Baz Luhrman Romeo and Juliet

Though many film directors would be satisfied with a modern blockbuster, the Australian director Baz Luhrmann set himself the task of reviving Shakespeare for a modern audience. Luhrmann felt that Shakespeare had been hijacked by intellectuals. Luhrmann had specific aims in mind for this movie; he wanted to convince a wide audience but particularly teenagers that Shakespeare’s plays are great stories, as they are violent and entertaining, prove that Shakespeare isn’t boring and old fashioned and to make Shakespeare’s language easily accessible to all by matching visual effects to words to clarify the meaning. He fruitfully achieved all of his aims with his 1991 film ‘William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet’, which has since developed into a land mark in the history of the cinema.

Luhrmann begins his movie the way Shakespeare began his play, with the prologue. He uses the prologue to explain the plot to the audience; he does this as he doesn’t want to lose his audience in the plot of the film and to allow the audience to pay closer attention to the how’s and whys of the plot rather than trying to work out what is happening in the movie. He immediately pulls the attention of the audience by using a television surrounded by darkness, which gives the audience a main object to look at. He uses a television as it is modern and the audience would instantly relate with this. A newscaster appears on its screen wearing bright red; this is an advancing colour which instantly draws in the attention of the audience, and also foreshadows the upcoming bloodshed. The background colour is a receding colour which makes the newscaster even more alluring to the eye. Luhrmann uses the newscaster to his advantage and makes her say the prologue, he does this for two main reasons; one is to make the language more accessible as we expect newscasters to speak in formal English, this softens the Shakespearean language and makes it less menacing for the audience, Luhrmann also uses as...