Compare and Contrast how Mercutio is Portrayed in the Baz Luhrman and the Franco Zefferelli Productions of Romeo and Juliet Focusing on Act 3 Scene 1

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Compare and Contrast how Mercutio is Portrayed in the Baz Luhrman and the Franco Zefferelli Productions of Romeo and Juliet Focusing on Act 3 Scene 1

Baz Luhrman and Franco Zefferelli explore and interpret Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and present them both in very different ways, mainly due to the fact that Shakespeare didn’t write too many stage directions on his plays. Besides the language he used, there was few stage directions for them to base there work upon, allowing them free to interpret into completely separate ways. But, the one thing they kept the same was the language Shakespeare wrote in. Making it still obviously a Shakespearian film, even though it was set in different times.

This essay will explain how Mercutio is portrayed in both adaptations of the film. It will also be looking at the settings, music, expressions and the actions of the other characters around and with Mercutio.

Luhrman set his film in the present day (1996), which best captures the essence of Shakespeare for the present-day viewer and although the language is still in Shakespeare’s style, it still seems easier to understand when put into present day context. The movie begins with the prologue but instead of it being in the usual form of a chorus talking it is set into a television broadcast, which would has been modernized into present-day environment. The prologue tells the story of the play and also sets the scene for the first time we see the Montagues and Capulets fighting. It also tells us the overview of the whole story. Very much as Shakespeare had intended it.

In Zefferelli’s 13th Century film of "Romeo and Juliet," the Prologue takes the form of a narrator telling the story of the Montague and Capulet’s and their century old, bitter feud. For the modern viewer, the Luhrman picture is fast-paced, keeping the viewer engaged in the film, while the Zefferelli’s picture is dreary and dull, it is an endless maze of long and boring conversations, foreshadowed by the prologue. The reason in which the effect of these lines is that in Baz Luhrman’s is fast paced, it changes the view and isn’t located on just the same characters for ages on end. He uses the language that Shakespeare had written in and is how Shakespeare had coveted it to be. Zefferelli also kept it close to how it was first performed; he thought that at that time, it was how the viewers would like it to be. He made it invocative because it was the first time that nudity was shown in a Shakespeare interpretation.  

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The focal point of the play is about “two star crossed lovers,” Romeo and Juliet. He uses star crossed as another word for unlucky fate. At the time Shakespeare wrote the play, the people of that time were closely into astronomy and if the stars were looking bad for you then it was destined that something bad would happen. Romeo and Juliet being star crossed lovers meant that something bad will happen to them as a couple and it is “fated“ against them. The lives of Romeo and Juliet become bound together, but the rivalry between their families makes it ...

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