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Baz Luhrmann's Production Of Romeo & Juliet

Baz Luhrmann's production of Romeo & Juliet, He wanted to present
Shakespeare's language in a manner that would make it approachable to audiences of
today. He intended to make no change in the language itself, but to change the
surroundings to make the intention clear for the people of this century. I believe he has
achieved this. As in the settings of the film, Baz Luhrmann manages to make it looks
like Santa Monica on a bad acid trip. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
his performance was really good. His effort in this film seems to go beyond his actual
acting, however, young Claire Danes (she was 16) she does a great job of Juliet, being
perhaps the only one to make her lines sound completely natural. Pete Postlethwaite's
Friar Laurence is an also a great actor for his role and the crucifix tattoo on his back
looked awesome. John LeGuizamo's Tybalt is pretentious, but menacing and dangerous,
a nicely judged combination. Mercutio (Harold Perrineau) is entertaining, but his death
scene is not convincing. A few things that I seemed to notice of this film were the scenes
where the pistol with the "Sword 9mm" labeled on it was zoomed onto the camera. I felt
that Baz Luhrmann was trying to hard to make the setting look realistic or interesting. it
looked "tacky". I believe they could of simply used the sword so that the quote "put up
your swords" would fit better in the film. They have made a few changes to the plot,
mostly in leaving out a few scenes, but they are true to the original. They do repeat a few
of the lines for emphasis, an emphasis I consider unnecessary, especially at Tybalt's
death. I also noticed a flaw, which was the part where Captain Prince's closing speech
mentions his loss of two kinsmen. In the play, this refers to Mercutio and Paris, but in this
version Paris is not killed, and is not besides Prince's kinsman. The clothing in the
film was very modern of this century not quite like Shakespeare's usual films...