The difficulties for the director in presenting an old play to a modern audience were that many people would not understand the Shakespeare language. However, there are some advantages for this. In a play there is only a stage, so there can't be many scenes, but in a movie, they can make use of the camera to show a lot of the scenery which the scenes are set in. A modern day audience's expectations of entertainment would be special effects and the use of different camera angles, whereas an audience's expectations, of entertainment from Shakespeare's time would be humourous actors and romance.
The film begins with the prologue just as the Shakespeare's play does. In the play the prologue is told by one person who comes onto the stage, but in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, it shows a TV news presenter, telling the prologue to make it sound like a news report.
Baz Luhrmann changes the setting of 15th Century Verona to a 20th Century Los Angeles setting. A lot of the scenes take place around beaches which is just like LA. Baz Luhrmann also puts a hidden message across about LA, that its society is corrupt. He shows people casually carrying guns and taking drugs, trying to say that in LA it is normal for these things to happen.
In Act 1 Scene 1 it shows a car driving down a long bridge. The car's radio is playing modern 1990's music - One Inch Punch - Pretty Piece of Flesh. The people in the car are singing along to the song. Baz Luhrmann uses this idea instead of Sampson and Gregory walking around Verona talking about the Montague's. The characters are dressed in typical Californian clothing and talk in an American accent but with Shakespeare's language. The director tries to use the same script as Shakespeare to make the film and the play modern but unchanged, so instead of using swords, in the film, they use a gun called 'Sword'.
In the scene of the Capulet ball, Baz Luhrmann tries to make an exciting atmosphere that would appeal to a modern audience. The scene shows all the characters dressed in costumes. Baz Luhrmann tries to signify something for what each person is wearing. For example Tybalt is dressed as the Devil to show his evil persona.
07754105219
