Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet

Two themes that are central to Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' are that of love and hate. These issues are explored in different manner by both Zeffirelli and Luhrmann according to each composer's different context and values. Explore and explain the differences in the presentation of these two themes.

The two themes which are central to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is that of love and hate. These themes are explored in various interesting ways by both Zeffirelli and Luhrmann. The first version was released by an Italian man named Zeffirelli in 1968. Zeffirelli wants to stay true to the plat and Shakespeare and therefore sets his movie in the medieval period, where men wear tights, women wear dresses and people use swords.

The second version was released in 1996 by Baz Luhrmann. Luhrmann modernized the play and was very indulgent in many scenes throughout the play. Luhrmann used guns, drugs and very interesting costumes.

Overall, Luhrmann focuses more on the violence aspect of the movie while Zeffirelli focuses more on the love aspect of the movie. This is because of the audience the two directors had different attitudes and valuesIn Luhrmann's version we see the hatred between the two families comes from a business and wealth controlling competition. The young audience Luhrmann is targeting the movie at will not understand the fight between the families unless there is a reason they can identify with, and so the hatred between the families turns into an ugly business competition. This is shown in the opening sequence with the two high-rise buildings with Capulet's and Montague's name, where we understand that these two are above everyone else and that they are conflicting only against one another. We see the anger, fury, intensity and hatred between the families is shown through the series of rapid close-up shots, sound track and the recurrent motif of fire.

Zeffirelli on the other hand is not so extreme he shows the hatred between the families in the first scene in the market place when a couple of boisterous men start a fight and the whole town becomes violent. Zeffirelli does not indulge the audience with violence or hatred, as his audience did not like violence as seen in the movie when one man in the market place says 'Look at them' with a disgusted expression. Zeffirelli is subtle and does not reconstruct Shakespeare.

We first see love in its purest forms when Romeo and Juliet meet. To show the love Luhrmann uses contrast between the party scene which has loud music, fast shots and fast music with the meeting scene which has slower shots, softer and romantic sound track. This contrast of the scenes shows the innocence and purity of their love. Luhrmann's choice of songs also is a huge factor we hear the upbeat sound of "Young Hearts Run Free" which contrasts the beat of "Angel" which follows as we observe Juliet standing on a balcony dressed in her white angel costume. Then the beautiful melody of "Kissing You" ...