Bas Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet Essay

Baz Luhrmann’s main aim from his Romeo and Juliet film was to create a film which would trickle the minds of youngsters, or what is also known as the MTV generation, who don’t enjoy watching Shakespeare’s plays. His main aim was getting the MTV generation to watch and ‘enjoy’ Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet without dieing of boredom. He did this by looking at the movies MTV generation watches today, which mainly includes technology, action, guns etc to get youngsters interested. What he concluded in the film which attracted youngsters was that he replaced the original assets used in the original play into modern equipment, for example, swords were changed to guns, old fashion clothes into today’s clothes etc but one thing which he kept in the original form is the dialogue, the script. He also had other aims which were to make a film so that youngsters world wide would want to watch it. The film was a success in the world as it made à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½98m worldwide, in America alone it made 46m so the film was a hit all over the world.  The prologue in the beginning of the film was set out to make us, the audience, understand what she is saying clearly. This was done by showing a news presenter on TV quite far away, she was wearing modern clothes but basically she was a normal news presenter to us. All she done did was read the prologue from the play. This simplifies the language used by Shakespeare as we think the words, which the news presenter is saying is in modern language but because it is set out in a modern way, we automatically presume it is in modern language and understand what she is saying. The layout of this is, a female TV presenter reading the prologue from the TV which is in a distance, but the camera slowly zooms into the TV so that at the end all we see is the news presenter reading the prologue with a picture over her left shoulder showing a broken ring and the title underneath which is ‘star crossed lovers’ all in modern day settings. The prologue also tells as that this is a story about two families who hate each other and who compete with each other to show who’s greater. The prologue, voice over, images, words, is used to guide audiences who didn’t completely understand the news presenter as it had images describing what she said, words written after it was said by the voice and images shown to describe what she meant. This simplified the whole prologue, you could almost say Baz Luhrmann was holding our hand and taking us through the prologue slowly again and again until we understood it. The images in the prologue were taken from the streets of America, they were mainly violence which is what consists in our society today. IT had fast camera action, for example, it zoomed in and from the Jesus statue, it had fast camera movements from the helicopter, from the streets, police pursues etc after each word or sentence was read out from the prologue, and if this wasn’t enough, Luhrmann put the words on the screen scrolling through or just appearing to show that audience what was said. IT had modern music in the background which includes hip hop, rock music etc to attract youngsters to watch the film without getting bored. Baz Luhrmann chose to begin like this because it was the most suitable way to keep the audience, especially the youngsters, to say ‘what happens next?’ and want to carry on watching the film without getting bored. Luhrmann’s main idea was to get the begging fast and furious to hold on to the audience and want them to understand Shakespeare’s script with them imitating what the words meant in movements, body language, how they said it etc. He used this because is most other films, the beginnings were started off with action to hold on to its audience without boring them and making want more. The gas station was the most important scene in the beginning of the film. This is because they used 170 different shots just to make up the first five minutes, this is because there was a lot of action, slow motion, fast movements, cameras zooming in and out, fast editing of certain scenes etc. IT started off with the Montague’s coming in the scene with their car in to one part of the gas station and the Capulet’s entering the scene on the other part of the gas station. The introduction of each character is set out by showing the characters and pausing them with their names on them. They introduce each side to us by zooming onto the bottom of their guns when they threaten each other, under each sides guns, their names are written which is the Capulet’s and the Montague’s. The fight starts off when the Montague’s see the Capulet’s, the Capulet’s scare the Montague’s and the Montague’s insult the Capulet’s by biting their thumb at the them. At this moment the head of the Montague’s come out and start the fight, straight away a shoot out starts and they shoot at each other. When they shoot at each other the camera uses slow motion, fast editing etc to show the audience action to get their focus on the film. The camera basically introduces the characters slowly and then uses fast editing thereafter. The music used in the film varies a lot as there was a mixture of music used, this ranged from, rock to spaghetti western. This were used in specific parts of the film. The beginning started off with classical when the dialogue was read out by a deep male voice, the part when the Montague’s are in their car is rock and hip hop, and the part where the Capulet’s are introduced is spaghetti western. There were also other sound effects used in the film when one of the Capulet’s had ‘SIN’ written on a metal plate above his tooth which was an animals voice which frightened the Montague’s. There’s also other sounds for instance ‘whoosh’ when bullets fly past their heads, music played when the characters are in slow motion etc This is all used to attract the audiences attention and to get them pumped up, the music is basically ion your face. Tybalt’s shoes makes a particular noise when he walks, this is ‘ching’, this noise particularly gets to the audience when he puts out a match in the gas station by rubbing the metal part on the match to the floor, this sends a shiver through the spines of some people which is used to get the full attention of some people or it makes them look at it in great detail. The representations of each gang is set out differently. Montague’s is introduced first and are shown as trouble makers, this is done by them being dressed up in normal casual wear, for instance, baggy colourful clothing, more open etc. The music used to show them is more of a rock type of song but it also features them listening to hip hop when one part of the music goes ‘the boys! the boys!’. They are shown to be the cool boys of the town who have a great car and ride around listening to loud music. They shout when they talk, this is to attract the audiences attention once again. They also chase off the sisters in the gas station by one of the members licking his nipple in front of them who he then confronts the Capulet’s. The Capulet’s are shown to be more serious with their gang but the representation of the Montague’s are shown as they are the hipsters of the area who are out for a laugh and a good time. This represents the Montague’s innocent in the shoot out and the Capulet’s of the more powerful side having a laugh with them with their powerful ook.