Analysis of the Opening Scene of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet

Analysis of the Opening Scene of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet

The film that I am analysing is called Romeo and Juliet. It was

released in 1996 and the director is called Baz Luhrmann. Leonardo

DiCaprio starred as Romeo and Claire Danes starred as Juliet. It was

very successful because in the first opening week it got $11million

and the second week it got $9million. The aim of the film was to

entertain and interest the audience just like Shakespeare did. Baz

Luhrmann wanted to make a more modern version because he wanted it to

be easier for the younger viewers to understand. In his own words he

wanted to “knock Shakespeare off his pedestal.”

The setting has been changed from the original because in the original

the fight scene was set in a market square and the Capulets’ start it

but in the new version the Montagues’ started it and it was set in a

petrol station. Luhrmann did this deliberately as he wanted to show

that both families were to blame for the feud. The film began with the

Montagues when they drive into the petrol station to fill up their car

and the Capulets drive in and see the Montagues and they start to

argue. The part where a boy gets shot at the beginning is cut because

Luhrmann thought that it would be too dramatic to see that early on in

the film (and an assassin had walked into an American school and shot

lots of innocent children just before the film was made). The opening

scene was used to grab the audience’s attention with the big gun fight

in the petrol station because the audience are made aware that

something like an explosion is going to happen because it has a sign

that says ‘Phoenix add more fuel to your fire.’ This adds tension for

the audience.

The themes of the play are Religion, War, Gang warfare and racism

which were all written in the original by Shakespeare and are still

kept as part of the film today. In this scene there are 170 different