re tiny. Why do you think majors don’t bother – they’re not worth the biscuits.

Were there any aspects of your vision that weren’t achieved?

Luhrmann – Yeah – 50% of it. I know a very famous director and he says you get about 50% of what you do. Maybe not even 50%. I think the execution of that was maybe half of what I was hoping for. But that’s always the way. You never get anywhere near what you set out to do. Then it gets kind of taken away from you. You never are happy. I don’t think you ever say, ‘Oh – it’s absolutely perfect – don’t you touch a frame.’ I can’t even look at it now. You see it a lot of times and you just want everything to be better, that’s just the way it is.

How do you take the criticism?

Luhrmann – Some stuff is really amusing. I like the really negative stuff. I don’t like people sitting on the fence. I don’t like it when they say something misinformed. I am staggered that people who are clearly educated are so naive sometimes. What, they think I don’t notice the fact that Diane Venora’s performance is incredibly over the top in the beginning and at the end of the film she’s more naturalistic. They think that hasn’t been a decision, do they think I missed that one, that it got by me after working on it for two years? Or that in 196– something they saw whoever do whatever and therefore it’s set in stone. Zefferelli’s Romeo of Juliet of 1968, which is a gorgeous production, is not a period production, there is nothing Elizabethan accurate about it, it is an update. Also it’s hilarious in that people write my film off as MTV – I’ve never worked on MTV. What they’re really talking about is that you get these leaps in any given clip, where you may have three or four cinematic styles quoted. All clip makers that I know are always referencing old movies, someone else. And as for the quick editing, that comes from the fact that I do not like to be bored. It’s about rhythm. The opening sequence is very fast and it’s trying to keep ahead of the audience. Even if you look at the play, the style of the piece is you come out and say this is what’s gonna happen, they’re gonna die. Then you introduce all the characters and they’re actually little vignettes. The story doesn’t not begin until we meet Romeo. The scene when the mothers gets dressed and it speeds up. They’re boring bits. Who wants to see her put a dress on? But she’s got to in the scene. You can’t cut away – what have you got to cut away to? Who wants to see her cross the room? But she’s got to get there so bzzzzzzz, let’s get that bit on. Because we are so used to zapping, I have used the idea of television as the story teller. TV is the chorus of out lives. I wanted to zip through the city and through any boring bits. I didn’t quite do it as well as I wanted. It’s just devices.

I remember when I made Strictly Ballroom , the first person that we showed it to, we were exhausted and we travelled up the coast and had it on cassette. Bill Marron, who was working with us then, his brother was a pig farmer and we screened on a little TV and he watched the film and Bill said, ‘So what do you think?’ and he said, ‘I like Westerns.’ Very honest. As opposed to I don’t get this so how do I make myself appear that I know why it’s wrong, how do I ingratiate my view as if it’s the word of God. That I find slightly offensive, but hey, you can’t live or die by that. In the end, what is the most important thing is that there are people who do get it and if a lot of people get it then I am happy that they get something from it. Even some of my closest friends say ‘It doesn’t work for me.’ That doesn’t mean it’s wrong or it doesn’t work. It’s a personal experience.

Why did you give up acting?

Luhrmann – I haven’t, I just don’t get much chance to do it. I occasionally do a role. I don’t know that I’ll do another movie. I have to find a need or a reason to tell something. I’ll probably keep my relationship going because you can have these deals where they give you a little bit of money and you don’t have to do anything for it. Why not? I’m gonna go walking, traveling and let everyone cut loose and catch up when we feel a passion to tell something.

Pauline Adamek

Pauline Adamek is a Los Angeles-based arts enthusiast with twenty-five years' experience covering International Film Festivals and reviewing new Theatre, Film and Restaurants.

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Romeo & Juliet Moving Image Analysis

RomeoandJuliet - Baz Luhrmann - nessymon

Romeo & Juliet Moving Image Analysis

Scene Analyzed: The Opening Sequence of the Baz Luhrmann directed ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’ (1996) from the Introduction to the end of the Garage scene, or The Prologue.

The Baz Luhrmann directed ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’ tells the Romeo and Juliet story using Shakespearean Language set in a modern day environment. Not all viewers would be familiar with the language of Shakespeare so the mise en scene as well as the actors’ movements are very important to make sure that the audience knows what is going on within the dialogue. This is the second film of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’, (the others being Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge), a concept by which the director wants the audience to feel like they are watching a play on a stage, so they know not everything is real. Luhrmann’s ideas are emphasized here in the over saturated colours, clothes and sounds of the movie. Filmed in Mexico City, Vera Cruz, Los Angeles and San Francisco the natural sunshine gives the Verona, Italy feel. In this opening sequence of the film we are introduced to the main characters and to the feuding Montagues and Capulets.

Themes of the original play are still important here, love versus family hatred, youth versus age, transcend the four hundred year gap.

We are introduced to the movie by a newsreader on a TV, the newsreader acting as Shakespeare’s narrator. It is here too, that we are introduced to the notion that instead of having a bad postal system like Shakespeare did, Luhrmann uses our modern media to act as the medium for news to be spread. An example of this later would be where Romeo finds out about the party from Mrs Capulet, on TV. This one shot lasts thirty seven seconds although we zoom in towards the television and then zoom through the television screen to the next scene..

The bid to make sure everyone could understand the language comes into effect when we again hear a male voice reading the Prologue, while periodically words such as ‘In Fair Verona’ and ‘A Pair of Star Cross’d Lovers’ flash onto the screen to place emphasis on important pieces of information. We are also introduced to the leading characters using close up shots which come to a freeze frame. This is almost a cast list created with pieces of footage found later in the film. We also see skyscrapers with Montague on one side of the street and Capulet on the other side, this could symbolize the divide between the two families. Newspapers are used here again to show the feuding families have a history.

We are also surrounded by the tune of ‘O Verona’ by Craig Armstrong. Carmina Burnina’s O Fortuna is no longer available for license for film so a new ‘version’ inspired by the original was created. What is interesting here is that the prologue has been translated into Latin and that is what the choir is singing. The sonic environment here is all comprised of non-diagetic sound.

In this section, the editing is fast starting off. There are approximately 80 shots including titles. Most of the edits here are less than a second. When we are introduced to the characters the edits are longer so we can almost memorize who is who. As the minute and a half of this part of the sequence comes to a close, the editing speeds up, creating tension and anticipation. The most interesting thing I find about this piece is it was never scripted, never thought about, it was just something the editor, Jill Billcock, did.

The title ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’ is then overtaken in a wipe from right to left reminiscent of a 70’s TV Cop Show. This introduces the Montague Boys. We first see them from behind while they are driving in their convertible car/beach buggy, wearing Hawaiian shirts. Their colours are bright and bold and almost Beastie Boy like, while the music which could also be diagetic, coming from the car stereo, also confirms a style of rock/rap gansta. They could be quite English in heritage. The music definitely changes then to be diagetic as the words ‘The Boys, the Boys’ are blasted. This part could almost be taken from a Beastie Boys video such as ‘Sabotage’. The editing in the sequence where the Montague boys go to the garage is all side swipe in style. The colours the Montague boys wear and drive are bright and day glo, almost Cartoon/Comic book-like in style which comes out more as the scene goes on. The colours also could relate back the Renaissance artists, when the Shakespeare actually wrote the play. In Renaissance art reds and blues seemed to be held in high esteem. The blue used in Romeo & Juliet is very similar to that used to represent the Virgin Mary in many paintings.

As the Capulets drive into the station, the first obvious reaction is that they look slicker than their rivals. The colours used are darker, perhaps even mirroring their Latin ethnicity The music changes the mood of the scene also and the genre of the piece seems to move to Spaghetti Western. The music used seems very inspired by Ennio Morricone especially his early work like ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ and ‘A Fist Full of Dollars’.

As we see the Capulet car drive into the station the camera shot turns almost as if it ran towards the car and then turned on its heel. We see Tybalt get out from his car, but the shot is only of his feet, putting out a cigarette. This is very Western in style and we can hear the scraping of this metal boot on the ground and the jangle of his ‘spurs’. As Tybalt enters the store we still see only feet, there is only one shot from when he gets out of the car until the shot cuts to the medium shot of the nun. Through that shot we also see the feet of the nun and students leaving the store and the feet of Abra also getting out of the car.

As the nuns and students go back to their vehicle we can hear the brash music associated with the Montague Boys come into earshot. As we see the nuns vehicle, the shot seems to have been done with a wide angle lens and with then Sampson, the depth of field is quite shallow as he teases the nun and students. Luhrmann then speeds up the scene slightly, for almost a comic effect, this zooms to Abra, whom the camera is looking up to, a sign of his authority in the scene.

When the Capulets seem to be in charge of the scene the non digetic music changes back to Morricone in style. As the two families show their weapons the edits are fast, the sound is almost like that of a sword cutting the wind. The scene plays out shot of the Montagues, reverse shot of the Capulets. We then see the Capulet viewpoint of Sampson in the car mirror. As Abra reverses their car, the scene is very Cartoon like, with different colours it could be the Batmobile.

The scene progresses with more shot/reverse shot sequences and with matching shot framing. As the camera cranes up we are given a better vantage point of what actually happens. The sounds become more important. When the camera zooms in on the brand of gun Benvolio is carrying the Western style music reappears to add to the tension. Sampson gets banged on the head with a handbag, the rhythm and ‘bong’ noise associated with it are very children’s cartoon like. The use of speeded up camera movements also give a comic feel.

When Benvolio holds the gun pointed at The capulets, all sound seems to stop. We can hear though the wind starting to howl and the sign creaking, then showing us the sign, all we are missing from a western is a tumbleweed. The diagetic and non diagetic sounds are mixed well to create a feeling of suspense.

The camera then pans to Tybalt and back down to his boots where he has thrown a match, a slick looking Latino character, there are again close up shot/reverse shots exchanged with Benvolio. These are classic Western type camera shots. Also Tybalt is framed on one side of the shot while Benvolio is framed on the other side.

When Tybalt shows his gun the camera slowly tracks and zooms in to his holster. We again hear the wind to build tension. The camera shots then go to the western extreme close up with eyes only shot, and eventually back to Tybalt’s feet, where he puts out the match with his metal ground scraping boot.

The next few shots of Tybalt are very cartoon like he pulls his gun from his holster spins around, we can hear him spinning, saying ‘ Bang’ to the child. As he twirls the noises and sounds are very Cartoon superhero like as are the movements he as an actor makes, even the non diagetic music has changed slightly and includes a choir. It still takes its influence from Morricone but the tempo and movement of the piece have changed. The sounds of bullets ricocheting, little pops all create a heightened exaggerated sense of reality, almost preceding the drug taking later in the film.

The camera shots are also very comic, the sign spinning round, the cans popping off the shelves, the gun twirling Tybalt does. When he takes off his jacket it is almost a religious experience The camera shots also seem to be hand held and give the viewer a sense of realism.

As Tybalt takes aim with gun, the music yet again builds up, we see his viewpoint from gun viewfinder. His match drops in slow motion to ground hitting some petrol and sets it alight. The background music stops, all we can hear is noise from the traffic. The fire takes hold and we see copies of the local newspaper telling stories of Montagues and Capulets.

Luhrmann has made changes to Shakespeare’s story, changing locations of monologues, the trimming and paring of certain parts of the text, the vibrancy of colour and the frenzied editing. Luhrmann made a Shakespeare film for the attention span of the MTV generation. While this film is called ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’ it is most definitely ‘Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet’.

Bibliography/Appendix:

All scenes from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet copyright Twentieth Century Fox

//Edit November 1 2016 >> It’s the 20th anniversary of the release of Romeo and Juliet. Baz Luhrmann has shared some previously unpublished archive material from the film. Check it out here.

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Romeo and Juliet Film Review

Romeo and Juliet film review

Probably the worlds most famous love story has been retold in 1997 under the watchful hand of Baz Luhrman (Also directed Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom) who is trying to give this old Shakespeare classic, a more modern touch.

Baz Luhrman simply takes the tragedy from the past, and drops it into the 21 st century. In this strange new setting, the swords are tossed aside for guns but the old language, remains. Also the film is refreshed by young popular actors such as Leonardo di Caprio. This creates a bizarre mix, where the audience is left to think whether this is still the same old tragedy or something completely different.

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The actors mostly play their parts very well, but I think that (Friar Lawrence) who was also seen in In the Name of the Father and Miriam Margolyes (Nurse) were outstanding at portraying their characters and the best actors on the set. On the other hand I found the performance by the main figures Leonardo Di Caprio(Romeo) and Claire Danes (Juliet) appauling and it kind of felt like they knew their lines, but had no idea what they were actually talking about. An example of this is how Romeo sometimes says his words without expression or with expression in the wrong place. I think that these roles should have been taken over by more experienced actors, who have played Shakespeare plays before but Leonardo Di Caprio will probably be a reason for many teenagers to see this film so the reason why he was cast is probably because he will attract a bigger young audience

There are not many special effects in this film, but definitely many more than in other versions of the story. I think that the camera was one of the major participants in this film as Luhrman did so many different types of shots and scenes that it just makes this film much more viewable. Examples of this are at the very beginning of the film, there are about 30 different shots right after one another which creates a very fast pace. Other examples include long shots of Verona which are shown very often all through the film, where you can see two big buildings, one with a Montague sign and the other one with a Capulet and a twirl of the camera as transitions between scenes.

As always in love stories or tragedies, music is also a major helper in this film. A slow, romantic song is played when Romeo and Juliet first meet and funky loud music when Romeo and his friends enter the ball.

What Luhrman mainly tries to do with this film, is to make the story more interesting and more appealing to a younger audience, which has decided to try and achieve this with more action packed scenes and fighting. This does though sometimes make the film seem unrealistic, childish even, like a teenagers version of the tragedy.

This is for sure the most modern and action filled version of the play and I think it can be described as something fresh and new and completely different. This film is a great way of getting a younger generation of people interested in Shakespeare, as it included lots of action and fighting but I am not sure if this film is really a better version of Romeo and Juliet. Although it may not be as interesting and action packed, I think I still prefer the old boring classic Shakespeare tragedy.

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet.

Romeo + Juliet at 20: Baz Luhrmann's adaptation refuses to age

The extravagantly mounted adaptation of Shakespeare’s doomed romance remains as youthful and effervescent as ever

T he millennial division of the internet subsists on a fairly shallow pool of nostalgia: endless posts celebrating variously unremarkable anniversaries, all intended to make reasonably young people feel reasonably old. “Can you believe it’s been a decade since Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack came out?” Well, yes, I can. “You won’t believe what the cast of Dawson’s Creek looks like now!” Not so very different from before, it turns out – is this a trick question?

Yet the announcement that William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet is officially 20 years old today pulled me up short. Of course, I’m not speaking of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at all (coming up to its 420th birthday next year, so save your candles), but Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, which is a very different thing entirely – beginning with that oh-so-formerly-hip plus sign, which no self-respecting fan of Luhrmann’s taffeta-and-polyester vision would drop for an ampersand even today. Why am I surprised, though? Because 20 years feels an entirely inappropriate anniversary for Luhrmann’s glitterbomb of sound and fury and neo-disco and inchoate yearning. William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet was never meant to reach this age: it might be the single most teenaged film ever fashioned.

I say that with equal parts critical admiration and peer adoration. I was 13 years old when the film sashayed and spangled its way onto cinema screens in my neighborhood (on Valentine’s Day 1997, admittedly, rather than 1 November 1996 – you can’t accuse South African distributors of not choosing their moment), and it felt as new and as dizzy and as overwhelming as the advent of adolescence itself.

Romeo + Juliet sent an instant neon shockwave through my high school. Within days, it seemed, girls’ English binders were plastered in photos of Leonardo DiCaprio from the film, with his perfectly curved forelock and glinting rave armor – a classroom-suitable image of nascent erotic desire. (I’d like to say some boys’ were too, but in that sense, at least, 1997 was a very long time ago.) That still-immaculate, all-bases-covered soundtrack – Radiohead! The Cardigans! Er, Butthole Surfers! – was on permanent rotation at every hesitant co-ed house party, even if the sinuous Des’ree slow dance was awkwardly skipped nine times out of ten. Detachable angel wings became a default prom accessory; blue-tinted fairy lights were resourcefully draped over household fish tanks.

I had experienced blockbuster reverberations in my childhood before, of course – ubiquitous Jurassic Park T-shirts, Forrest Gump catchphrases – but this was new: my first palpable point of awareness that cinema and sex were essentially intertwined. Heterosexual sex, foremost, but I can’t be the only person my age for whom Luhrmann’s MTV fantasia raised early inklings of alternative sexual awareness: the image of Harold Perrineau’s athletic, exquisitely androgynous Mercutio, busting (and thrusting) moves to Young Hearts Run Free in a sequinned bra, suspenders and candyfloss fright wig, was almost certainly the queerest thing I’d hitherto seen at the movies. Yet he, too, was treated by film and audience alike as acceptably, desirably cool.

None of this would have seemed especially revolutionary to older viewers long accustomed to commodified adolescent hedonism, or indeed to Shakespeare being repurposed and restyled for the present day. To a 13-year-old, however, Luhrmann’s vision played as an exciting expansion of possibilities and pleasures: the shortest, most exhilarating cut on that gem-studded soundtrack, Quindon Tarver’s cover of Everybody’s Free (to Feel Good), was taken most literally.

So, yes, two decades on, stray sounds and images from Luhrmann’s film remain entirely vivid, if not entirely undated. (It’s hard to think of many symbols much more 1996 than the giant kinda-Celtic-Gothic crucifix tattoo adorning the back of Pete Postlethwaite’s Father Lawrence – what a mercy my classmates and I were too young to copy that.) But what of the film itself? Does it hold up as more than a whirling mood board of generationally evocative iconography? Did it ever? I’m almost afraid to revisit it, but minutes into Luhrmann’s headlong, tricked-out dive into the decayed bohemia of fair Verona Beach – where he and justly Oscar-nominated art director Catherine Martin don’t so much lay their scene as paint-blast it – the surprisingly elegant, elemental pull of its storytelling takes hold.

It’s de rigueur for purists to complain about contemporary Shakespeare adaptations stripping back his language to the nub, but the kinetic visual translations the film makes for the missing text remain quite startling. We tend to remember the hyperactivity of any Luhrmann film foremost, yet so much narrative here is articulated through faces and gazes: I can’t think of any Romeo and Juliet production I’ve seen, on stage or screen, in which the attraction between its eponymous lovers is so viscerally, obsessively instant. Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version may have caused something of a youthquake with its ravishing adolescent casting, but it’s cautiously carnal at best: here, 17-year-old Claire Danes’ and 21-year-old DiCaprio’s eyes meet in an electric blue thunderbolt of sheer, woozy want .

DiCaprio’s career would go supernova a year later with Titanic, but I’m not sure he’s ever worn his alternately chippy and cherubic star quality quite this lightly or lithely, or – his recent Oscar for the pained jaw-clenching of The Revenant notwithstanding – emoted with quite such open, unstrained anguish. Danes’ film career would peak sharply here, of course, but what a summit: replacing Natalie Portman (who, at 14, was deemed to look too young opposite DiCaprio), she brings the very modern hormonal curiosity of a name-making role in TV’s My So-Called Life to Shakespeare’s vision of agitated youth in a way that feels quite apposite. (By this point, Shakespeare’s possessive credit in that full title no longer feels like a wry in-joke: give or take some tinsel and a swimming pool, this is still very much his Romeo and Juliet.)

Neither actor delivers the most mellifluous iambic pentameter you’ve ever heard, and nor should they: the lines roll eagerly, earnestly, blushingly off their tongues, like eighth-graders reading and writing poetry for the first time. (Compare it to the misbegotten Douglas Booth-Hailee Steinfeld update that Julian Fellowes attempted three years ago: that film’s leads sound like they’re being made to read the play aloud in class with surly reluctance.) The flushed sugar rush of Luhrmann’s film-making – not that we’d have believed it then, but a positively restrained dry run for the ecstatic excess of 2001’s marvelous Moulin Rouge! – worked to conjure the same air of reckless, uncalculated feeling. To look at its peach-skinned lovefools’ recent work – DiCaprio grimly chomping raw bison liver in Alaskan purgatory, Danes determinedly gurning away on TV’s Homeland – is to know that William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet is indeed 20 years old. Like its doomed, bullet-bound lovers, however, the film refuses to age with us.

Baz Luhrmann
William Shakespeare
Leonardo DiCaprio
Claire Danes

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Romeo + Juliet review: Simply stupendous

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Romeo + Juliet at 20: Baz Luhrmann's adaptation refuses to age