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Angelo Pizarro
5/13/14
Block 3
Mrs. Cruz & Ms. Garcia
Romeo And Juliet Movie Comparison
About 421 years ago a play named Romeo And Juliet was written by a man named
William Shakespeare. This play has been performed on stages, the biggest around, and been
turned into movies galore. Even tho there are plenty of movie adaptations the two most popular
and most widely accepted versions were done by directors, Franco Zeffirelli (1968) and Baz
Luhrmann (1996). Even tho these two are both essentially about the same story they differ in
many ways.
Zefferli in his Romeo And Juliet really wanted to focus on the pleasantness and
sweetness of true, young love set in the time frame that Shakespeare had in mind; whereas on the
other hand Luhrmanns version really focuses in on the violence of the story (in present day) and
doesnt really pay homage to the romantic tragedy of the star-crossed lovers. When we first lay
eyes upon young Romeo in the 1996 Luhrmann adaptation, he is seen writing in his journal his
thoughts and his oxymoronic speech where he takes light and dark and contrasts the two. This
doesnt show to the viewer that he is as romantic as the Zeffirelli version where Romeo is very
romantic and appears very innocent walking down the street, heartbroken, holding flowers in his
hand and he thinks of his love and how she cant love him back the way he loves her. This is
shown in the same way with Juliets character. In the Luhrmann version, Juliet is not as innocent
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as the book portrays her to be with her appearing to know more about love and appearing to be
more mature. She acts as if she knows how to kiss and has been in a relationship before in her
way of making out with Romeo instead of being taken back. In Zeferellis version, Juliet is very
innocent. We first see her running around the corridors playing with another girl and is quite
shocked (even tho she wanted him to kiss her) when Romeo kisses her at the dance.