Concentrating on The Presentation of Character Setting and Sound Examine What Seems to You to be Significant Features of Baz Luhrmann's Style of The Opening Scene of Romeo + Juliet Baz Luhrmann has a reputation of making excellent films

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Concentrating on The Presentation of Character Setting and Sound Examine What Seems to You to be Significant Features of Baz Luhrmann’s Style of The Opening Scene of

Romeo + Juliet

Baz Luhrmann has a reputation of making excellent films and is known for his camera always moving. He likes doing close-ups, zooms and slow motion shots . As he has grown more secure of his position as a director, and has got a higher budget, his camera and editing have merged into a sort of helter skelter style that blends the emotional and poetic in ways that appear new and revolutionary. Luhrmann says that there are three basic things about his films: the story line is simple, the world created in his films is one of a heightened reality, there is always a specific device driving the story whether it be song or dance etc.

Luhrmann did the prologue so he could show the audience the current story of what’s going on and what the story is about. He needed to have strong images because at that point most of the audiences ears’ won’t be in tune with the Shakespearian text.  He repeated just so anyone who missed it the first time would hear it this time and people that heard it before would understand it more thouroughly. The prologue is probably one of the most important parts of the film as it is a summary of what is happening and what happens throughout the film.

Luhrmann manages to juggle multiple story lines in a manner that keeps the audience involved, using his trademark moving camera and using music to move the plot forward. His hopes for this film are to “Put Shakespeare back on the billboards of Times Square”. He wants everyone to appreciate  Shakespeare and never wants him to be forgotten. The fact that all of Shakespeare’s plays are timeless helps Luhrmann and he uses this to his advantage.

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The most vital person of any film is the director. The director makes all the decisions and if the film isn’t that good he gets the blame. The reason he chose to do the film was to answer the question “If Shakespeare was alive today how would he make the film?”. He tried to make the first scene as a spaghetti western. He did this by using techniques in westerns like slow motion, zoom and fast track. He even made the music like a western. They took out all the westerns from the local video shop and stole the ...

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