I read Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in class and then watched Baz Luhrmann’s film version in the cinema. There was no comparison! When I first read the text I found it quite difficult and turgid. I thought Shakespeare’s opening was good with the jokes and the fighting and I really liked Mercutio’s spell-binding ‘Queen Mab’s peach. I also felt truly sorry for Juliet who was alone and isolated for much of the play. However nothing prepared me for the movie! I was enthralled. Luhrmann’s opening was just so ‘clever’, so modern.
The Prologue became a TV announcer; the music used was Rap music ‘The boys, the boys’; the riot in the text became a shoot-out (to Spaghetti-Western music); and the high octane energy. All these blew my mind! The rest of the film raced along as Luhrmann made Shakespeare thoroughly modern. Mercutio became a transvestite ‘dope-head’, the music at the masque was beautiful (using Afro-American singers) and Paris was an eligible bachelor on Time magazine (and dressed as an all-American icon in an astronaut’s outfit, at the masque). Guns, cars and helicopter-shots made Shakespeare’s text accessible, whilst sensitive acting by Dane and DiCaprio (as Juliet and Romeo, respectively) and equally delicate use of water (fish-tank and swimming pool) by Luhrmann, made the romance truly touching.
The film’s denouement was even better than Shakespeare’s original because Romeo and Juliet’s eyes meet momentarily, right at the end; their mutual sighting being their final image of each other. However, I do admit that knowing the text beforehand made the film more fun. I could appreciate lots of the jokes and wanted to see it again and again to figure out how Luhrmann created his ideas (many were obviously suggested by the text itself! ). I suppose he had a great text from which to work!.