WRITE A REVIEW OF BAZ LUHRMAN’S ROMEO AND JULIET AIMED AT TEACHER’S AND SPECIFICALLY COMMENTING ON ITS VALUE AS ANADAPTION OF THE PLAY.
Baz Luhrmann releases his new 20th century adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” which includes drugs, sex and cross-dressing, unlike anything you will have experienced in other productions than it was eighteen years ago. This new adaptation with modernization like new sporty cars, drugs, etc, etc which all youngsters are familiar with and aware of will certainly catch their eye. Its definitely not another boring Romeo And Juliet love story. Modernization like the actors in the film taking drugs was not used in its last production of Romeo And Juliet eighteen years ago. This was used to catch the eye of the teenagers. Neither were war and gang artilleries like a 54 calibre and shot guns were not used either. It’s definitely something someone would not want to miss.
The first thing that strikes you is Baz Luhrmann’s original use of setting. Compared to the old settings used in the last production, Luhrmann has used a modern type of setting to do its scenes. This made it look different from the cliché scenes which everyone was familiar with and added a bit of another different flavour into it. There were 4 scenes which were very different and Luhrmann had focused a lot on those scenes; which means that a long shot was taken on them. The first one was at the petrol station which was shot towards the beginning of the movie (during the first 20 minutes) and it was in the city centre of Verona. This showed us the skyscrapers instead of those mansions which were found in its last production. Instead of showing us the deserted streets of Verona, Baz Luhrmann decided to shoot the scene in a crowded place with high buildings and cars. This told us about the modernisation used here. The other scene was “the beach” scene, where the fight carried on from the petrol station. Here, instead of using the streets of Verona he used the “petrol station” and the “the beach” which are much more crowded and has life in them with the girls in bikinis to clearly attract young audiences. Whenever someone hears about Rome and Juliet, the first thing that strikes their minds is the “balcony scene” which was shot repeatedly in the past productions of Romeo And Juliet. But again, Baz Luhrmann revolutionised this by using the pool in Juliet’s mansion instead of the balcony scene. The audience will find this different and might wonder that how could the director has cut the famous balcony scene. As I mentioned before, the shot was done in a modern city with big developments. It had much of an urban landscape rather than of a small town. Baz Luhrmann’s use of different camera tricks also added a spice to the movie. The effects like the slow motion movements didn’t even exist during the ’50’s. This made the scenes to be visible much more easier to the public so that they could see what was actually happening. Another one was the aerial view which was shot twice. Once was towards the end of the movie where Romeo was running away and how the police was chasing him. The other time it was shot was during the beginning when the Montagues and the Capulets had a feud in the streets of the Verona. Therefore, all this refreshes the “traditional” sets.
