The Mise-en-Scène of “Romeo + Juliet” film by Baz Luhrmann
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (Romeo+Juliet) is a 1996 American film which was directed, co-produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. It is based on William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet which is brought into the modern day environment.
As the modern era is much advance, the use of weapons and services from Shakespeare’s era were replaced into which the modern days use. The families are now known as mafias who holds empires with legitimate business fronts which are in competition of each other. While all of the setting and location are turned into America’s modern, the film’s dialogue is still Shakespeare’s.
The film is created in the different cities and locations in modern America. Whereas, the location differs from which perspective of the characters take. As of Romeo’s location, it takes part at the beach side as if it is their safe location from their wars of the two arch-rival families.
The Capulet Mansion on the other hand is (obviously) Capulet’s safe location. Events were to happen at their mansion for a celebration. Some parts of the film seemed to be constructed locations like the business buildings of the two families, while some are found locations.
The style of their apparel differs from which settings take. In the business front, they wear the usually business apparel as their formal encounter to ‘attack’ as if it’s their armor for their war of the families. In location wise, the Capulet family hold a much city fashioned clothing style. Even their props and make-up are city-fashioned.
On Montague’s side, they are more loose and open. Not much are worn even their make-ups are not visible. They wear beach fashioned clothing style and props seemed to be more temporarily built than Capulet’s as Montague family lives on the beach side.
The color of the film differs. It follows the emotions of the events. It has a over-saturated colors in appeal throughout the film to distinguish the same appeal of the era of Shakespeare’s. It mixes the feeling of warm and cool as the location expresses different colors but maintains the “filter” quality of the whole film.
The Capulet and the Montague families shows similarities in the events of fighting. As each of them despise one another by today’s events, they continue to carry the hatred throughout their next generations because of their families’ competition in their businesses.
The Capulet family are more civilized. They are much concealed in action and carries a darker impression towards people. They are less exaggerated but seemed to be more judgmental. They are more “Marte” than the Montagues.
The Montague family are wild and expressive. They are much loose in action and carries a lighter impression towards people. They carry a more freedom environment and enjoys hanging around with their fellow family.
The police carries a concealed impression with a neutral judgement towards the two families. They don’t take sides but hates the brawls between the two families. They appear only when the brawling comes to a bigger problem.
Despite being in the Capulet family, Juliet carries a much lighter impression towards things. She is soft and feminine in action but wild when going out with Romeo. She also carries the character of Shakespeare’s Juliet.
Romeo is the love of Juliet as he is towards her. He is a bit serious than the Montagues but soft at heart when it comes to love. He expresses a much concealed impression towards things but is also wild in action.
The movie overall is great. It would be confusing at first because of the continues cuts of scenes to follow the dialogue of the original Shakespeare’s tragedy. Though if you pay much attention to the movie, it shows a much favorable events into how it was converted into a modern act.
