Verified Document

Romeo And Juliet In The Movies Term Paper

¶ … play Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan Times in the late 1500s with four modern day movie adaptations: West Side Story directed by Robert Wise in 1961, Romeo and Juliet directed by Baz Luhrmann in 1996, Shakespeare in Love directed by John Madden in 1998 and Romeo Must Die directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak in 2000. The findings conclude that Romeo Must Die has little to do with the original play in terms of plot and passion. Shakespeare in Love evokes some of the passion that Romeo and Juliet had, but deviates substantially in events. While the movie Romeo and Juliet comes closest to the story line of the original play, only West Side Story succeeds in capturing the romantic passion first relayed by Shakespeare. There is a lot in common between the play Romeo And Juliet and the movie West Side Story. This movie parallels not only the plot of the Romeo and Juliet play, but also the passion romance between the two lovers.

The opening scenes in both are remarkably similar. In West Side Story the Sharks harass a man, as the members of his Jets gang show up to his aide. Then the cops arrive to break up the two gangs, just as Prince Escalus had broken up the fight between Romeo's and Juliet's cousins. And, Riff talks Toni into attending the dance at the gym as Benvolio talks Romeo into attending the masquerade ball held by the Capulets. At the dance Toni meets Maria and Romeo meets Juliet at the ball where love at first sight occurs for both couples. Juliet and Maria are warned against love for inappropriate choices. Anita tells Maria that she shouldn't be involved with an Italian-American and Lady Capulet and the Nurse caution Juliet about the differences between the Montague and Capulet families. However, both women are determined to continue their true love rather than be forced to marry people that they are not in love with.

The balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet...

But, Maria and Toni do not get married, which is in contrast to the secret marriage of Romeo and Juliet. Marcucio in Romeo and Juliet, is killed while battling Tybalta. And, in West Side Story Riff is killed in a knife fight with Bernardo. Both deaths are accidental and cause Romeo and Toni to kill the close relative of their lovers, Tybalta and Bernardo. However, In Romeo and Juliet, the two lovers both die, in West Side Story, Maria lives. This is perhaps the largest different between the two stories. Juliet killed herself with Romeo's dagger after discovering his death. Both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story end in the sad reconciliation of two fighting factions at the cost of the lives of young lovers.
The 1996 movie Romeo & Juliet stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes and is directed by Baz Luhrmann. This version of Romeo and Juliet is contemporary in setting accompanied by a rock 'n' roll soundtrack, except that some of the detail is futuristic and some is rooted in Elizabethan times. Luhrmann has left Shakespeare's words more or less intact. The film was organized visually to make the dialogue easier to understand than the original play. The Capulets and the Montagues maintain their age-old feud through their gangs and Verona looks like Miami. Luhrmann turns the Montagues into flower-shirted, Miami Beach-like thugs, who use 9mm revolvers rather than swords. The Capulets are street princes in funereal black and also armed to the teeth. Mercutio is an African-American in dreads, who dresses in drag and is a kung fu expert. It's a bit odd to see the gangs in modern dress and then hear them articulate their threats and quarrels in Elizabethan English.

The movie fails to capture the same degree of passion as the play. Ethnic differences between the white Montagues and the Cuban Capulets underlie the mob families' ongoing feud. But the Capulets and the Montagues bear an unsympathetic kinship to the Crips and Bloods rather than the compassionate bitter family rivalry established in the play. The feud between the family erupts when a carload of Montagues take on the hot-blooded Tybalt Capulet and…

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Shakespeare's Play, Romeo Juliet, Film Version: Note
Words: 859 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Shakespeare's play, Romeo Juliet, film version: note defend effective ineffective. Do unknown young actors, Leonard Whiting Olivia Hussey, opposed recognizable stars, made film appealing? Please explain Although some might be inclined to believe that it is impossible to compare two works of art because they should each be analyzed from different points-of-view, it is only safe to consider that William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet needs to be compared with the

Romeo & Juliet Movie Production Critique This
Words: 976 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Romeo & Juliet Movie Production Critique This movie production critique is based on the William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Staring off with the set, this was based as Verona Beach, and portrayed as a modern day city. There are many references to religion in the set, with angel statues and shots of churches and areas of prayer. Also, many of the buildings in the

Style in Baz Lurhmann's Romeo Juliet 1996
Words: 730 Length: 2 Document Type: Creative Writing

Shot-by-Shot Analysis of Mercutio�s Death in Romeo + Juliet (1996)The scene begins with a low angled shot as Tybalt leaps into frame from a balcony to beat Romeo lying off screen out of frame below him. Shot two is over the shoulder of Tybalt, or rather over the hip, and shows Romeo in the sand being kicked by Tybalt. Shot three is a cut to Mercutio�s face full in frame

Romeo and Juliet in Play
Words: 891 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

This makes the film Juliet seem more mature and alienated, although the cinematic portrait of Romeo as somewhat estranged from his boisterous male friends, such as Mercutio's dim view of women, is consistent with Shakespeare's portrait. However, in the Renaissance Shakespeare, Romeo does not attempt to physically touch Juliet in the first balcony scene. In the film the more 'knowing' lovers soon transgress the physical boundaries of the balcony. The

Romeo and Juliet: Act II Close Reading
Words: 869 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

Romeo and Juliet: Act II Close Reading of one of Juliet's speeches from "The Balcony Scene," Act II, Scene II -- the theme of 'star crossed' (i.e. doomed) love JULIET Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night! This bud of

Romeo & Juliet the Most
Words: 972 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

Juliet's speeches to the Friar after learning that she must marry Paris in a week's time indicate this as she lists the horrors she would rather endure: "bid me leap... / From off the battlements of any tower...lurk / Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears..." (Riverside 1130, IV.i. 77-80). She continues in much the same vein, and this is not her only moment of such emotional extremity.

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now