by Ayesha Christmas

Created on: April 10, 2010

'Miss, I haven't got a clue what any of them are talking about, but it is fantastic!' This is what was whispered to me by a teenage girl as we sat together with the rest of my class in a free cinema screening of Baz Luhrmann's exciting and exhilarating production of Romeo and Juliet. A production for which I will be eternally grateful, as over the years it has enabled me to get countless children turned on to Shakespeare. The reaction of the majority of the kids I have watched it with is, I feel, the closest one is able to get to the excitement that Shakespeare's original audiences shouting and roaring from the groundlings must have displayed. It also provides a fantastic resources for teaching media studies as the examples of intertextuality are excellent and numerous and the innovative camera work is great for practising storyboarding and shot lists.

From the first assault on the senses that is the opening scene at the gas station to the fabulously romantic and atmospheric final scene, which can tug at the heartstrings of even the most cynical teenage boy, this film is an emotional rollercoaster ride which engages and entertains in equal measure. Baz Luhrmann even artfully preserves the prologue by using the most ubiquitous method of information dissemination then available to him, TV and once more employs this device at the close of the film, to great effect.

So just why is the film so successful in reworking one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays? In my opinion it is because of the almost flawless blend of a modern setting, fabulous soundtrack and the preeminent element, Shakespeare’s language and characters. Baz Luhrmann does not shy away from showing the audience what a giddy pair of children Romeo and Juliet are and although we may weep with sadness as we watch them die in the most beautiful way that the director could manage, we can also clearly see that Romeo and Juliet is not a play about romance at all but one about tribal violence and adult grudges borne of religion, business or politics. Romeo and Juliet works in the setting of Verona Beach  in much the same way that it worked in the New York streets of the musical ‘West Side Story’ and Malorie Blackman’s masterly  ‘Noughts and Crosses’ novel series.

 The ultimate moral message of the play is conveyed by Captain Prince (the chief of police!) ‘All are punished, All are punished’ as the gangster fathers shake hands make the ‘ancient grudge’ a memory out of respect for  their dead children. It is a very satisfying end to a great interpretation of the play.

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