How does Baz Luhrman make Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet more accessible to a modern teenage audience?

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How does Baz Luhrman make Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet more accessible to a modern teenage audience?

Romeo and Juliet was written during the fifteenth century and the language and style is Elizabethan. Today the language is seen as incomprehensible to a young audience. This can cause many problems because Shakespearean texts are compulsory for students to study during their education. Usual responses to Romeo and Juliet are very negative as teenagers find the story inaccessible. However the essential storyline could be aimed at a young audience with themes of forbidden love, violence and family feuds. Therefore the main problem facing Luhrmann's film was not the plot but the language.

Luhrmann's film interpretation of Romeo and Juliet compensates for the setbacks produced through language because Luhrmann has enclosed modern day scenes, clothing and music to create a more exciting and enthralling film, whilst still using the original Shakespearean language from the text. This makes Luhrmann's adaptation of the play very different from other versions on the market. It shifts away from interpretations such as Zefferelli's, which does not meet teenage desires.

The way in which Luhrmann has gone about altering Romeo and Juliet means that the film is more appealing towards a younger generation and therefore is targeted at the people who wouldn't normally be interested in Shakespeare. This is because the action, violence and style used by Luhrmann, gives teenagers something to relate to, as it includes something which many young people are interested in or something which they have encountered.

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The first impression of a film is very important to the audience and Luhrmann had to grab the audience's attention at the start in order to keep viewer interested throughout. Therefore the opening scene of Luhrmann's film is very fast moving in places, with links towards other genres of film. Music also plays a big role, but the main feature is the mixture of modern day elements contrasted with the Shakespearean language.

The scene opens with a yellow open-top sports car. The frame freezes to show that the people inside the car are 'the Montague boys,' this is done in ...

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