Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Being a Major Departure from Shakespeare's Original Work - Movie Review Example

Innovation is presented for a more marketable modern audience while retaining the old Shakespearean themes, such as love versus hate, youth versus age, and destiny versus determination. Despite its tremendous success, critiques ranged from admiration to disgust (“Romeo and Juliet: Of its Time and of Ours”). Nevertheless, Luhrmann has ultimately given the audience what is possibly the most dedicated of all film adaptations in upholding the persona of both Shakespeare and his play. As Shakespeare probably projected, all succeeding adaptations would be free-spirited and packed with the younger generation’s impulsivity; a challenge to power; and a rebellion.

The boldness and extremism of Luhrmann's wild editing, spectacular art direction and humor rebel against authority and sensibility and likewise matched the bravado of the lead characters, Romeo and Juliet (“Romeo and Juliet: Of its Time and of Ours”). . The director shot scenes at great angles and always-moving camera effects and used unusual shooting memos such as "macro slam zoom" and "distorted out-of-focus close-up," to provide a more or less frenzied energy. Rap, modern hip-hop, rock, electric guitar, Western sound themes and Latin chants throughout the movie give a characteristically teenaged attitude (“Romeo and Juliet: Of its Time and of Ours”).

Shakespeare, according to Luhrmann, used every musical variety and poetry to satisfy the much diversified viewers in the Globe Theater. In the 1996 adaptation, Luhrmann echoes this in his film, informs the public against the foolishness of meaningless family disputes and cleverly revises it for the 20th century, however, preserving its crucial ethical fight as it relates easily to the young audiences (Gibbs). “Poetry is the most effective means of instruction, as poetry can “teach…not only by delivering forth his very being, his causes and effects, but also by making known his enemy, vice, which must be destroyed, and his cumbersome servant, passion, which much be mastered” (Duncan-Jones 220).

Although much of the Shakespearean poetry is lost in Luhrmann’s film due to cuts, the plot remains unharmed. This dismayed several critics but quite a few intellectuals sided with Luhrmann, revealing that Shakespeare’s language and script are intended to be used as a starting ground for his stories, rather than just being a stationary writing (“Romeo and Juliet: Of its Time and of Ours”). Dissimilarities are aplenty between Shakespeare’s original and the outrageously lively Luhrmann version.

Whereas in the play, sex is an acceptable expression of love, particularly for the young;