BAZ LURHMAN'S ROMEO JULIET

Baz Lurhman's Romeo Juliet

Baz Lurhman's Romeo Juliet

The movie that I will be focusing in this paper is the tragic play of Romeo and Juliet. I am choosing the Luhrman's film that contains a more modern look at Shakespeare classic. The scene that I choose out of the movie was right in the beginning. I picked the opening act of the play where the two families have a brawl in the middle of town. The reason that I choose this scene was for the fact that I enjoy watching action scenes, and for my love of automobiles.

The Scene starts out with a type of frame sliding and then all you see is a close-up of a car pulling up with the license plate MON-005. This plate is referring to an acronym of the family name Montague. The movie showed us before that they were members of the Montague family by showing their names in sub-script. The scene shows them pulling into a gas station called the Phoenix, and driving what appears to be a highly modified yellow Chevy pickup truck. In the vehicle are Benvolio, Sampson, and Gregory, although the movie never says who they are except for Benvolio. In the written play itself it says that those are the people in the opening scene.

Baz Luhrman was determined to devise a 'created world' in which the language and the more obscure elements of the plot could be 'demystified'. This world was constructed from a collage of modern and traditional images drawn from religion, theatre, folklore, technology and pop culture.

The following is taken from the official notes for the film: 'It's a made up world comprised of 20th Century icons and these images are there to clarify what's being said, because once you understand it, the power and the beauty of the language works its magic on you. The idea was to find icons that everybody comprehends.'

Production Designer Catherine Martin invites us to look at the detail that went into the world the film-makers created: Verona Beach. The programme dwells in considerable detail on the guns and shows how the Costume Designer Kym Barrett solved the problem of the constant references to 'swords' and 'blades' by making these brand names for the weapons. The weapons then became a helpful way of distinguishing between the Capulets (Latinos) and the Montagues (Anglos). In this way a simple object in the film can serve multiple functions.

'Mise-en-scene' refers to the effect of all the objects placed before the camera as a part of a scene.

Benvolio steps out of the vehicle and says the walks to the bathroom. As he is walking there the camera slides away from him and to a purple car with the license plate CAP-005. This of course making reference to the Capulet family, but the movie has not yet said whom they are. The camera then quickly moves around the car to the passenger door where you see some on step out, but can't quite make out how it ...