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The film Romeo and Juliet, 1996, displays the Shakespearean play in a modernised world, the film is set in Los Angeles, and various modern props are used, such as guns and cars. Similar to the play, the film presents the rebellious feud between two rival families: the Montagues and the Capulets. Romeo and Juliet have some underlying themes and ideas that Baz Luhrmann has expressed in his adaptation of this story. The main themes that the movie attempts to express are love, hate, consequences and commitment. This essay will analyse various camera techniques, and discuss its effectiveness on conveying the theme of love vs hate.
The opening scene the audience is introduced to the movie by a newsreader on a TV, the newsreader acting as Shakespeare’s narrator, describing the love of Romeo and Juliet as cursed. The mise-en-scene then moves on to quick jump shots, briefly showing the fight that has been ongoing between the two families, therefore conveying the idea of ‘hate’. The quick jump shots efficiently grab the audience's attention. Furthermore, the audience sees skyscrapers with Montague on one side of the street and Capulet on the other side, this symbolises the division between the two families. Newspapers are used here once more to show the feuding families have a history of hate. Baz Luhrmann effectively uses these quick camera shots, with different angles and techniques such as zoom-ins, zoom-outs and close-ups, to give the overview of the ‘hate’ and ‘rivalry’ between the two families. The narrator says ’A pair of star crossed lovers take their life, Whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death, Bury their parents strife.’ which shows the audience an idea of cursed love of Romeo and Juliet, and express hate between their families. it shows a very clear distinction between the two themes. Similarly, Baz Luhrmann followed the information shown in the introductory scene to progress it to the opening scene, employing the theme of love vs hate.
The opening scene introduces the Montague Boys. The audience first sees them from behind while they are driving in their convertible car, wearing Hawaiian shirts. Their colours are bright and bold, which is usually used to show a happy mood. As the Capulets drive into the station, the first obvious reaction is that they look slicker than their rivals. The colours used are darker. giving them a more devilish mood. As the audience see the Capulet car drive into the station the camera shot turns almost as if it ran towards the car and then turned on its heel. The audience perceives Tybalt getting out from his car, but only his feet are visible in the shot, he is seen putting out a cigarette. The shot of his feet gives the audience a sense of intimidation. The Capulets are being shown as the bad guys, and there is rivalry present between the two families, this scene helps to fill in information about the families hate. As Tybalt enters the store we still see only feet, there is only one shot from when he gets out of the car until the shot cuts to the medium shot of the nun. Through that shot, the audience sees the feet of the nun and students leaving the store and the feet of Abra getting out of the car. All these shots give Tybalt a ‘dark’ atmosphere and an ‘evil’ mood. Baz Luhrmann used all these types of shots in the opening scene to show a clear distinction of the families relationship early on in the film. This scene helps to give the audience an idea about the two families. Baz Luhrmann provides information on the character of Tybalt. He is shown as the villain, throughout the movies he stays ‘evil’ this is more evident in the fight scene of Romeo and Tybalt.
In the major fight scene, after Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt, Romeo falls on his knees and Luhrmann uses an overhead high angle shot to convey Romeo's submissive position and follows this with a low angle shot of Tybalt to show his dominance. This effectively conveys the power struggle between the two families to the audience and creates tension and drama. Following the previous scene, Romeo shoots Tybalt, the camera cuts to a close-up of Romeo's shocked face, conveying the fact that he has realised that this latest slaughter of Tybalt could determine the downfall of his relationship with Juliet, furthermore meaning that the newly found love could be turned into hate. This is also depicted by the quick jump cut to Juliet just as Romeo shot Tybalt, which suggests to the audience that, just like Romeo's expression, the new bond between the Montague and the Capulet could be short-lived, and the love they hoped for through this marriage may never be possible.
In conclusion, Baz Luhrmann used camera shots in his film, Romeo and Juliet, to convey the theme of love vs. hate. Luhrmann uses many interesting camera angles such as close-ups, jump shots, high angles, low angels, zoom-outs, zoom-ins etc, and establishing shots the add to the story that is being told an emphasis on the emotions being prepared. He effectively managed to quickly grab the audience’s attention.
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