How Does Baz Luhrmann Show the Audience the Tension Between the Two Families in the Opening Scene?

In the film ‘Romeo and Juliet’ directed by Baz Luhrmann the audience feels a lot tension in the opening scene in many ways such as Music, Costume, language and speech, camera shots which all cause the atmosphere of tension caused by the few (but powerful) characters. Baz Luhrmann uses almost all of the techniques possible in today’s day and age to make a very good tense opening that will keep the audience hooked to the film and crave for more of the film.

There were a number of visual techniques that were used during this scene to create tension, to suggest that this film would be about the hatred between the Montagues and Capulets and how this hatred would eventually affect these two families. A visual technique used to show the hatred between the families during the scene was the use of close ups, including the close up of the “Add Fuel to Fire” sign which suggests that something will be added to enrage the feud that has already been going on. The fearful faces of the Montagues and the Capulets, which led up to the arrival of Tybalt had created a lot of tension and anxiety. When Tybalt entered his posture and facial expressions which showed how greatly Tybalt was feared because of his volatile, violent personality as this shot was put into slow motion and quite long it caused a lot of attention.

Another visual technique used was how the Montagues and Capulets were contrasted with each through the costume and music. We see this as the Montagues wore brightly coloured clothing which showed their laidback and slack, where as the Capulets wore dark, sophisticated clothing to show that they were more serious, violent and more fearful. Loud, urban music had also been used to introduce the Montagues which showed how laidback they were while the Capulets were introduced through soft, Latin guitar music to portray them as darker, more serious people. The use of music and costumes to contrast the two ...

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The way the characters act throughout the scene create tension, for example when Sampson is insulting the nuns chastity by licking his nipple at them which suggests Luhrmann is trying to present some humor in the film before getting into the very serious and tense issue of the fight. Luhrmann also unravels Benvolio’s character as a pace maker we this in the first scene when he talks to Tybalt and says: ‘I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword or manage to part these men with me.’ This means that he wants Tybalt to help him stop the fight and bring peace, but of course Tybalt only makes it worse by starting of the fight. We also see Tybalt’s character in this scene we see his arrogance, passion, perseverance and intensity in anything he does. We this when Luhrmann has Tybalt jump to his knees and literally rip his jacket off, kisses his gun and attach a scope to his gun just before he shoots Gregory. His personality also brings along his ‘trigger-happy’ because he starts the fight without considering any of the consequences that could happen.

After the fight scene there is a lot of seriousness kept where as Shakespeare had some humor during the end of the fight where Lord Montague and Lord Capulet wanted to go out and fight but their wives made jokes about their ages and how old they are to fight but Luhrmann decided to cut out that part of the play to keep the seriousness at the end keep all the comedy during Sampson and Gregory arguing with the Capulets this keeps the atmosphere very serious which in Luhrmann’s eyes is more effective than Shakespeare’s idea I also would agree with Luhrmann. After the fight there is a shot of where Benvolio and Tybalt are pointing their guns at each other and shouting while in the background there is lots of grey clouds and rain which is making the setting very sinister. This shows the audience how much aggression there is between the two families.

To conclude the tension Baz Luhrmann creates is definitely present as after watching the scene the audience is craving for more exactly what Baz Luhrmann wants through the techniques used. We must also take into account that not all people like the genre of tragedy or love but Luhrmann put in a lot of action into the film so a lot more people would see it, which Luhrmann wants, which are more views and sales.

Arjan Pahal