Scarica Romeo+Juliet versus Romeo and Juliet e più Appunti in PDF di Lingue e letterature classiche solo su Docsity! Essay “Romeo + Juliet” I decided to watch “Romeo + Juliet” because | was interested in knowing how a movie director could make a film adaptation of a Shakespeare's play using a “modern setting”. The movie is an eventful story with good actors, but the most important feature is represented by the film adaptation of William Shakespeare's immortal tragedy. The setting is a paradoxical and deliberately kitsch “Verona Beach”, a miniature reproduction of today's Los Angeles, devastated by racial tensions and mixed with something of the chaotic Mexico City. I liked the chosen setting because it is in strong contrast to the Verona of 1500 and, at the same time, it gave the opportunity to the movie director to build the same Shakespeare's plot but with very different characters. Mercutio is now an emphatic black young man and Capulet ‘s family appears to be very rude, in particular Juliet's father. In the Shakespeare's play, Lord Capulet is instead a pretty nice dad who is looking out for best interest of Juliet. This movie sticks to the Shakespeare's play because you can recognize the same main plot and even some Shakespeare's dialogues in it. The movie also shows a tragic end because the tragic role of chance. The same fundamental themes of the Shakespeare's play can be found in the movie: e The lack of knowledge between Romeo and Juliet and the chance causes the tragic final. * Love as light, that is Shakespeare uses the image of light for the love between Romeo and Juliet, starting from the first time Romeo sees Juliet to the famous balcony scene when Romeo associates Juliet to the sunlight. However, there are some differences: e “Romeo + Juliet” is settled in “Verona beach” in the contemporary age (the movie was produced at the end of nineties): we can see cars, helicopters, skyscrapers, guns and police. * The movie shows that the letter the Friar sent to warn Romeo of Juliet's plan doesn't arrive in time by accident, while the Shakespeare's play tells that because of the plague in town the messenger cannot leave Verona and the message doesn't reach Romeo. * Both movie and Shakespeare's play tell that Tebaldo kills Mercutio, Romeo's best friend. The movie shows that Tebaldo then escapes with his car and Romeo runs after him and, once reached, he kills Tebaldo with a gun. In the Shakespeare's play Romeo kills his opponent Paris too, in the graveyard, just before the end of the story with the suicides of two lovers. In the movie this last murder doesn't appear. e In the Shakespeare's play Juliet doesn't suicide with a gun but she stabs with her dagger.
