An Analysis of the opening sequences of Luhrmann’s Essay

I think Luhrmann repeated the prologue three times to make people understand what was to come, because he did not add the last two lines which were ‘In which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.’ In other words, meaning that if you have not understood this prologue they hoped their hard work helps you understand it.  The first time the prologue is shown is when the news reporter is on the news reading out the prologue. She has a modern American accent towards this but it seems as if Luhrmann has kept to the old Shakespearean language; also, there is the picture of a ring in the corner. The sequence starts of with interference and then it tunes in onto the news, then the news reporter starts reading out the prologue. To put it in media terms I would say the first few shots of the zoom in creating a lead up to the extreme close up of the news reporter. I would say then that a medium close up was used until the second time the prologue was shown. I think this interpretation of the prologue represents how important and how serious the conflict between the families is and shows the end of both lovers also showing the end of the feud. The second time the prologue is shown, it shows a serious of pictures of Verona Beach according to the lines of the prologue, which is now read by a man. Either, he wanted to make the prologue stronger by doing that or make a change to get it stuck in people’s head. There are loads of newspaper cuttings but one of the newspapers shows both the families, which ends up in flames. It also shows images of two skyscrapers one with Montague on top and the other with Capulet also God (Jesus) is standing in the middle showing, I think this shows that the feud might have gone to far and God has now stepped in to stop it. Also at the end of this both the families are shown with the other characters apart from Romeo and Juliet. In the Mise-en-scene of the completely said prologue, there were close-ups of the families, medium shots, long shots, bird’s eye view shots, etc. The third time the prologue is shown the writing comes up. In addition, there are a few scenes from the film later on, which gives us an insight of whats to come.  This start gives us quite a lot of insight to the film this gives us a head start to whats to come from the whole film. In this interpretation, I think there were only quick shots used to give an effect of how quick the story went.  I think the audience might get a different feeling from each time the prologue because it shows different types of ways to express the prologue it shows the end, beginning and middle. In Act 1, Scene 1 the two families’ boys have a comical fight at a petrol station but it shows the first actual conflict between the families. The Montague boys go down to petrol station and to represent them they have loud rap music in the background, whereas when the Capulet boys arrive they have spaghetti western music to represent them so the director might be trying to say that the Capulet boys are more old fashioned and that the Montague boys are more modern. Luhrmann creates an atmosphere of many things in this scene but the main three things are tension, fear and excitement. I first of all think Luhrmann created this by showing the anger between both families this both created tension and fear of one another, he done this by introducing the boys and slowly setting the scene up till both families started being rude to each other. Both families show this by ‘Body Language’ and ‘Face Expressions.’ I think the Montagues though felt more threatened by the Capulets because when the Capulets appeared they suddenly had a sense of fear in them, which created quite a bit of tension. The next thing was excitement this was that of the fight they were going to have and because of the tension Luhrmann had created he had to even it out by using humour, I think he done this by using the tension he had already created. When he had one of the Montague boys licking his nipples to scare the nuns and when he had one of the women in the car hitting him on the head with her handbag. I think he used a cowboy film clichà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½, to make the scene more interesting and to make the fight presentable he used hidden typical cowboy props such as the flipping sign and music. But by doing this he has really stereotyped the western cowboy material but I am not trying to say that he is not doing what any other modern director does because they all stereotype in their films one way or another. I feel the opening scenes to a film are most crucial and I found that the opening scenes to Romeo and Juliet were quite substantial, the scenes of the prologue were quite short but short of this fact, it was very informative. However, I think it was difficult for Luhrmann to create the rest of the movie after such a good start but I think he done this during Act 1, Scene 1 by showing just how terrible the feud was in this case I mean hurting people who are not even involved in the fight. I personally think that the targeted audience for this film is from people aged  15 -30 years old as some of the violence would be too much for little kids, to take in and mostly the language and sense of this story would confuse them whereas if you showed it to an older person over 30 they would probably be more interested in a calm love story with not so much violence.  In my opinion, the opening scenes to this film were portrayed as an insight to the rest of the film. I see the representation of the prologues as a beginning, middle and end, but as the first act and first scene come up, I feel as if the whole film has started again but from a different angle. I also think that Luhrmann took on a great task and that was to re- enact Shakespeare’s greatest love story and I also think he done that well.