Comparing Luhrmann's Romeo And Juliet

There are many different forms in which this story is told. The original was Shakespeare’s original play. The play was so good that eventually they wanted to make it into a movie. The first movie was released in 1968. That viewing was more like the play, very old timeish and more towards the times when the play was originally done. But the newest film that is out is a Romeo and Juliet that is more modernized. This film was released in 1996. The plot of the two movies was the same but the settings were both totally different. In the movie Romeo and Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann, there is a sense of love and hate with the theme, characterization, and the plot through the movie showing us a more modern day love story.

The 1990’s
was a peaceful time, well mostly. The beginning was the good time, but later on it got kind of bad. Some good things were that our population grew thirty three million people that year. Also the Soviet Union collapsed and ended our war (American history). All of those things are good. But there was something that was what may have been the reason that made this movie possible. In Britain, was the Divorce of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. This was a big deal back in the nineties. No one ever expected this to happen. They loved each other at first but then through the years they just lost that feeling and connection with each other. Just about a year later Princess Diana passed away. She died in a car crash. The man that was driving her around was driving intoxicated and crashed the car. It killed them both (divorce). This could play a role of the characters in the movie.

Now as many people can tell from the title of the movie who the main characters are.
Romeo and Juliet. Both of the main characters are very very young. They can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. They are both too young to be thinking about marriage and running away to be together. The worst part is that they are rival families against each other. There are the Montague’s and the Capulet’s. They are in a sense “rivals” of each other. They are rich families that do not like each other. They have always been “at war”. The way Romeo is described is as a young, and handsome boy. He is also is “smart” and sensitive. Sensitive yes, smart no. Maybe a helpless romantic. Maybe a little too helpless. Isn’t that how he died in the first place? Now Juliet is another story. She is so young and simple minded. But she is also very dumb and naïve. Did she really think as a fifteen year old girl that she could run away and with a sixteen year old boy because they were “in love”? They are too young to know what love is. They are both kind of messed up in the head because they would both rather be dead, than be without each other because their parents won’t let them be together. A main scene in the movie that can portray how young and naïve they both are is the scene where they are Juliet drinks the “poison” and is “dead” and Romeo is running to tell her not to and gets there and she is “dead”. So he actually kills himself and then Juliet wakes up and sees that Romeo
is dead and then she kills herself with the same knife that he killed himself with (Baz Luhrmann).

Everyone has a different name for the kind of movie this it. One that has been heard before is that the movie is almost like a Miami vice, setting. The movie starts off with a news channel in a more modern time. Obviously the movie is set in Verona, Italy. There are cars and gas stations. Almost like now. They are fighting with guns instead of swords. The movie starts off with 3 men from each side of the families. They break out into a fight. This just shows you how much they really don’t like each other and how much their families don’t like each other either. There are no knight outfits or any type of outfit from the Nobel times. There are still mansions and lots of money. The Capulet’s are throwing a big party to get the governors son to notice her daughter and that is where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time. And then you know the rest of the story and what happens.

There are many themes in this story.
One theme is love. Or some form of love. Romeo and Juliet are “in love”, and maybe there is some truth in that. But the way that the story is portrayed is that they are too young to know what love actually is. In the scene where Romeo is in the bathroom looking at the fish and he see Juliet on the other side of the fish tank he instantly falls in love with her. And it looks like she does as well. They find out that they are enemies of each other but that does not stop them from wanting to be together. That is why at the end they end up killing themselves for each other. The second theme I see is hate. You can see how the hatred between both families led to the death of their only children. The parents blame themselves for the deaths because they didn’t just let their children love each other. A lesson learned in this story would be not to kill yourself because you can’t be with someone. Think things through and be sane (Baz
Lurhmann).

To sum things up, this is not a movie that is enjoyable. A good suggestion would be the one made before this one. One with an actual love story, one with the meant time period and setting. The movie did however show that there is a sense of love and hate with the theme, characterization, and the plot through the movie showing us a more modern day love story. Baz Lurhmann did a fantastic job with portraying such a modern version of a classic play.