Comparing The Openings Of Two Different Film Versions Of Romeo And Juliet
In this essay I will be comparing openings of two different film versions of Romeo and Juliet. Franco Zeffirelli directed the first version, which was released in 1968 that stars Leonardo Whitney as Romeo and Olivia Hussey as Juliet. Baz Lurhmann directed the second version, which was released in 1996 that stars Leonardo Dicaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet.
In both the films the director has a prologue before the first scene, when Shakespeare wrote this play there would have been a narrator come on stage and speak out the prologue. The original play was set in Verona Italy, which is where Franco Zeffirelli set his version, but Baz Lurhmann tried to keep it modern and he decided to set it in Verona Beach, U.S.A.
By doing this he keeps it modern and keeps the line in the prologue “In fair Verona”. Also in both of the versions the directors keep to the original text.
At the beginning of the Franco Zeffirelli version, the prologue starts off on a little Italian village which the camera pans across the village and onto a sunrise very slowly, there is a deep male voice over that speaks in received pronunciation as he says the prologue and there is a slow and romantic sound track. All these hint to us that it is going to be a traditional adaptation of the play and keep it slow and the more romantic than the second version. Also there is a proscenium arch around the screen during the prologue, which is what would have been around the stage when the play was originally preformed.
In the version directed by Baz Lurhmann there are two different versions of the prologue. The first has a woman on a television reading a news report, the camera slowly zooms in on the woman until the it is to close to see then it cuts to the second version of the prologue which is more dramatic than the first. It starts of with Pete Postlethwaite reading the second version of the prologue then shows the headline of newspapers that say lines from the prologue as he says the such as “civil blood makes civil hands unclean”, “Ancient Grudge” and “New Mutiny”. Then it goes to lots of little fast cuts of Verona city. It shows the police cars and police helicopters, two skyscrapers with the Montague and Capulet family names on them. There is also a large statue of Jesus. The sound track is an opera style this adds to the dramatic feel. All this is to get the viewers attention and to keep it as modern as possible also to show that the families have a major rivalry. Also during the prologue there are several freeze frames of the different characters. There is also writing along side the picture that says the name of the character and who they are to either Romeo or Juliet.
