Comparing Two Film Versions Of Romeo And Juliet

A Comparison of the Interpretations of Two Film Versions of Romeo and Juliet

Having studied the openings of two film versions, the two directors Franco Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrmann, show they interpret the play differently because of the way they see different meanings in them. By interpreting the play differently, it also means the audience pick up a different meaning. Every image seen in the beginning decides whether the audience should continue with watching the film. But what makes a film so engaging? Every image and sound is chosen deliberately by the director to signify specific things. Looking further into this, comparing both Zeffirelli and Luhrmanns introduction, we can see the different uses

With the slide transition into the next scene, it skips a few lines and goes straight into Gregorys’ line ‘A dog of the house of Montague moves me.’ Music is played in the background, quite modern, they are in the car laughing and fooling around, and again the director introduces them as the Montague boys. From this we can see that the Montagues are just young men fooling around, not caring about anything. It then goes on to the Montague boys arriving at the petrol station, and again shows religious elements such as a cross in the car window. As Benvolio exits the car he takes part or Gregorys line and says ‘The quarrel is between our masters’ and Gregory replies with the end of his line ‘and us their men’. This makes Benvolio look like a peacemaker, by saying his part of the line is telling us that the argument is between their masters, meaning they should stay out of it because it is not of their business, but with Gregorys reply, it is as if they should fight for them. This effect is given because of the way that the director has swapped the lines around. Also, the director

With the audience expecting it to be quite boring and calm, when the fight does occur, it livens it up and the audience find it unexpected.

From the quite and peacefulness of the music in the prologue, suddenly changes and instead of repetition like Luhrmann did, it goes straight into the story. The market square- noisy, busy and very public, this is where the fight is set. The loudness of everyone in the streets shows that this version is much more public, so the fight will include a large variety of different people. Then enter the Capulets. Zeffirelli has kept to the script, because this was his interpretation to the play. The costumes are certainly different to those of Luhrmanns, because of the time difference. Although, the two houses appear again with different colours, to let the audience know which family is which. The Capulets appear in much brighter colours such as yellows and oranges whereas the Montagues appear in the darker colours such as navy blue and black. The introduction to the fight is much quicker. They Capulets enter with the line spoken by Gregory