Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of the opening scene Essay

Concentrating on the presentation of character, setting and teleph hotshot, analyse retrospect and comment on what adoptms to you to be significant features of Baz Luhrmanns expressive style as a film director, with particular reference to Romeo and Juliet Baz Luhrmanns recreation of Shakespe atomic number 18s bet Romeo and Juliet, as a film text, has been a great supremacy in todays forward- expression world. Baz Luhrmanns intentions, in do this film, were to take a classic Shakespearean walkover (something that not that more young people appreciate any more in this modern age) and to modernise it.To translate the get a line of what would countenance been an exciting source of recreation in the 17th hundred into a fun filled carry issue(p)/romantic movie suit subject for the demanding eyes of the modern worlds youth . Baz Luhrmann had ask himself the question if Shakespeare were alive today, how would he of yield the movie. The construction he uses is putting Shake speare on a billboard in date Square.The film opens with a picture of a television classify switched off then, with no vowelize, clicks one with a few credits on the screen as if someone is changing the channel to find something that would involution them then clicks onto this channel with a newsreader reading out what sounds worry news but is the prologue of Romeo and Juliet. While the newsreader is reading out this in the background in a box, where you would tick a picture of a broken wedding band, which symbolises the broken do between Romeo and Juliet. consequently uses a series of television television camera styles like rapid zoom and whooshing noise as it goes into the image of the newsreader, followed by dramatic unison. The images then start whooshing onto other akin(predicate) images of Verona and with this the prologue is repeated by the priest, with a more stern and authentic voice. Then it shows pictures of the cast with information about them. This is the in troduction to Baz Luhrmanns film and with this he catches the viewers attention. He achieves this by giving the viewers a stress of the excitement to come by showing a few inadequate clips of some if the film. This suffers them hungry for more.In the first mount of this recreational play we start off with 3 men from the house of Montague, the Montague Boys, which we see at the start of the film accompanied with a mammoth title expression THE MONTAGUE BOYS and a rap style song repeating the words the boys, the boys. They are achieving what Shakespeare wanted them to do originally issue around being fierce and rowdy but in a modern days style. In the original play the 2 men are sound going around a market place showing off Baz Luhrmann beauteous much goes along the aforementioned(prenominal) line of what happened in the original play but with cars, tall extravagant buildings, helicopters, sirens etc.Baz Luhrmann puts the Montagues in a petrol station where they meat up w ith there rivals the Capulets and recreates the confrontations with taws, which just so happen have the dishonor name of swords, rapiers etc. Its all real(prenominal) clever if youve seen the original play. Even though that Baz Luhrmann has changed the visuals and made the film more modern he hasnt changed the record he has ease unploughed it in that same Shakespearean tong thus, thou hast, knowest, thow etc.He did this for 2 reasons 1 because if he didnt financial backing the script it would virtually be the same as East side falsehood (another recreation of Romeo and Juliet) and 2 to bring a piece of the 17th century and stick it in the film to show people, of the modern world, how Shakespeare made his play. Baz Luhrmann kept the original scripture of the film he did this so that he still kept the true nature of the play pure. In doing this he had to make the visuals far more stunning, majestic and exaggerated so as to make it so the audience could understand it through the visual image of the film.The characters in Luhrmanns films are very exaggerated so by looking at the way they act and speak you can instantly enumerate what kind of mortal they are in the film The bad jackass, the funny guy, the romantic guy etc. For example the ii Montague boys are all rough and tough when they are talking bottom the Capulets back but when they are face to face with the Capulets they are very jumpy and scared and also very comical at the same time. But the Capulet boys are much more mean and bullish. Abra a big scary looking character who strikes fear into the Montagues he also loses his chastise and Tybalt.Tybalt being the main big bad guy of the film is very harsh and cruel he looks like a big hit man slinger. He has a very stylised character his movement his unit of measurement style gives him a great sense of character even by the way that he speaks you know he is the bad guy. The Gordianity of the sound involved in Baz Luhrmanns creations is quit e fascinating. At any one point in the film there are a commode of sounds being played for all the different types of things, which you can here, even in the simplest scenes.Many of the sounds are synthesized this means the sounds are created by a computer, this allows the editor to add in and take out sound with ease. Youll see an image on the screen and will be listening to a complex layering of sounds, which will all be playing at once. For example footsteps, gunshots, whooshing and cars in the background, dialogue and much more. The music will change to the emotion of the person or the film. If you were to listen to all the sounds individually and added together you would be able to hear how the affects are achieved and see how complicated it actually is.All the sounds are stored on a sound deck and are then set up and played at the times required. The film even has its own sound track, which was released into the charts and went number one at one stage or another. wad liste ned to this and were deeply encouraged to go and watch the film because of what they heard from the soundtrack. snuff it is utilise to enhance emotion and interest the rap style music at the start of the film when the Montague boys are in their car, a puma roar sound is emitted when the car revs its engine (this is used to give a sense of danger) Silence is also used to increase tension.Exaggerated sounds on small objects are also used for this purpose. Choreography is the word, which means style of the character and the movement of the character i. e. the style of the movement given out gives a sense of character. Tybalts style is very intriguing in the way that he moves almost like hes dancing. Tybalts movement is meant to be a sort of flamenco dance he moves very fluently and gives a sense that he is an experienced gun fighter. The part when every thing goes silent and Tybalt comes onto the scene and all you see is boots which then crush on a dropped match and emits that horri ble grind sound.The way in which Tybalt moves embellishes his character. The Montague boys are very jumpy and scared and contradict with great movement this is called Pantomimic exaggeration. In the first scene one hundred seventy shots were used. The techniques used in the film were very much the same as the ones used in western films. The film was meant to be in a western music genre, a spaghetti western. A spaghetti western is a sought of love story/ western. The camera techniques used in the film are very good at delivering different emotions or to increase/decrease tension. magnanimous wide shots are less dramatic than the suspension given out by a close up shot. In the first scene there is a large variety of camera styles used, such as when Abra is confronting the Montague boys and the camera suddenly zooms in on his teeth with the word S I N inscribed on them, with camera is looking up at him, this terrifies the Montagues and then causes one of the Montague boys falls back into the car and the camera is looking down on him. When a camera is looking up at a character it is much more scarier than when a camera is looking down upon someone.Computer aided technology was used to foster design the costumes for the characters in the film a photos was interpreted of the actor and the designs where then put on to the computer software to be mapped out and used so they could try samples on the actors to see how it looked and see if they liked it or not, in that context. The Montagues wore bright Hawaiian styled open t-shirts patch the Capulets wore flat jackets and darker clothing in a more Latino style. They have also spent a lot of time designing the guns for the films, which symbolise the swords in the original play (thats why the gun brand is called swords).You see in the film the two buildings of both Montague and Capulet, this represents the focus on religious iconography shows that religion (the 2 families are both religious families and compliments there religious beliefs) and the law are not able to economize the battle, the confrontation, and the feud between these to households. Miami was used to shoot the film because of its Latino genre and its religious environment hot country- hot blooded. The go down on station was used in the film to symbolize modern city life and to keep the scene similar to that of the original play market square and gas station both places of common publicity.