Traditional Story Of Romeo And Juliet example essay topic

Romeo & Juliet The traditional story of Romeo and Juliet has been created many times, into award winning theatre productions. This classic tale has been experimented by many directors in an attempt to change an ordinary love saga, into an award winning box office hit. They have been presented in many forms to attract a variety of audiences all but with one thing in common, it tells us the story of how a teenage girl by the name of Juliet, and the daughter of the Capulet's falls in love with a teenage boy, Romeo the son of the Montague's, only till they realise that they are the children of each others enemies. So in an attempt to triumph over their parents' hatred for each others' families, and for the sake of their un-dieing love, they depart this life to overcome it. This review looks at the more modern movie of 'Romeo and Juliet' by Baz Luhrmann. From the beginning of the play, which opened with a newsreaders face on a television screen to deliver the sonnet, it was made obvious that Baz Luhrmann's version of the film Romeo and Juliet was going to be an exciting and very unusual presentation of Shakespeare's legendary play.

Like in the original play, the film is set in Verona, but in the modernised version, Verona is represented as a beachside city and a very violent place. The film does not stray from the traditional story-line. Just visual aspects such as the backgrounds, costumes, props, hairstyles and behaviour is that of which we can expect to see in today's world. But still, all these contemporary features do not make the viewer forget that this movie is set in another world and in another time. The knew and improved version, directed by Baz Luhrmann was a very exciting and moving movie to watch. I loved the film as a whole, it was completely wonderful.

One of my most favourite parts of the movie would be the scene towards the start of the movie were you were introduced to all the characters such as Montague and Capulet and in writing at the same time. It was very loud and dramatic. It showed a lot of emotion and made this scene fell very powerful. The different camera angles used in this scene such as medium shots and low-angle shot making the figure look large powerful and dominant such as in Tybalt's case. I also loved the modern day music that went through this scene and continued throughout the film.

It was also great how the images in the film were practically thrown in your face all the time, making the film action-packed and gripping the viewer even with the very theatrical scenes. I particularly upset by the end of the film when Romeo gets to see Juliet for the last moments of his life before he dies. For a moment, there I hoped that Juliet would awaken in time to stop Romeo from drinking the vile, but unfortunately, their fate was destined to end in tragedy. The societies of this era want to see constant emotional feelings on the big screen, feelings such as love anger and humour. Baz Luhrmann has accomplished and proved that an old traditional love story can be turned into a modern box-office hit. I also like this modernised version by Baz Luhrmann because of its contemporary actors.

Both Leonardo DiCaprio, and Claire Danes play their roles as Romeo and Juliet quite well. Claire Danes brought to life the perfect sweet girl that we had all dreamt Juliet to be. But my favourite actor would have to be Romeo's best friend Mercurio. He had a great attitude towards life in the film. He didn't care much for love and he was a loyal friend to Romeo. He was a very grave man and added humour to some of the scenes of Romeo and Juliet.

It is for these reasons and many more, which basically made Luhrmann's version more enticing to watch and more eye-catching to a teenage audience. The film was, overall, a great success. This interpretation of Romeo and Juliet was far more different then what you would expect of a traditional performance of the play and the difficulty of modernising such an old love story was accomplished by Baz Luhrmann. I give the movie four out of five stars and recommend this movie for mature audiences.