CASE STUDY: FROM PLAY TO FILM. ROMEO + JULIET

For my case study I chose the play 'Romeo and Juliet' by William Shakespeare (1597).

The film version of Romeo and Juliet I chose was the version directed by Baz Luhrmann in 1996 (IMDb, 1996) starring a young American actor Leonardo DiCaprio and an even younger actress Claire Danes.

The major challenge Luhrmann encountered when making the film adaptation of the play Romeo of Juliet was how he was going to do it visually while keeping the original language of the play. He decided to do it thinking as if Shakespeare was going to do a film himself in the present time. Luhrmann saw William Shakespeare as if he was alive in our present times, he would be a modern street writer/artist, possibly a rapper. And based on that idea, he decided to give a street vibe to his film, with both families, Montague and Capulet, representing the two most powerful families of that city. And the friends of Romeo and Tybalt belong to the two most well known street gangs (one for each family) of that city. He was looking to portray in his adaptation the buzz of Los Angeles and Mexico: Noisy streets with a busy street life (YouTube, 2015).

He chose a young Leonardo DiCaprio because he considered him to be the perfect portrayal of a modern Romeo, he thought of him as a modern Marlon Brando, who was considered as one of the best actors of all time (IMDb, 2022), and as a very handsome actor; He also felt DiCaprio had the ability of taking the language of Shakespeare and making it his own.

Luhrmann explained how it was more difficult to cast Juliet as he wanted somebody who genuinely looked much younger than Leonardo DiCaprio but still making DiCaprio look young. Claire Danes was only 14 year old when she got cast for the part. Because she was underage she could only be for short intervals of time on set. The implication of her being underage meant the crew had to shoot fast.

Some of the most memorable scenes from the film happened unexpectedly without being previously prepared.

One of those scenes was the scene where the two gangs started shooting at each other at a petrol station. Apparently that was an actual working petrol station in the middle of Mexico city and because it was in the middle of the city, production could not block the area completely as the traffic had to still flow around the city. Apparently production blocked the petrol station and a side of the petrol station for filming. When they were shooting the scene, one of the actors ran in the opposite direction, towards the part of the road that was not blocked for filming. That side of the road was with real cars and real people that were at that moment near the shooting location. The actor jumped over cars that were stuck in traffic and the reactions we saw of people who were inside cars and on the street were genuine reactions. The take was so great that the director decided to keep it (YouTube, 2014).

Another marvellous scene of the film that was not planned and made it to the final cut was the scene where the two families fought and Mercutio died in a street market by the beach. While they were filming it, a real hurricane started to come towards the film set and Luhrmann decided to keep filming. It was a dangerous decision because for safety reasons, when strong winds blow, the film shooting should resume. Luhrmann mentioned they did some pickups later in that year in a studio in Los Angeles to complete that scene (YouTube, 2010).

Romeo and Juliet was a play of Shakespeare set in Verona in the fourteenth century. Luhrmann wanted to keep the language of Shakespeare, the old English spoken in the fourteenth century and adapt the play to a modern film. The challenge of keeping the old English and bringing Romeo and Juliet to the modern times was extraordinary. He resolved this challenge thinking how Shakespeare would have filmed the play himself in our present times. Luhrmann considered the old English spoken in this play as the English spoken by street artists, rappers. The English they use is different to the regular spoken English because they use slang and speak in verse, giving a rhyme to whatever they say. With that idea in his head, Luhrmann decided to portray Verona as a city full of buzz, noise and movement with two strong families, referencing a type of mafia families or different street gangs. The idea was to portray that duality between both families.

Kym Barrett was the costume designer of Romeo + Juliet (YouTube, 2015). She wanted both families to look distinctive and different. She got inspired by the American soldiers after WWII wearing Hawaiian shirts with shorts for the costume of the Montague gang/ family portraying the Montague more like flyboys. The Capulet gang/family was more gangster, low-hipped, gunslinging, cowboy-boots and often had religious iconography in their costumes. Both families were very religious and she asked Dolce & Gabbana if they would be interested in collaborating because the budget of the film was very low. The couture firm gave Barrett old stock which she freely used for the main cast and the crowd of the film (Liam, 2021).

To this day many consider Luhrmann’s film adaptation of the play Romeo and Juliet the best one ever done. His vision of how to bring a play of the fourteenth century to a film of the twentieth century and a great crew and cast made it possible.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

IMDb. 2022. Marlon Brando - IMDb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000008/> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

IMDb. 1996. Romeo + Juliet (1996) - IMDb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

Liam, H., 2021. 25 Years Later, The ‘Romeo + Juliet’ Costumes Are As Magical As Ever. [online] British Vogue. Available at: <https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/romeo-and-juliet-costumes> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

Youtube.com. 2010. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsL14sHZOnE&t=20s> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

Youtube.com. 2014. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEzskNtFnIY> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

Youtube.com. 2015. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icV7t_Fa_qE> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

Youtube.com. 12015. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VBsi0VxiLg> [Accessed 18 May 2022].

*This is a project for my MA Acting for Stage and Screen at UEL, London (2022)