Romeo and Juliet (1996 film)
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William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet is an Academy Award-nominated 1996 American film adaptation of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet. It was directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the eponymous roles.
The film is a modernisation of Shakespeare's play, designed to appeal to a younger modern audience. The warring families (the Montagues and the Capulets) are represented as warring business empires and swords are replaced by guns. Despite the adaptation, the film retains Shakespeare's original dialogue, albeit edited down for modern cinema audiences.
Overview
The plot has some changes from the original script:
Juliet's age is never directly stated; it is, however, hinted at by several of the characters' lines in the early scenes of the film.
Certain lines are omitted. For example, Juliet's soliloquy is recycled, and she wordlessly commits suicide with Romeo's gun.
Certain lines are moved from their original context. For example, Mercutio's Queen Mab speech is about a fairy queen in the play; in the film, it is perceived as an Ecstasy-like drug.
Certain events have their order altered. For example, in the death scene, Juliet's lines are moved so that she wakes as Romeo is drinking the poison, and he dies in her arms.
Certain lines of dialogue are moved from one speaker to another. For example, in the initial scene, the lines of the Montague and Capulet servants are swapped, until Tybalt enters the scene. Some (but very few) lines were added to the movie.
At times whole scenes are omitted, such as Romeo's killing of Paris, but this scene is often cut from stage productions as well.
Romeo buys the poison from the "Apothecary" in Verona instead of in Mantua.
Much of the film's story takes place in the fictional Los Angeles area town or suburb called "Verona Beach", which is based on the real life Venice Beach (a play on the fact that both are cities in Italy). As with the play, a brief part of the film takes place in a location known as Mantua, which is depicted as a desert-like hinterland.
Verona Beach is the center of a corporate war between two leaders of industry, "Montague" and "Capulet", rather than just a mere family feud. Prince Escalus is renamed "Captain Prince", and instead of being Prince of Verona, he is the Chief of the Verona Beach Police Department. His relationship to Paris (called "Dave Paris" in the movie) is removed from the film. Romeo and Juliet's parents are given names here too, the names in this case being Ted and Caroline Montague for Romeo's mother and father, and Fulgencio and Gloria Capulet for Juliet's mother and father. Dave Paris is not stated as being a nobleman, but rather a wealthy business magnate; throughout the film, he speaks in a conceited and pompous manner around Juliet and her father.
In addition to the characters being updated, many of the props were replaced with analogous contemporary props. In place of swords, the characters wield guns with fictional brand names like "Sword 9mm" or "Dagger"; Lord Montague's "Longsword" is a South African MAG-7 shotgun. Instead of chasing Tybalt on foot, Romeo and Tybalt engage in a car chase. Romeo crashes out Tybalt's car by the central fountain of the city, during which Romeo presses the barrel of Tybalt's pistol to his head and asks him to end his life. Tybalt refuses and in a resurgence of anger Romeo kills Tybalt with his own custom handgun. Although most of the fights are done with guns (and fists) instead of swords, Mercutio's death comes at the hands of Tybalt wielding a large shard of glass found on the beach. Mercutio's "Queen Mab" is an ecstasy-like drug in the form of a pill that Romeo takes before attending the Capulet party. Friar Lawrence gives the letter for Romeo in Mantua to a postal service called "Post Haste".
Retrieved from and for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare%27s_Romeo_%2B_Juliet
