The Film Review of Romeo + Juliet (1996)

The film Romeo + Juliet (1996) was directed by Australian director Baz Luhrman, the scenario adapted from 威廉 Shakespeare’s classical love tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. The main cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo and Claire Danes as Juliet. The plot and dialogue of the film follow the original work of 威廉 Shakespeare. Although it is based on the original work, Baz Luhrman represents this romantic tragedy in a unique way.

The background of the film is set in the modern day in a fictitious landscape -- Verona Beach, instead of Verona in Italy in 16th century. This film mainly talks about a tragic tale between 「a pair of star-cross』d lovers」 from the Montagues and Capulets, which are two opposing families in Verona. There had been some violent conflicts between these two families. However, Romeo, who is a Montague teenager, he gets a ticket and takes part in a party hold by the Capulets. In this party Romeo met Juliet whom is a Capulet teenager. They fall in love with each other at first sight, and then they get married in secret with help of the Nurse and the Father Laurence. Unfortunately, because of the hatred between the two families, finally they die together.

This spectacular film has incredible lighting, cinematography and music performance because of the excellent directing skills of Baz Luhrman (Samudrala). Many elements in this film are modernized. For example, swords are replaced by guns (although they call it 『sword』), carriages are replaced by cars, and Prince Escalus becomes Captain Prince. At the beginning of the film, it is very creative to read aloud the sonnet as a form of news coverage. Modern buildings and vehicles as well as a helicopter give a visual shock to audience. The first time Romeo and Juliet face-to-face is through a huge aquarium, and the most classical scene – the Romeo meeting with Juliet at the balcony has moved to a swimming pool. All of these scenes give the audience a feeling of strong contrast between the modern version and the original work.

At the beginning, I think the technique of the film expression is strange because the whole of my mind was taken up by the conventional live theatre. As the film continued, this opinion was changed because I was attracted by the delicate language, even I forgot this is the language that was used several hundred years ago.

In some scenes DiCaprio fails to deliver Shakespeare's dialogue, and sometimes he is reciting, but Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes really are right as the couple in this film because they suit Romeo and Juliet on people’s imagination (Berardinelli 1996). The best performance in this film is John Leguizamo as Tybalt, who is Juliet’s cousin, and Warold Perrineau as Mercutio, who is Romeo’s best friend, both of them deliver the dialogue in a convincing manner. For example, in rising action, Tybalt comes to the beach to duel with Romeo, and Mercutio goes to fight with Tybalt while he cannot bear Tybalt savage Romeo. And then he is wounded and dying, I felt so regret while Mercutio said 「A plague o' both your houses!」 to them. In addition, the Nurse played by Miriam Margoyles and the Father Laurence played by Pete Postlethwaite also performed good characters in this film (McGurk).

The tragic and dramatic story of Romeo and Juliet always gives us a strong sense of fate ruthless, and this tragedy has not changed with the transitions in time and space or adaptation of script. In the last scene, Romeo comes back to Verona. Desperately, he thinks Juliet was dead when he finds Juliet lies in church. Romeo takes the poison after he kisses Juliet, while Juliet just wakes up at the same time, but it is too late to stop Romeo committing suicide. Finally, Juliet picks up a handgun and shoots herself at the side of her Romeo (Wikipedia). Even though the director arranged a short dialogue before them die, ultimately, a tragic ending cannot be avoided.

As this film retains the language and dialogue of the original work to a great extent, it is a little bit difficult to comprehend the language for the audience, especially for non-native English speakers. In fact, in some situations I cannot understand the dialogue completely. However, it is very fantastic to see some modern men using an ancient way to talk with each other. Moreover, modern version of the film reflects contradictions between the two families in a more intuitive way, therefore, there has more attractions to draw the attention of young people. Overall, I recommend this film to any are over 14.
 

Bibliography
Berardinelli, J. (1996) Romeo + Juliet (1996) [online]. Available from:
http://www.imdb.com/reviews/62/6277.html [Accessed 28 August 2011]

McGurk, M.A. Classic tale reborn: Modern-day 'Romeo & Juliet' a magical, visual triumph [online]. Available from:
http://www.enquirer.com/columns/mcgurk/110196a_mm.html [Accessed 28 August 2011]

Samudrala, R. Romeo and Juliet [online]. Available from:
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies/romeo_juliet.html [Accessed 28 August 2011]

Wikipedia. Romeo + Juliet [online]. Available from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_%2B_Juliet [Accessed 28 August 2011]

Romeo + Juliet. (1996) Film. Consultant: Luhrman, B. USA.