Analyse Act 1 Scene 1 of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – Compare the original text to Baz Luhrman’s film interpretation of the scene
William Shakespeare, the famous English playwright, wrote the play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in a very effective way. Anybody could come up with such a storyline but nobody could put it together as well as he did. He used barely any stage directions, meaning the play can be interpreted in various different ways. This essay will compare and analyse the differences and similarities between the original text and Baz Luhrman’s more recent film interpretation of Act 1 Scene 1 of this play.
The audience are almost immediately made aware of the fact that the first few lines that were originally given to Capulets have been given to Montagues. This may be because Baz Luhrman wanted to portray the Montagues as the family that you tend to prefer as opposed to the Capulets who are proposed as evil and dislikeable. Shakespeare portrays the Montagues as people who like to have fun and joke around. The Capulets are the ones who enjoy ruining the fun of the Montagues. The scene starts off showing a yellow truck owned by the Montague boys. The first shot we see is one of a tattoo on the back of one of the Montagues’ head. The tattoo is of the name ‘Montague’ and also has a religious symbol. This is how we immediately know that these boys are in fact Montagues. Also, the number plate on the back of the car and the first few lines read out by the characters make it obvious to us that they are Montagues. In the original text, both families are portrayed equally in the way that neither one in particular is favoured. The original text starts off with Sampson and Gregory, two young and cocky men, joking around and having a laugh. They are servants for the house of the Capulets and in this first section; it is made obvious they find status very important. Sampson’s first line is ‘Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals’. In other words, this means that they do not want to be seen as unimportant servants but as respectable young men. They are denying who they are. The next lines use the word ‘coals’ but in different contexts with basically the same meaning. Shakespeare uses the words ‘colliers’, ‘choler’ and ‘collar’ as a kind of play on the word ‘coals’. This makes the text more complex because different vocabulary is being used to represent the same thing. Also, in this first section it is made noticeable that, at the time, women were seen to be like prizes or possessions. Men used to enjoy abusing and raping their women because it made them feel superior. To make this point clear, Shakespeare uses phrases like ‘thrust his maids to the wall’ and women, being the weaker vessels’.
