Romeo Montague

Romeo Montague
I decided to analyze Act I Scene V of Shakespeare’s original text, which corresponds to Chapters 8, and 11 through 12 in Baz Luhrman’s film version of Romeo and Juliet, and the third scene of our rendition of the play. Leonardo DiCaprio is my counterpart of Romeo in Baz Luhrman’s film. This scene stood out to me for comparative purposes because the film made this single scene of Shakespeare’s play into six chapters and we cut the dialogue down to only a few minutes with only four characters present. Also, I felt that DiCaprio inspired my actions a great deal in this scene even though our representations of Romeo ended up looking very different after many things were taken into consideration.
Section One: Film Adaptation Analysis
DiCaprio had a lot more to work with when it came to props, costumes, and scenery that allowed him to enhance his performance in ways that I was unable to do. The addition of these elements made his portrayal of Romeo more substantial than mine because he was able to interact with more than just Juliet. DiCaprio worked well with his surroundings by playing off of the scenery in a way that made the audience feel as though he really was living in the space the film showed him in. He touches the walls, leans on a pillar, looks in a mirror, and pushes past movie extras in order to pursue Juliet. Romeo is not just a single person who has discovered a new love interest; he is a member of the Montague family and is being watched at the Capulet party.
The use of the elevator in this scene was very interesting because it is an escape for Romeo and Juliet. The movement on and off of the elevator repeatedly in a short amount of time in order to avoid Juliet’s parents added even more believability to the forbidden budding love. Romeo isn’t as concerned about being caught as Juliet is, which DiCaprio displays by keeping his focus on her and by continually attempting to kiss her and succeeding in doing so. While DiCaprio’s physical movements appear to be very influential into the reading of his character when combined with Shakespeare’s language, his vocal inflections were not very telling. DiCaprio’s use of tone and volume did not add anything special to his representation of Romeo.
In the film, Romeo and Juliet first catch a glimpse of each other through a large fish tank after Romeo finishes washing his face. DiCaprio completely changed his facial expression while his face was under the water he was using to wash it and again after he brought his head out of the water. Under the water he appears to be screaming with his eyes wide open as if he was trying to release his frustration with love. Then, when he looks in the mirror he seems to be realizing that he has been under a spell and/or drug that made him see love falsely. This realization is noticed through a questioning look that DiCaprio wears on his face. Romeo also left his mask in the water which strips him down to just being Romeo the man, leaving behind the facade of the knight in shining armor that he has tried to be in order to be in good favor with women. While looking at the fish he spotted Juliet (Claire Danes) through the fish tank and there is a definite look of surprise conveyed when DiCaprio raises his eyebrows. Juliet doesn’t walk away and Romeo keeps his eyes fixated on her even when she turns away shyly. His eyes generate the idea that he is trying to get to know her, and understand her, by taking in her appearance, her beauty. The most interesting part of this scene is that DiCaprio and Danes were not together during the filming through the fish tank. DiCaprio was reacting without actually seeing Danes. His subtle smiles of flirtation and anticipation were made to no one and yet he looks as though he is developing a crush on Juliet.
DiCaprio created a Romeo who was very confident in his abilities in wooing women by enhancing Shakespeare’s words with very physical advances. DiCaprio attempts several times to kiss Danes before he makes contact. Although she moves her head out of the way, DiCaprio maintains eye contact which creates a slight look of discomfort on Juliet’s face. His continuous kissing does make his line “O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” (2.2.125) during the balcony scene seem very appropriate. DiCaprio’s Romeo is a very sexual being. Danes glances to see if anyone is looking at Romeo and Juliet kissing while DiCaprio’s eyes stay closed or on her only the entire time they are kissing. He is only focused on Juliet which leads the audience to believe that he really has fallen for her in a short amount of time and really does love her.
Finally, the moment that Romeo realizes that Juliet is a Capulet DiCaprio solidifies that he is really talented in manipulating his face to convey emotion. DiCaprio maintains his look of delight in the girl that he is pursuing/wooing as he follows Juliet through the crowd. It would take anyone a moment to realize who is surrounding someone if all their attention was on that one person, and DiCaprio does an excellent job of taking that time to let it register that she is now with Lady Capulet. The audience can almost see Romeo’s thought process on DiCaprio’s face as he works through what has just happened—the nurse said that her mother wanted a word with her, she was taken away, she is now with Lady Capulet, she must be a Capulet, our love is forbidden—and his face goes from happy to shocked to sad. He also semi-whispers “Is she a Capulet?” in a way that seems very natural. The look on his face, paired with the tone of his voice, makes the fact that he is talking out loud to himself completely reasonable; it does not feel as though the audience is “hearing” his thoughts, rather it is just the kind of moment that everyone has where they say something out loud in disbelief. I dare to say that the realization of who Juliet is, is the most “real” instant of the scene because DiCaprio’s cocky Romeo is put into his place and it shows on his face that he does not know how to respond. His character continues on completely lost in thought until he and Juliet are connected again during the balcony/pool scene.
Overall, DiCaprio handles this scene very well despite all of the complex changes his character of Romeo goes through. Romeo began the scene under the drug of Queen Mab which blinded him to real love, then he frees himself and discovers the happiness that the pure and innocent Juliet can bring him, he woos her briefly and then takes away a small piece of her innocence, and finally he is put brought back into a sad state when he discovers that Juliet is the daughter of the Capulets.






Section Two: Play Performance Comparative Analysis
I have seen Baz Luhrman’s film version of Romeo and Juliet countless times and I feel that I know Leonardo DiCaprio’s portrayal of Romeo very well. All of my experience with this film version helped me a great deal when thinking about how I was going to act as Romeo. Watching DiCaprio was really the only reference I had for creating Romeo (other than other film versions) because I have never acted before and therefore needed to learn a lot through observation.
One of the most important things I think I learned from Leonard DiCaprio is the importance of facial expressions in acting. Throughout the movie, DiCaprio’s face gives away a lot of his character’s thoughts when dialogue isn’t being used. For example, in the scene discussed above DiCaprio’s facial expressions adds a lot to the emotional appeal of his character. I didn’t know quite how to make my facial expressions work on a theater stage, however. Watching DiCaprio taught me that it was important, not how to exaggerate my expressions enough to make them visible to the audience who is much farther away from my face than the camera was to DiCaprio’s face.
Also, I was given the idea to make attempts at an emotional connection with my co-performers through eye contact. DiCaprio tries to maintain eye contact during his first meeting with Danes even when she looks away. Intentionally only looking at Juliet made it much easier for me to concentrate on not forgetting my lines while still creating the cocky version of Romeo that DiCaprio had established. It takes confidence in one’s self and strong relationship with the person one is looking at to take part in prolonged eye contact because it can be uncomfortable for both people involved; with this in mind, I thought that it was best for Romeo to brush aside the potential uncomfortable situation and focus only on the desired outcome: intimacy with Juliet.
Although I did not think of it at first, DiCaprio did teach me about what to do with my arms and hands. Whenever I do not have something to hold onto I feel awkward, therefore the exaggerated movements of DiCaprio helped me feel comfortable in making flamboyant motions. Watching DiCaprio’s body movements also led to the idea of Emily and me dancing during the scene so that we would be engaged in the contact that DiCaprio and Danes had so much of.
The main differences in our approaches to Romeo came about because of the obvious differences between DiCaprio and me, and the media we were working with. DiCaprio was establishing Romeo as a purely heterosexual character and was comfortable interacting with Danes as a woman; I was not trying to hide the fact that I was a woman playing a male character. DiCaprio was also working with a more forgiving media by being on film that could enhance different aspects of his performance and lead the audience to “see” and “experience” different parts of Romeo.
Due to the nature of me being a girl and Emily being a girl, I decided to not attempt to create intimacy through “romantic physical contact” (i.e. kissing). Instead of making numerous attempts to kiss Juliet (like DiCaprio did), I told Emily to move us into a slow dancing movement so that we could maintain eye contact, the audience had equal chances to see both of our faces without us having to look directly at the audience, and we would be able to fake the kissing parts a lot easier.
The attempt at an “intimate” moment through a dance was not something that DiCaprio and Danes had in the film, but I think that it was appropriate for us to do in our rendition of Romeo and Juliet. The dance was an appropriate way to show intimacy because it enabled the characters of Romeo and Juliet to bond on a romantic level while allowing the audience to see that they were not being disgusted by physical contact.
DiCaprio had to use facial expressions in a way that was slightly different from how I used them. I relied more on my vocal inflections than on my facial expressions because of the distance between the audience and me. Also, I was very nervous and decided it would be easier for me to remember my lines if I did not look at the audience. Not looking at the audience while talking would make it harder for patrons to see my facial expressions of emotion, as well. It was difficult to portray emotion through vocal inflection, however, because I was concentrating so hard on remembering my lines, but the language that Shakespeare had written doesn’t leave very many people guessing at his meaning for this play because most people have prior experience with it. We relied a lot on people understanding the overall play, whereas DiCaprio approached the play as if it was the first time people would be experiencing Romeo and Juliet.
In addition to the technical differences (props, costumes, scenery, lighting, music, etc.), DiCaprio had more time to work with when establishing Romeo and Juliet’s relationship; because of this time difference, the film relationship appeared much less rushed that the relationship that Emily and I created. We had to cut out a lot of dialogue and didn’t have the time to set up Romeo spying on Juliet like DiCaprio spied on Danes. Instead of seeing each other through a fish tank for the first time, Emily and I walked through the “party” (audience) and it wasn’t until we were both on stage that Romeo noticed Juliet.
My approach to portraying Romeo was to make him seem like a hopeless romantic that just wants to be in love because he enjoys the feelings that love stirs up inside of him. DiCaprio’s approach to portraying Romeo, on the other hand, made him seem more like a boy who was more after the physical satisfaction that a woman could bring to him, even though he really did want to establish a deeper, more fulfilling connection. Our approaches took different pathways mostly due to the fact that we are very different people and it would have been difficult and uncomfortable for me to create a very physically driven version of Romeo. We both seemingly strived to give Romeo a subtle sense of innocence when he was interacting with Juliet.
If our playgroup had had been allowed multiple chances to record this scene, at some point I think it would have come off as flawlessly as DiCaprio’s performance.

Macbeth and the Show

I have, yet again, noticed that references are made to semi-exotic animals in Shakespeare's plays. I did some thinking about the type of knowledge that those who originally went to Shakespeare's plays would have had which led me to think about Aristotle. Aristotle, being the grandfather of biology, charted and described different types of animals that were brought to him by Alexander the Great (at least that is what my Philosophy professor said); because of Aristotle, then, I think that books would have been available, with pictures, that those of England could have learned from.

Tonight's show went very well. I felt bad about the ending of my play, but this is only because it was the least rehearsed part of the play. We never did this scene on stage in the theater until the final show, and for that I think it went really well. I think that I did a great job with my lines, but I am certainly glad that I decided to make cue cards at the last minute. The safety net made me much more relaxed when I hit the stage. I had a lot of fun performing and wish that we would have known more about changing of scenes and how to move things around backstage quickly to make the show run smoother and more quickly. Overall I really liked that we kept a lot of things true to the written play and used elements of the movie to "fluff" out what we were doing (i.e. Juliet wore wings and Romeo had a sword).

Random Comment, not my weekly blog

I have a random comment to make and I figured that I would make it here or else I would forget it by Monday's class. I was listening to La Vie Boheme and something new stood out to me, something new always seems to stand out to me. This time I caught that they mentioned Kursoawa in the song which immediately made me think of our class, which I thought was pretty cool.
(p.s. my weekly blog was posted before this one)

King Lear

Numerous things stood out to me while reading King Lear. I will focus briefly on five different mini-topics in this blog. First of all, the character of Edgar was my least favorite one in the play. I did not like him because I feel as though he was trying far too hard to be Poor Tom and, in doing so, became less and less believable. He was constantly making reference to himself in the third person—“Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog…” (3.4.136)—which made me shocked that no one would have questioned him actually being Poor Tom. I also wonder how he and Kent were able to disguise themselves so well. I think the fact that Gloucester did not recognize Poor Tom as his son Edgar emphasizes our class discussion about this play being a social commentary on parenting. Gloucester, if he had been close to his son, should have picked up on the subtle nuances of Edgar (i.e. his voice, mannerisms).

Changing pace, there are several references to lions and other somewhat “exotic” animals throughout the play as in 3.4.98-106. I didn’t realize that the people of Elizabethan England would have had enough exposure to these animals to be familiar enough with them for Shakespeare to use them as references in his plays. I guess I could understand if some of the royalty and richer people would understand because they would potentially have seen pictures of these animals, but I don’t think that the groundlings would have understood. This question of mine also comes into play in Titus because there are references to tigers.

In 3.7.40-41 Regan plucks the beard of Gloucester. Were beards really that important in England that as a punishment for a crime they would pluck someone’s beard? This reminded me of the Chinese cue (I am not sure if that is how they spell it). Another thing that surprised me was that the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” goes back as far as Shakespeare and would have already been wildly known enough to include a reference to it in King Lear (3.5.195-197). And, finally, I thought that the lines 1.4.122-131 were really interesting/insightful: “Have more than thou showest,/ Speak less than thou knowest,/ Lend less than thou owest,/ Ride more than thou goest,/ Learn more than thou trowest,/ Set less than thou throwest,/ Leave thy drink and thy whore/ And keep in-a-door,/ And thou shalt have more/ Than two tens to a score.”

Play Day with Real Players

Working with actual actors on our plays was very interesting. The two women helping my group seemed to think that we are on a good track. My general concepts for movement were reinforced, however my interaction with other characters needs a lot of work. I never realized how hard it is to have a stage conversation: not looking completely at the person you are talking to so that the audience can still see your facial expressions.
I didn't consciously think too much about what other actors have done with the role of Romeo until I got to the balcony scene. I think it is nearly impossible to not compare what I am doing to what others have done with that part. I feel very awkward during that scene because Juliet (Emily) is above me and I don't know if I should be just looking up at her or out to the audience or something completely different. The balcony scene is also giving me a better sense of props and scenery and how they make actors feel more comfortable on stage. I think that I should be behind bushes or something while listening to Juliet on the balcony, but we haven't factored anything that elaborate into our prop list.
Blocking our play for the first time also helped us come up with creative ideas for some touchy parts of the play. We have decided that Emily and I will be dancing and my back will be to the audience when it is time to have the "kisses" so that it will look like I am leaning in to kiss her, but this way I won't really have to and we can keep the lines the way that they are in the script (i.e. "You kiss by the book").
Working with the real actors also made us more assertive of what we wanted to do. I know that I felt a lot more comfortable making suggestions and receiving them when someone was there who could say whether or not something would actually look good on a stage. Now the scary part will be expanding what we did in a small space to fit on the actual stage we are performing on.

P.S. I read the handouts for next Monday and I think I am going to be very lost with matching up King Lear and Ran. Maybe it will be a lot easier once I have read the play and watched the movie. I do have to say that it was interesting reading that influence was taken from a "classic" play to make a more "modern" movie. This fact seems to support my idea that there are only so many original stories until people are just piecing together different parts of different stories and mixing up their orders. It also supports the idea that it is okay to "steal" ideas. Shakespeare may have done it so why not everyone else...

Othello

This was my first time reading and experiencing Othello and I really enjoyed it. This play was similar to Romeo and Juliet to me, because of the relationship between Othello and Desdemona, which is my favorite play. Also, when comparing Othello and Titus Andronicus with the Shakespeare plays I already know, I have noticed a lot of trends that I hadn’t realized existed before, or at least hadn’t been conscious of. Shakespeare seems to write a lot about Italy considering he is not from there, and also inserts several Moorish characters and concepts of those people. There is a connection to Hamlet in this play, as well, in 2.3.376 when Iago talks of pouring poison in Othello’s ear. In this situation, Othello is like the late King Hamlet and Iago is like
I find it interesting that we have been looking at the racial implications of Shakespeare’s plays especially in regards to Othello because, like I stated in class, I didn’t realize he was black until I was a bit into the play. I think that race could be taken out of this play, however the Loomba points we began discussing in class are very convincing. (The first point about Moors not having a God, lawe, religion, or common wealth…” doesn’t really seem to stand out in any part of the play. Othello follows the system of command for the Venetians that he is working for. The second point lends itself to the debate that Desdemona’s father was scared that she would bring black blood into their family line, or was he really just afraid about her going out and tarnishing his political life. The third point makes me think of the end of the play after Othello has killed Desdemona. At this point he is “a spectacle of disobedience to all the world,” but any individual that has just murdered their spouse could be thought of in the same way; therefore, this argument doesn’t really stand to strongly for me. It is much easier to look at the portrayal of Othello as the fourth point says, “ugly and repulsive,” in the movie because we actually see him. The tattoos that he had on and around his head would probably fit this definition because the other characters in the play did not have the same. He stood out from the crowd.) If race were to be taken out of the play, Iago would hate Othello mostly because he wanted his military standing and Brabantio would hate Othello only because he had stolen his daughter, the events could still go on as they have.

Midterm Blog

Prior Reading Development Level
Prior to this Shakespeare class my reading development level was centralized around the text-self level. This level was dominant because I enjoy reading literature that allows me to create a personal relationship with the main character(s). I also tend to read novels more than any other type of literature where the characters are facing situations that I have faced myself or could, realistically, face. These personal connections allow me to generate a mental movie of the story where I try to picture myself as a character. This type of reading is very natural to me and comes easily.
I do make some text-other text connections when I am trying to relate a story to something I have seen before. I generally connect written texts with visual texts so that I can use the visual text as more of a supplement than a comparison tool; and movies tend to be connected to written texts in my head. One very notable connection I made between a movie and a written text was the movie The Island and the book Brave New World. I read Brave New World about six months before I saw The Island but I immediately made the connection. I was informed later that The Island was also a book written by Aldous Huxley.
Rarely did I ever make text-world connections. I am not really sure why this is, other than the fact that I like to put myself in the stories that I read and I am not an overwhelmingly worldly person. When I was a senior in high school my A.P. English teacher facilitated text-world connections with pieces such as Animal Farm, Brave New World, and excerpts from A Modest Proposal. After traveling to Europe I established some text-world connections with places I had seen: i.e. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Paris and the Notre Dame cathedral) and Rebecca (Monaco).
Current Reading Development Level
When reading over my blogs for this class I was rather surprised. I never thought of reading my blogs to find out what type of connections I made to the class and to the texts we read and watch, but my findings are interesting. Over the course of the semester, I think my reading level has gone down; however I don’t necessarily believe that my reading level has gone down, more likely my writing level has gone down.
The first blog that I wrote this semester incorporated both text-other text connections and text-self connections. In the opening paragraph of the blog I comment that the movie Becoming Jane follows the general format of turning “real experiences” into entertainment. This connection develops the idea that all literature is “creative non-fiction.” In the second paragraph of blog one I talked briefly about my idea that almost all, if not all, literature is, at some level, creative non-fiction. This comment is text-self because it was me imposing one of my ideas about literature onto the movie Shakespeare in Love.
The second blog brings in text-other text and text-world connections with the text-other text references being more obvious. I made a comparison between Romeo and Juliet the play that William Shakespeare wrote and Romeo and Juliet the movie that Baz Lhurman directed throughout the blog entry. This comparison was at the heart of that particular blog because I found it very interesting, and easy, to compare the two. Making text-other text comparisons is incredibly easy to do if one is looking at a movie version of a book/play, which was the case here.
On a less obvious level, I brought out the idea of a Western Duel at the beginning of the movie Romeo and Juliet. This could be thought of a text-other text comparison, but I would like to think of it as a text-world connection because I think the duel was used in the movie to bridge a gap for people. Lhurman wanted people to be able to connect to this fight and so he put it in the format of a Western movie which most Americans are familiar with.
My three most recent blogs are very text-self. They incorporate my personal opinions of certain portions of the movie Titus, my feelings on the name that my group chose for our playgroup, and my thoughts on the idea of the importance of hair and make-up to a play/movie. These blogs were far easier to compose than the other blogs because I didn’t have to think as hard to put them together. I still had to pull together and sort through my thoughts, but deliberately establishing connections of text-other text and text-world is more complicated.
How to advance in Reading Development Levels
In order to advance my reading levels I think I need to keep a more open mind. Like I said before, I enjoy making text-self connections, but I need to begin to think more regularly beyond myself. Many Shakespeare plays currently hold personal connections for me because of things that have happened while reading or viewing them, and these become the things that I want to write about in my blog. If I am able to step outside of my comfort zone I will be able to reach the text-world connections on a more regular basis.
I will try to give myself more time to read the actual plays and spend reflecting on the movies after I watch them. The addition of more time on the given activities should allow me to stretch what I am seeing to incorporate the information of the setting of the story. I think I skip too much over the setting and relationship subtleties to see only what is happening; for example, in Titus Andronicus I never would have thought about the roles of races, gender, ethnicity of the actors, and many other things we discussed in class. My gut does not tell me to pay attention to these details until I start to discuss them with other people. Also, the language of Shakespeare can be very difficult to understand, so spending more time picking apart the words will help me establish more connections.
I would like to get my thoughts more vocal, whether in class or outside of it, so that I can realize the larger picture of what I am thinking. As a class we had touched on the potential homosexual interpretation of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet which is something that I didn’t realize I had thought about before until we began talking about it in class. The conversations along in this class are making me a much better reader, especially of Shakespeare.
One of the easiest ways for me to upgrade my blogs, however, is for me to spend more time on them. If I spent more time thinking about what I was going to write before I sat down to write it, I think my blogs would hold much more valuable information and insights.

It all comes down to the end

The final scene of Titus was, for me, a mix of comedy, tragedy, and just plain "grossness." I knew that the play involved cannibalism before I began reading it, and even when I read it I wasn't too alarmed, but watching the way that Titus announced the ingredients of the pies put a chill in my body. It was frightening to see an almost insanity bubble up in his eyes as he "jumped for joy" at finally being able to tell them 'who' they were eating. The pairing of the serial killer like scene where he slits the throats of the Tamora's sons and asks Lavinia to collect their blood and this announcement, I believe that Titus is mentally crazy. I am not sure if he began the play as the crazy that he ends it as, but anyone who just kills their son without contemplation isn't completely there. As the play progresses I think we see him become more and more disgusted with the world that he is living in which causes him to lose touch with reality: this can be seen on the face of Titus as he dies in the movie potrayal. He looks up at Saturninus with a look that seems to say "Go ahead and kill me, death will not be worse than what I have just done to you. Your wife is dead after she and you consumed her sons, your stepsons." This one look is my favorite look in the whole movie. It shows that, despite having lost touch with reality, Titus wins.

The Queen's Women

The dinamics of my playgroup seem pretty alright. I like the people I am working with and we all seem to be getting along. Everyone seems relatively in-sync with the vision...if they aren't, they aren't saying anything about it. I am playing Romeo which feels pretty weird. I was not too cracked about playing a male until we, as a group, decided to sort of disregard gender. Most of the characters are going to be turned into females for our version of Romeo and Juliet because we didn't want to try to hide the fact that we are women. We aren't setting out to make a big deal about the fact that Romeo is now a woman, we just won't try to make "him" a guy.
Also, I am not too cracked up about the name we choose, but we figured we needed a working name so there it is. We also talked about a name like that is similar to a title for a book or a paper--once you get started and see what you are really working with you get the name. I think it will be the jokes along the way that will give us the most powerful name for our playgroup.

makeup and hair

When I was put into the group for makeup this week I thought to myself, “is Paul crazy?” I didn’t think that there could be a whole lot learned from the makeup of a movie, let alone the hair. As we began to watch clips from the film, I realized that these two elements mean more than they get credit for. I began to understand why there is an award category for makeup. It also made me think about the skills of those people who do these jobs for a living. I take for granted putting on makeup in the morning and doing my hair, I send the same message everyday—not that I know what that message is—and the professionals have to create countless looks every year, maybe everyday. There is a lot of variety in the world, I think that is one of the biggest lessons I learned this week. There is a lot of variety and how that variety is portrayed can mean the difference between innocent and naive, and angry and fuming. In the complex world of film and theater, there are a lot of things I don’t understand, but a lot can be learned from a few moments of taking a deeper look.

Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet

Sorry that this is a long one, but I love this movie and this play in general. I have taken my main blog entry for this time from something else I had written once upon a time (and yes I shortened it for this blog) because I figured it still said everything that I would want to say...so here goes:

Baz Luhrmann’s (1996) interpretation of this classic story of teenage love and tragedy modernizes the story while still providing the flowing Shakespearean language of the Elizabethan era. The affect this film has on the audience is created by the juxtaposition of the Shakespearean language with familiar images. The actors’ believability, dramatization of events, and music contributions also add to the effect. The constant reference to media and advertisements helps the audience understand the language of the Elizabethan era while allowing the language to be unaltered. The film opens with a news report in which the news anchor reads the prologue originally written by Shakespeare; the prologue is repeated immediately with jumping camera shots while the characters are being introduced. This clash of words and images adjusts the audience to the language while making associations so that the film is easier to understand for the “average” person.

The opening fight scene between the “Montague Boys” and “Capulet Boys” is another example of introducing the audience to the contemporary process of the film.
The background signs give the audience clues into what is happening and what will happen by saying things like “light the fire!” and “add fuel.” The words in this scene are almost not important because one follows the actions more than anything: the actions are easier to understand than the words because the scene is set up to mimic a western duel, a widely known activity. At this point the audience is also really aware of the busyness of the Verona Beach, Florida setting vs. the actual city of Verona in Italy, which is very calm. The actors are fairly believable in this scene, however some of the Shakespearean language seems forced given the juxtaposition of language and scenery.

The scene in the pool hall where Romeo finds out about the Capulet party was very inventive. In a modern society people do not go around handing out invitations that could be intercepted by the wrong people, so again Luhrmann turned to the use of the media. It is creative thinking such as this that makes the classic story believable in a contemporary setting. The idea that the Capulets would invite the entire city to their party, excluding only the Montagues, adds emphasis to their wealth. Also, details such as the guns being named swords justify the use of the unaltered Shakespearean language.

In keeping with the play, Romeo and Juliet have their first meeting at the Capulet party. Their first view of each other through the fish tank invokes a magical quality to the relationship. Des’ree’s song “Kissing You” plays in the background supplying a small amount of foreshadowing and making the audience enter a relaxed state after the “high” they were feeling from the “Queen Mab” drug taken by Romeo. No words are shared during their initial meeting but their eyes say it all. This is a moment in the movie when the visual chemistry between Claire Danes (Juliet) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo) is very apparent and very appropriate. These two actors were cast perfectly; at times DiCaprio has trouble making the Shakespearean language flow naturally, however it does not distract terribly from the film and the chemistry with Danes makes up for it.

Having actors with good chemistry is imperative to having a successful version of Romeo and Juliet; if the actors’ love connection is not believable then the entire production will lose the impact it is meant to have. The actors’ chemistry combines with the music to make for an even more powerful impact on the audience.

Arguably the most dramatic scene of Romeo and Juliet is the scene in which both
Romeo and Juliet die. Luhrmann creates a more intense scene than most film versions
I’ve seen. After Romeo sips the poison and begins to die he sees Juliet open her eyes. No words are shared between the two but again onscreen chemistry and music create a passionate moment. The connection between the eyes of the two is intense and makes the audience feel the emotions of the characters; the audience is brought into the scene and share in the pain. The song “Kissing You” is repeated in this scene allowing viewers to subconsciously connect the magic of their first meeting to their deaths.

This version does not portray the story the way that Shakespeare originally wrote it. The changes Luhrmann made tend to create confusion for people who enjoy a more “classical” portrayal of the play. This is not to say that the unique adaptation does not deserve respect: it did make the story more accessible to those who would have otherwise stirred away from Shakespeare.

Shakespeare in Love

The greatest appeal of Shakespeare in Love, to me, is that it could stand alone with any name, other than Shakespeare, in the title. This movie is about turning experience into entertainment, something we all do all of the time: anytime we relate a story to another person. Also, the movie Becoming Jane presents the story of Pride and Prejudice in the same manner as Shakespeare in Love presents Romeo and Juliet.
By building the love story of Romeo and Juliet simultaneously with that of Violet and Will, there is an added sense of power to the story. Shakespeare in Love turns Romeo and Juliet into creative non-fiction which gives it more appeal, I think, because believing that this story was true adds to its dramatic ending. Stories that can be backed up by facts are more appealing because we can imagine what the characters were going through as real people and not just with the emotions that were put on the stage/page. I think that most stories are written primarily from almost a creative non-fiction approach so I like to think that this movie is a possibility of reality.
Having Shakespeare as one of his characters and people that he had personal, real contact with begins to bring Shakespeare off of the pedestal that people have created for him over the years. Shakespeare becomes a real person who is led and shaped by experiences, as we are. He is a person who has faults, as we do. This movie leads us to an idea that anyone could have written the themes of Shakespeare's plays had they had the same, or similar, life experiences. Maybe the specific language used is what sets Shakespeare apart from other playwrights of his time, but his themes are those that can still be encountered in everyday life today. Bringing Romeo and Juliet off of the stage and showing it in a "real life" setting aids in showing this concept, even if it still is in a theatrical way.