There are many changes that the writers have made to the opening scene. In Shakespeare’s original it opens up with a fight in the centre of Verona but in the modern film version there is a violent fight out of nowhere at a petrol station. I think that Baz Luhrman made this change because he didn’t like how the original was; he has also made this change so that he keeps the film a lot more modern. This is most obvious when the action freezes for a strap-caption introducing characters: ‘The Montague Boys’, ‘Benvolio, Romeo’s friend’, ‘Tybalt, Prince of Cats. A Capulet’ and so on. Further, we register that the story is present-day and urban; the rival houses are now competing corporations, while the dominant statue of an ineffectual Christ is a frequently-repeated reminder of the power religion still has in the lives of these characters.
I think that the most effective out of the two would have to be Baz Luhrman’s version. I thought this because I didn’t like the way that all of the citizens got involved in the fight in the play version. The role of the Prince in the play version isn’t taken very serious and the characters do what they want to do, they don’t take much notice of what the Prince says and still break the law. He says “will they not hear.” But in the modern play version he is kept very serious where many of the characters do try to stick to his rules I think that the one opening scene that is the most effective is the modern version. We have a fight starting out of nowhere and someone getting killed right at the beginning of the play, this really grips the audience and shows them what Romeo and Juliet have to put up with in their life.
The fight scenes are very different to each other in the play and the modern movie. In Shakespeare’s play version there is a lot of differences from the movie, there are more people that get involved in Shakespeare’s original version. Tybalt approaches Mercutio and his friends. Mercutio starts making fun of Tybalt which makes gets him angry. Tybalt insults Mercutio and this gets him mad then Romeo turns up and Tybalt insults Mercutio even more. Tybalt starts on Romeo but he wants nothing to do with the fight and walks away, Tybalt follows Romeo and carries on trying to fight with Romeo. Mercutio calls Romeo a coward and eggs him on to fight with Tybalt but he doesn’t, Tybalt and Mercutio fight but Romeo gets in the way and Mercutio ends up getting stabbed and he dies cursing both Romeo and Tybalt’s houses. .omeo then avenges Mercutio’s death and kills Tybalt. In the modern movie Mercutio is already in a bad mood because Romeo is never around anymore. It’s a very hot day and Mercutio get agitated and when Tybalt comes along Mercutio just starts a fight with him. Tybalt doesn’t want to have a fight with Mercutio; he wants Romeo, so he backs off. When Romeo turns up Tybalt goes straight for him, Romeo tries to back away but when he sees Tybalt fighting with Mercutio he fights him for revenge, he has no intention of fighting him before hand but sticks up for his friend. Tybalt attacks Romeo with a shard of glass but Mercutio intervenes and protects Romeo and ends up getting killed himself. As in the play Mercutio curses both their houses before he dies. Romeo then fights Tybalt for revenge and he ends up shooting and killing him. The two different versions have many similarities but they are also different in many ways the version that I found most effective for this was the modern version. I thought that the fight started out in an effective way and made Romeo seem like a ‘good’ person, the way that the director changed the old version was really good and made the whole scene fill with dramatic atmosphere. The whole scene was a lot better than the play was and it was set out better and made the audience feel more tension.
There are many changes hat have been made to the ending of Romeo and Juliet. Some of these changes are good, whereas some of them are less effective.
In the ending of the original there were four characters in the tomb where Juliet was. There were Romeo, Juliet, Paris and Friar Lawrence but in the modern film version there were only two characters in the ending; Romeo and Juliet. In the original Romeo goes to the tomb to kill himself to be with Juliet and when he is outside the tomb he comes face to face with Paris. They fight and Romeo ends up killing Paris. This makes Romeo out to be a cold blooded murderer as Paris is the second person he has killed; this loses some of the respect that the audience has for Romeo as it makes him out to be evil just a murderer when Paris is only there to lay flowers upon his beloved Juliet’s grave.
“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew:
O woe thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans,
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
Paris says that he will go to Juliet’s grave every night and lay flowers down in honour of his love for her. It shows that maybe Paris did actually care about Juliet and didn’t just want to marry her because of who her father was and to get her into bed. But Romeo just kills him any way. Then after that Romeo goes into the tomb and sees Juliet, Romeo believes that she is dead so he drinks a potion that kills him. Juliet wakes up hours later and the Friar is in the tomb with her. She doesn’t realise that Romeo is dead and Friar Lawrence tells her that she must go to a nunnery to get away from everyone when she notices Romeo dead on the floor. Friar Lawrence runs out of the tomb screaming “I dare no longer stay.” Then Juliet kills herself because she wants to be with Romeo but she rushes it because she hears a noise from outside. This ruins the romantic atmosphere between the two and spoils the end. In the modern movie it is completely different. There is only Romeo and Juliet in the tomb alone with out any distractions; there is such a romantic, dramatic and overwrought atmosphere and is very dramatic and effective and is a great end to the play. I really liked how Juliet wakes up seconds after Romeo dies. This is a heartbreaking moment and the atmosphere is really tense, sad and is very dramatic. I really dislike the ending of Shakespeare’s original, I thought that it seemed rushed and bad compared to the rest of the play. In the last scene he had Romeo, Juliet, Paris and Friar Lawrence in there when there was no need for this. Friar Lawrence rushed in and out of the room, which made him turn from the sane, calm person we had always thought of him to be into an insane maniac ruining the romantic, tragic atmosphere for Romeo and Juliet. At the end of Shakespeare’s play it we find out that Romeos mother, Lady Montague, has died. This has no relevance in the play and should have been left out. We know nothing about Lady Montague; she isn’t really mentioned in the rest of the play so Shakespeare should have left this part out. Or course Baz Luhrman left this part of the play out of the movie, he probably also found this pointless and would have made the end seem badly focused.
Is it fate that controls what Romeo and Juliet do? Or is it society that makes up their minds for them and leads them down the horrible road to death?
Shakespeare’s original looks at how far fate controls our lives:
“A greater power than we can contradict Hath thwarted our intents”.
Friar Lawrence says this to Juliet at the end of the play when Romeo is dead, it shows us that if a great religious person like Friar Lawrence believes in fate then it mist be what’s controlling Romeo and Juliet’s lives. Whereas Baz Luhrman’s version shows how a world of drugs, guns, violence and interfering family members pressure the characters into making up their minds. Romeo calls himself “fortunes fool”, which means that he believes that fate is in control of his life so he tries to change his fate but actually plays into the hands of fate when he ‘chooses’ to kills himself at the end he says that he will cheat fate by killing himself, “Then I deny you stars” but the audience ironically knows that he is going along with what fate has planned for him- it’s dramatic irony. There are many differences between the two versions. In Shakespeare’s time they believed in fate so he based his play about the things that he believed in whereas now days most people don’t believe in fate they believe that people chose their paths in life. So I think that is why in the original, Shakespeare has chosen to make it so that it is fate that controls Romeo and Juliet’s actions but in the modern version you can see that it is society that controls what they do. I think that the play is the most effective for this. It shows more how fate works and shows that you can’t do anything to change it; this makes you feel more sympathy towards the characters. It’s really ironic how we know what is going to happen to the characters but they have no idea of what’s going on, the audience feel like they want to step into the play and tell the characters what to do and what not to do but they can’t.
There are many changes that writers/directors and other people have made to Shakespeare’s original of Romeo and Juliet. The version that I found most effective and enjoyed the most was Baz Luhrman’s modern film version. I thought that this version was not only more effective than all of the others but it captivated the audience right from the beginning and took them into a world where what they saw they believed was actually happening. I really liked this version because you could actually see what was happening whereas in the play you had to imagine what was going on. Baz Luhrman made many changes to the original but I think that they were for the better and improved Romeo and Juliet a lot. These changes that were made were very good, such as at the end of the play when it isn’t just Romeo and Juliet in the tomb but there was Paris and Friar Lawrence as well. When I read the play I thought to myself why on earth did Shakespeare put these two characters in the end of the play? It totally ruined the atmosphere between Romeo and Juliet. But, in the modern version Baz realised this and took those two characters out of the scene and left it so that it was just Romeo and Juliet alone in the tomb. This created a much more dramatic and romantic atmosphere between the two lovers.
