When it comes to legendary love stories, surely Romeo and Juliet reigns supreme – or does it? My husband insists it’s not a love story at all, just a very stylish tragedy. But regardless of how you frame it, it’s astonishing that something written over 400 years ago still commands such a hold on our imaginations.
This month over at Five Books For we’ve been celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday (23rd April) by looking at a few of the books his works have inspired. When I come to think about adaptations, there are plenty to choose from, but Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet stands out for its vividly imagined world, brilliant acting and atmospheric soundtrack, which made it the obvious choice for this month’s column.
The original Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, set in the Italian city of Verona. It tells the story of two young star-crossed lovers, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, whose families have been feuding since before they were born. They fall in love at first sight without knowing each other’s identities and secretly marry, defying their families. A series of misunderstandings and disasters ensue, and a tragic miscommunication leads to what might just be the saddest ending in all of romantic literature.
The language, like all of Shakespeare’s work, manages to be both simple and complex with lots of hidden layers of meaning, as well as beautiful to both read and listen to. One of the reasons that Shakespeare’s work had such wide appeal in his day is that every sentence works on multiple levels: there is witty, intellectual wordplay as well as complex themes which would have appealed to an educated audience, but plenty of bawdy humor and action for those who may not have been educated, but still wanted to be entertained. And of course we can enjoy the best of both aspects.
This play has so many famous lines, you will inevitably know many of them even if you have never read it, seen it or studied it at school. The love between Romeo and Juliet is intense in the way that first love is often described as being (I’m curious to know whether this stacks up for people in real life or whether it’s more of a common cultural perception that we all live under) and while it is, at heart, a love story, it’s also an exploration of fate, conflict, friendship and loyalty.
If you love reading classics or romances, want to read something that will make you cry or even just fancy a tragedy, this is the perfect read.
To get even more out of it, it’s interesting to know a little about how it would have been staged back in Shakespeare’s time. Obviously there have been hundreds of new interpretations and stagings of it in the past 400 or so years, but it’s fascinating to think about how it would have originally been presented to audiences by the playwright himself.
Theatres at the time, including the Globe where most of Shakespeare’s work was performed, were generally roofless, meaning that all performances were open air and of course there would have been no artificial lighting, which meant that shows took place during daylight only and atmosphere could only be evoked through acting, which must have required great skill on the part of the actors, not to mention the possibility of disruption by the English weather (for which read: rain, rain and more rain, no matter the season).
There would have been very minimal scenery, hence some of the verbal descriptions you’ll find included in the play text, and part of the stage would have extended all the way out into the standing part of the (often lively) audience, who the actors interacted with during the performance. When you read the first fight scene in Romeo and Juliet and imagine the actors fighting amongst a rowdy, boisterous crowd, you can imagine what an incredible experience it must have been to see.
The fact that the stage had no curtain meant that any changes had to be made quickly and simply, so there were no elaborate props or pieces of furniture which would be difficult to move. In contrast to the minimal scenery and simplicity of the props, costumes would have been elaborate and sumptuous, inspired by the fashions of the time and disregarding the period of the play’s setting and its location. Wealthy and noble characters would have been dressed more richly, with lower-class characters wearing simpler garments.
Perhaps most notably for modern readers, all the actors would have been male and in fact, many of the female characters would have been played by boys whose voices hadn’t yet broken. All the actors, regardless of age, would have needed strong stage presence – needing to be able to command the attention of an often rowdy or distracted audience – and also great versatility, as the theatre companies of the time performed in repertory, where each actor might play several different roles in different plays from day to day, rather than doing a long run of a single role in a single play as is more typical today. They would also have needed quite a variety of skills including the ability to deliver a good soliloquy, physical comedy and fight scenes, which can be difficult to do convincingly.
There would have been live music at each performance as well as musical interludes, and the same musicians who provided the music would also have provided the sound effects, although they would be relatively simple compared to what we might see these days.
All this together – the amazing acting, the bare-bones staging, the audience interaction, the beautiful costumes, the live music and even the fresh air – must have made going to a contemporary performance of Romeo and Juliet quite an experience.
All of which begs the question – how do you honour a centuries-old script while still making it resonate with modern audiences? Cue Baz Luhrmann, in a cloud of glittery gun smoke.
Romeo + Juliet, Luhrmann’s 1996 adaptation, is a dazzling and very fun way to experience the play: it’s visually spectacular and has a great soundtrack He keeps almost all of the original script, with only a few lines cut for clarity and brevity, and adds a heap of visual cues which help make the language feel more natural and accessible.
Transposed to the modern (well, 1990s) setting of the fictional Verona Beach, the film has a high-intensity, MTV-inspired aesthetic that throws you in at the deep end of the action from the very beginning.
Everything is bold and brash: the vibrant colours, the rapid-fire editing, the dramatic camera work (all those zoom shots!) and the flashy transitions all bring lots of energy and urgency to the story and echo the intensity of both the teenage love and the violent conflict at the centre of the plot. You can also see the influence of both comic books and spaghetti Westerns at work too, in a very fun way.
Luhrmann recreates the play’s chorus as a news anchor, which works brilliantly, and the news footage of the riots in particular, although shot for the movie, will resonate for anyone who remembers seeing the LA riots on the news when they happened. The Montagues and Capulets become two rival business empires rather than two aristocratic houses, and with guns and souped up cars taking the place of the original swords and horses. The two rival families are strongly visually coded, which makes it easier to distinguish between them if you’re trying to concentrate on the dialogue. The Montagues tend towards Hawaiian shirts and beach-casual, while the Capulets are much darker and slicker with suiting and elements of Spanish matador costumes (especially Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin).
The film is absolutely saturated with religious imagery, from a giant statue of Christ likely inspired by Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, to the various altars, niches and icons that feature in almost every scene, adding visual spectacle and emotional drama as well as making a not-so-subtle point about piety and hypocrisy.
One of the biggest contrasts of the film, and one stylistic choice which works especially well, is between the big public scenes, which are usually loud, flashy, and sometimes violent, and the smaller (but often more important) private moments, which are usually lit softly and have an almost dream-like quality to them. The party at the Capulets’ house is a great example of a show-stoppingly extravagant, brash party, while the deeply romantic underwater kiss just a little later the same evening forms a striking contrast to all the bombast of the party.
It’s an effective and thoughtful way to highlight the fragility and preciousness of love in such a violent, loud world. This mirrors the way Shakespeare also toggles between public spectacle and private longing – balcony confessions and street duels are both part of the fabric of the play.
Of course, the visual language of the film would be worthless without good acting, and there are some first-rate performances. Romeo is played by a pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio and Juliet by the incredible Claire Danes, aged only 17 at the time of filming. One of the most refreshing things about watching the film again all these years later is seeing how natural Danes looks: this was made before the days of near-universal Botox, treatments and fillers, and the film is much more convincing for it. Interestingly, DiCaprio apparently fought hard to have Danes cast as Juliet. The supporting cast are also wonderful – John Leguizamo as Tybalt, Harold Perrineau as Mercutio, and Pete Postlethwaite as Friar Laurence in particular help to make the film what it is.
The soundtrack to Romeo + Juliet became a hit in its own right, but its real strength is how it becomes almost a character in and of itself and is used as another way to amp up the storytelling. Music is integral to the atmosphere and pacing of the film, and the mixture of pop, rock and indie works perfectly with the setting and the visuals to create something truly special.
Whether you fall for the poetic prose, the punchy visuals, or the bittersweet heartbreak of it all, Romeo and Juliet continues to be one of our most adaptable and endlessly fascinating stories. Now, your turn: tell us your favourite version!