Baz Luhrmanns William Shakespeare Essay

William Shakespeare is one of the greatest poet and playwright in history. He is famous for plays that reach the his audience emotionally even though most of them were written 500 plus years ago. One of William Shakespeare most famous play is Romeo and Juliet which has being adapted many times over the years into modern versions to fit in with the audiences taste.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my name is Heitor Hilberto and I’m here to talk about Romeo and Juliet.
Baz Luhrmans 1996 adaptation of the classical love story of Romeo and Juliet had a great impact to its vast audience leaving most in tears.
The technical and film codes were used very affectively in Baz Luhrmans adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, it does this by the reconstruction of the films location to the busy location of Verona, the action camera shots were well timed and positioned, the characters where modernised to suit the setting of the beach by using bright colours in their clothing.
The movie connected with the audience because it was set in a modern city that the story took place in the big Verona, the movie followed the same timeline of events as the original play but was much easier to understand because it was set in the 90s which it makes it easier for us to relate and understand the movie if it’s at least set in our century.
They used very dramatic lighting to enhance the scenes which helped the camera crew get the best possible shots of the characters faces, costumes, movements and the locations also made the movie very exciting, creating great drama because they knew when to used soft and hard lighting to enhance the movie, some of the best scenes showing the camera shots would be the petrol station which used soft lighting but fast and concentrated camera shots to make the action intense and very fast passed, the party at the cablets house which used hard lighting to show the party was vibrant with very bright colours, exiting and vivid but the pool area scene lighting was very soft and used a romantic camera angles which just credited the lighting and concentrated to the characters face to show their emotions and their love for one another.
The costumes where very stylish and made the film reach out to its audience both young and old, costumes and props are very important to Romeo and Juliet, ( lurhmans 1996 version ) costumes aren’t only make the characters look good and stylish, it enables viewers to make rationale judgements about the characters, looks and how they might fit in society very quickly, the costumes in the party scene at the cablets house shows how the costumes can show the characters role in the movie, for example Juliet was dressed as an angel to show that she was sweet and pure, but Mercutio was dressed as the devil because he is an evil and dangerous man.
William Shakespeare is one of the greatest poets and play writer in history. Thank you for your time and patience today.