Baz Luhrmann Romeo And Juliet Study Guide
Posted By admin On 24.12.19
's audience referred to going to hear a play rather than see it, emphasizing that the Elizabethan theater was an aural rather than visual experience. On stage, the characters described the setting in their speeches. The actor's words had to convey all necessary information about plot, characters, and setting because the action took place on a bare, open-air stage, with only a few props and limited costumes.
The plays were performed in the afternoon, and the playhouses did not have the advantages of lighting or special effects. For example, the scenes which take place at night make repeated references to objects associated with darkness, such as the moon, stars, and artificial sources of light, such as lamps and torches, to help create a sense of atmosphere and setting.
The Prologue sets the scene in both the play and the film. In Romeo + Juliet, Luhrmann presents the Prologue as a news bulletin that gives the events a feeling of immediacy — the urgency of an on-the-spot news report. The news broadcaster has replaced the Shakespearean Chorus for a modern audience while retaining the Chorus's function of providing commentary on events before they happen. Luhrmann emphasizes the setting as the Prologue ends. The camera zooms forward to scenes of Verona, with the words 'IN FAIR VERONA' flashing on the screen. Luhrmann presents Verona as a modern city, dominated by scenes of chaotic urban violence.
Aerial shots pan across the cityscape as police cars and helicopters dart about, and human casualties are strewn across the ground. Watching impassively is an enormous statue of Jesus.
These opening shots of a city divided by violence sets the scene for the subsequent action of the film. These vivid location shots perform the same function as the Prologue for Shakespeare's first audience. Ford escort workshop manuals.
A 16th-century playgoer would have associated the hot climate, fiery, passionate nature of the people, and strong sense of family honor with the Italian locale. By comparison, the film puts the viewer in the midst of the strife-torn city infected with crime and decay. The film uses these graphic images of violence to communicate the setting to the audience. In the film, the first six lines of the Prologue are repeated as a voice-over to accompany more news footage covering the latest outbreak of violence caused by the feud. Media coverage of the civil unrest stresses how the feud affects the entire city. As the voice reads, 'Two houses both alike in dignity,' the camera pulls back to reveal the photographs of both families on the front page of the city's newspaper. The next two lines of the Prologue are displayed as newspaper headlines and juxtaposed with clips of riot police attempting to restore order on the streets.
The media's presentation of the feud illustrates the impact of the 'ancient grudge' on the city while importing the play's introductory content in a format familiar to a modern audience. Continued on next page.
'Two households both alike in dignity in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death, Bury their parents strife. The fearful passage of their death marked love, and the continuance of their parents rage, which but their children's end not could remove, is now the two hours traffic of our stage.' Anchorwoman A female newscaster delivers what are the opening lines of Shakespeare's original play, which tell the viewer about an affair that ended in mutual suicide.
The cadence of the delivery resembles a nightly news report, and specific phrases ('ancient grudge,' 'new mutiny,' 'civil blood makes civil hands unclean,') reappear as newspaper headlines in the montage to follow. 'Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear its sight. For I never saw true beauty 'til this night.' Romeo Romeo says this about Juliet. He is asking himself if he ever truly loved anyone before he saw Juliet because until he saw her tonight he believes his eyes were lying to him, as true beauty has only just now appeared in the form of Juliet, and no one can compare.
'Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!'
Baz Luhrmann Romeo And Juliet Study Questions
Romeo Romeo is scrawling these verses into his notebook when we first hear them in voice-over, and they signal his uncomprehending shock at the deranging effects that passionate feelings of love can have on the human mind. His string of paradoxes ('heavy lightness,' 'serious vanity') reflect the contrary, illogical qualities of love that continue to confound his heart and mind. 'Drugs are quick.' Romeo In Shakespeare's play, this line is Romeo's penultimate, after he takes the draught of poison given to him by the apothecary.
In Luhrmann's film, Romeo recites this line during the Capulet party after taking the ecstasy tablet that Mercutio gave him at Sycamore Grove. 'And when I shall die, take him and cut him up in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will fall in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.' Juliet Juliet is expressing her deep love for Romeo in this moment. It is nearly a prayer in that she wishes when she dies he will become as bright as stars in the night sky that everyone will want night to come because they will see what she sees: the wonder of Romeo.
And once they see it, the whole world will change from desiring the sun to yearning for night to come where they can see the face of Romeo once again. 'O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet.'
Baz Luhrmann Romeo And Juliet Discussion Questions
Juliet One of the most famous lines ever written. Juliet speaks about her anguished love for Romeo. She knows that because their families have a generational feud that they will forbid their love, but she says that she doesn't care what it will take: she will love him even if it means changing her family name for him. 'Good night, good night!
Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.' Juliet This rhyming couplet crystallizes the bittersweet feeling of happiness and sadness that having to say goodbye to a loved one inflicts. Juliet is speaking to herself, having watched Romeo retreat from the courtyard back over the Capulet mansion walls, and is one of many remarks she makes expressing her impatience at having to wait for certain events to come to pass. 'I'll look to like, if looking liking move: But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent to give strength to make it fly.' Juliet This is Juliet's clever, canny reply to her mother's cajoling about whether she would be willing to entertain Paris as a potential groom.
The line suggests that Juliet will entertain and tolerate Paris's presence, but feels she should be under no obligation to feel anything that she does not genuinely feel. I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.' Tybalt This line dramatically captures Tybalt's sneering disapproval at any attempts by the Montagues to de-escalate the battle that unfolds in the film's opening scene. Tybalt worships at the altar of violence, and believes wholly in the Capulets' righteous, quasi-religious quest to execute all of the heretical Montagues. 'I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind.' Mercutio These lines come at the end of the Queen Mab speech, laying bare Mercutio's ambivalent feelings toward dreams.
While they can be wonderful generators of pleasure and happiness, Mercutio warns that they are finally immaterial, and not to be relied upon. How To Cite in MLA Format GradeSaver 'Romeo and Juliet (Film 1996) Quotes and Analysis'. GradeSaver, 4 October 2018 Web.