Bez zalu pozegnalem annus terribilis2010 i choc z nadzieja patrze w przyszlosc, to wiem, ze jako narod musimy uporac sie ze strasznym dziedzictwem zeszlorocznych plag, przede wszystkim poznac cala prawde o tragedii / zamachu w Smolensku.
Azeby jednak nie zaczynac nowego roku od polityki, zamieszczam ponizej moja prace “gimnazjalna”, ktora napisalem kilka lat temu w ramach rocznego kursu GCSE English.
Nie bedac mlodym wyksztalconym europejsem ze znajomoscia jezykow, przyjechawszy do goscinnej skadinad i jeszcze przezywajacej ostatnie spazmy rozrzutnosci Anglii, postanowilem doksztalcic sie co nieco i przez rok chodzilem raz w tygodniu do wieczorowki z dwa razy mlodszymi ode mnie dzieciakami.
Wypracowanie wypocilem calkiem niezle, praw autorskich nie zastrzegam i jesli jakis mlody-wyksztalcony z duzego miasta nie brzydzi sie zrzynac od pisowca z polskiego ciemnogrodu, to prosze uprzejmie.
“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare and its modern film version
by Baz Luhrmann – changes and their effects.
Introduction
The common approach to the pivotal literary masterpieces is usually Platonic in the philosophical sense. In our case, the original play of the Bard is perceived as an ideal form dwelling in the realm of literary pleroma and each stage performance or film version is a result of a creative act of a demiurge-director, applying the pure form to earthly clay. The vivisection of the result is then the source of humble alimony for literary critics and Via Dolorosa for students.
In this essay I am going to review the major differences from the original play made by the film director and the resulting effects.
As a motto, let me quote Friar Lawrence:
“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.” ( Act 2 Scene 3 Verses 21-22 )
The above couplet, apart from its gnomic value, is properly understood as foreboding of the fatal result of the Friar’s well-intended plot. It could nevertheless be equally well said about stage or film adaptations of literary art.
In our case: has Baz Luhrmann dignified the original play or has it turned vice by his misapplication?
The play was obviously written for the stage and filming it is like translating into a foreign language, where each interpreter is a traitor ( traduttore-traitore ).
Baz Luhrmann’s version is meant for young audiences, modern teenagers, so imbued in modern picture-based subculture that almost illiterate and yet the director has maintained the original Elizabethan language, risking alienation and determent of the “young hearts running free”. The success has been however complete, the film is deemed a smashing hit among the targeted viewers. One might say it was impossible not to become a blockbuster for a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and congenial Claire Danes, just 3 years older than her protagonist. Both creations are charming and innocent and in pure love at first sight, the knight and the angel, maturing before our eyes and yet preserving the freshness that is only given once and for short.
The star-crossed, ill-doomed love, awakened before our eyes, so appealing and heart-gripping, passionate and still being a puzzle for itself, is really shown in the film as sacred and pure and maybe that is what makes us engage with all our hearts while watching “the two hours’ traffic” ( the length of the film is 115mins ).
Preserving the original language is Baz Luhrman’s boldness, using the “pop, speed & MTV aesthetics” is his clever means to captivate the youth, both combined together allow me to call him great.
First of all we should note that the film as such is governed by its own logic, much different to that of a play meant to be performed on a relatively bare scene. Shakespeare’s audience went to hear a play rather than see it as the Elizabethan theatre was an aural rather than visual experience.
The play appeals to us primarily via spoken word, the performers must conjure with their words bright eyes, high forehead, scarlet lips, fine foot etc ( cf. Act 2,1 v.17 ),
especially as in Shakespeare’s times Juliet would be played by a young male actor
( therefore no kissing on the scene, yuk! ). It is in the film only that we can admire beautiful eyes or see facial expressions. In the play the young lovers must talk about their love and about kissing by the book, in the film they just kiss by the book
and the words are replaced by music ( which is fair enough – it is not possible to talk while kissing, even chewing the gum during the process is to be dissuaded ).
Although the film director remains true to the original plot and the universal message of the play, the differences abound.
The setting of the film.
The action is set in Verona Beach rather than in Verona, evoking America’s famous city on the beach, Miami, with strong Hispanic elements. The original Italian setting is alluded to by the ever-present catholic imagery ( though Mexican in character rather than Italian ) which extends from huge, impassive public figures of Jesus and Virgin Mary to the excessive number of statues of saints, angels and burning candles in the church and even in Julia’s bedroom, further to outfits worn by Capulet boys. The images of sacrosanct hearts of Jesus and Virgin Mary are used in heraldic way. The modern city is dominated by scenes of chaotic urban violence, helicopters darting about and casualties strewn across the ground. It may refer to the political situation in the Apennine Peninsula in the period of State-Cities ( cf Thomas Hobbes’ “the war of all against all” ). We can see how two opposing families, “two households both alike in dignity”, dominate Verona Beach: skyscrapers bear the names of Montague and Capulet. Equally, the news of their “new mutiny” prevails in the local media. Large, gloomy graffiti ( “See death’s face”, “Shoot Forth Thunder” ) deepen the atmosphere of violence.
We can see however a clear distinction between the downtown area with its urban glamour and crime ( i.e. violence of the feud ) and the idyllic beach with love and peace. The beach front is dominated by a huge arch of a desolate, dilapidated proscenium of what was once Sycamore Grove Theatre. When seen from the town, the enormous arch embraces vast area of sea and sky as if inviting those two elements to play their roles on the huge scene. And they do, especially after Mercutio’s death.
Despite of obvious references to Miami ( scenes like from “Miami Vice” with tawdry prostitutes lining the beach ) and Mexico City ( bright colours, catholic iconography, Mexican accent of Nurse who calls “Julieta” in Spanish ), the city is an artificial place, present-day Neverland, a patchwork sewn up with pop-culture symbols.
Mantua, to which place Romeo escapes after his banishment, is not another city but a poor, isolated, empty place, a sort of a trailer park in the Mexican desert, conveying the notion of loneliness and enforced detachment from the society.
The place is a perfect match for the words of despairing Romeo in the play:
“’Banishéd’!
O friar, the damned use that word in hell:
Howling attends it.” ( Act 3, 3, 47-49 )
Both places are polluted. There is heavy smog over the town and dirty dust over Mantua, made worse by cars passing by. This makes the scenery even gloomier.
Verona is not governed by a renaissance prince called Escalus ( meaning “scales”, symbol of justice ) but the order is kept by his modern functional equivalent,
i.e. police captain Escalus Prince.
Modernizations.
Modernizations in the film make the action more understandable to young audiences and make them perceive it as if happening nowadays.
When Benvolio emerges at the gas station bearing his gun and shouting,
“Part fools, you know not what you do!”,
the camera zoom reveals the brand name “Sword 9mm Series S”. As many lines in the play refer to weapons, the cast wield guns with fictional brand names like “Longsword” ( Ted Motague’s submachine gun ), “Dagger” or “Rapier” as the text dictates. Guards are replaced by brutal police and security forces.
The film makes extensive use of cars: the characters instead on foot or on horseback, move quickly in cars ( which makes the initial scene at the gas station plausible ). Captain Prince’s people chase Romeo after his return from Mantua in their police cars. ( All those American crazy car pursuits are usually far more irritating than the time-filling fencing in a melee in French films about musketeers, Baz Luhrmann however knows the proportion very well.) Finally, it is Romeo’s road rage that leads to Tybalt’s death.
Further, TV is used to relate important information to the audience. The prologue is replaced by the news reader. In the background we can see a broken wedding ring with inscription “I love thee”, under which a big subtitle reads “Star-crossed lovers”. Again, the last six verses, originally spoken by the prince, are delivered in form of TV news. Romeo gets to know about the morning’s fray at the gas station, seeing the news on a small TV screen on the beach.
The crucial letter Father Laurence sends to the exiled Romeo is entrusted to an over-night delivery courier “Poste Haste“, who slaps a “Sorry, we missed you” sticker on the door.
Luhrmann plays with our obeisance to Shakespeare, placing signifiers from other plays into his mise-en-scene. E.g. billboards and signs: “Rosencrantzski’s snacks”
( Hamlet’s treacherous classmate at Wittemberg ), “The Merchant of Verona Beach”, the Coca Cola logo reads “Wherefore L’Amour” ( allusion to the name of Romeo and the most famous “wherefore” from Juliet’s soliloquy ), “Out, Out Damn Spot Cleaners” ( something Lady MacBeth would have appreciated ), a pool hall called “The Globe”, Father Laurence soothes his nerves with a shot of “Prospero’s Whiskey”, “Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On”. At the masque ball, Juliet’s father is dressed like Julius Caesar, her mother as Cleopatra which refers to another play by the Bard.
Most actors speak with their natural American accents ( except for British stars Pete Postlethwaite and Miriam Margolyes ) and though one might expect Romeo to sound more like Joseph Fiennes, we forget about it pretty soon and it is not a problem throughout the film. It may even be on purpose – Di Caprio might sound strange when trying to speak with proper British accent.
Innovations
Characters are introduced in a clever way at the beginning of the film – a picture of each stays frozen for a while and the caption with the name appears, allowing us to take in the names and images of them all, saving from later confusion.
When Mr Montague and Mr Capulet are introduced, their black cars and code of dress suggest that they are serious businessmen. Paris, the student of the year, dresses formally, Mercutio wears casual dresses, which gives us a hint about their characters.
When the bawdy Montague boys and the cocky Capulet boys are introduced, they differ diametrically in their styles. M-boys are more casual, easy-going, bright, punk and a bit chavvy. C-boys on the other hand look more formal, their clothes are dark, deep blue and red, with catholic iconography. Tybalt has a feline look about him, accounting for his nick-name “Prince of Cats”.
Romeo, when pining for Rosaline ( whom we duly never meet ), scribbles formal “Petrarchan” verses in his notebook:
“Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms” ( Act 1, 1, 170-173 )
The words in the film are taken out of context and therefore make as much sense as his infatuation.
During the warm-up before the ball at the Capulets, still in Sycamore Grove, Romeo takes a “mind-expanding” pill ( ecstasy, acid – I ain’t no flamin’ specialist; if we call such pills mind-expanding, we might equally well call dynamite body-expanding ).
At the ball, Romeo is not dressed as a pilgrim but like a knight ( different people perceive this costume differently – for me he might be a crusader, pilgrim-knight, others want him to be a quixotic knight ) while Juliet is his guardian angel. This is a wonderful invention; the mere juxtaposition of those two implies their romantic love and being meant for each other. And we understand why dancing with Paris-astronaut makes the Angel laugh.
Mercutio is slain on a beach with a sliver of glass rather than a sword. The setting enables the nature to enter onto the scene: quickly darkening sky and billowing sea foreshadow further tragic events to come.
One of the most moving scenes in the film is when a tear trickles down Romeo’s cheek after he is dead ( such a form of artistic expression is utterly impossible in the theatre, whether Elizabethan or modern, without a camera zoom ).
When Juliet dies ( and in the film there is no time for relief between these two tragedies ) the camera is going up, still filming from above, finally replacing the factual pictures by memories and flashbacks from the few and short-lived happy moments in the story. This is when our hearts ache most, when we realise that the fate has bereft the young lovers from experiencing so much and from possibly even being disillusioned and coming to terms with sober reality.
Reinterpretations
Queen Mab is not longer a fairy queen, but an ecstasy pill delivered by Mercutio clothed as a drag queen. Major part of the original soliloquy is preserved but its meaning sounds perverted. The antiquated bravado is therewith replaced by more modern antics.
Romeo pops the pill and says to his friend: “Thy drugs are quick”, while in the play this line is said much later, in the tomb:
“Here’s to my love. O true apothecary:
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die”. Act 5, 3, 119-120
Again, it is a very clever change: the film director manages to preserve another fragment of the original text but at the same time presents the death scene in his own way ( more visual rather than vocal, hence the words “thy drugs are quick” could have been used in a different place for a different purpose ).
When the mask falls off Romeo’s face and drowns slowly in water, the same water that purifies both Romeo’s and Juliet’s faces ( metaphor of baptism – further developed in the balcony scene ), Romeo gets rid of his infatuation and becomes himself, which becomes later so evident to his friend Mercutio:
“Why, is not this better than groaning for love?
Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo: now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature;” ( Act 2, 4, 80-83 )
As a logical result of this reinterpretation, Romeo is just spotted by Tybalt rather than recognised by voice. The latter is a good example how one major change in the plot may result in a series of minor changes being logical consequences thereof.
Changes in the plot
Although the film remains true to the original plot, nevertheless some material has been changed, some cut out.
The original bawdy dialogue of the play, full of puns and sexual innuendo, which would be difficult to understand by the young audience, is cut out and together with the ensuing fray is replaced by a series of funny slapstick-like scenes at the gas station, crowned by a complete demolition due to combustible powers of fiery Tybalt who surely knows how to add more fuel to the fire.
Minor difference: In Act 1, 1 v.18, my namesake Montague says:
” The quarrel is between our masters and us their men”.
In the film however, the peace-seeking Benvolio means the opposite:
” The quarrel is between our masters” ( and not us their men ).
It stresses the character of Benvolio as a real peace-maker
( which is further reinforced by his quasi-biblical quotation:
“Part, fools!
Put up your swords; you know not what you do.” Act 1, 1 v. 58-59 ).
The balcony scene ( Act 2, Sc.2 ) has been cleverly reworked in the film.
The original orchard has been replaced by the inner yard with a swimming pool in the Capulet Mansion, attentively watched by armed security guards over their monitors.
As mentioned earlier, water has purifying power, it brings Romeo to himself when his mask drowns, water cleanses both Romeo and Juliet from the craze of the ongoing party ( my private experience with severe alcohol abuse calls it moral hangover, hangover much worse than the somatic one ).
When Romeo declares:
“Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptised” ( Act 2, 2 v. 50 ),
he primarily means to oblige Juliet and her “refuse thy name, doff thy name”.
However, plunging into the pool ( to hide from the guards ) could be interpreted as nearly “baptism by immersion”, adding very strongly, nay, actually prevailing the religious references existing in the original play.
After the watershed scene of Mercutio’s death, the film has a car chase scene inserted before Romeo shoots Tybalt ( the car chase by enraged Romeo replaces the original duel ).
There is no separate Capulet vault. When Juliet is believed to have died, the main church is transformed into her temporary tomb. This obviously prevents her from waking:
“As in a vault, an ancient receptacle
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud (…) Act 4, 3 v.39-43
For obvious reasons, the above and similar parts of the soliloquy have been cut out in the film.
Romeo’s fight with Paris in Act 5 is cut out completely – Paris’s death would be irrelevant to the changed plot and unnecessarily cruel, affecting adversely our perception of Romeo.
Friar Laurence is not present in the church-tomb either - equally irrelevant at that moment, he would only distract our attention from the final culminating scene of misfortunate deaths.
In the last scene of the play, Montague informs the prince:
“Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight:
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath.
What further woe conspires against mine age?” Act 5, 3 v. 210-212
In the film however, Lady Montague stays alive, as the parents’ silent grief
( as presented on the screen ) speaks louder than the above lines.
Music and colours
These are the extra means of expression at the disposal of film director.
Music plays an important part in the film, assists in high-lighting emotions of pivotal scenes. Enough to compare the up-beating sound of “Young hearts run free” with the beautiful melody of “Kissing you” ( we can see Des’ree performing the song as an invited artist in Capulet Mansion; the song has been haunting me ever since ), marking the initial meeting of Romeo and Juliet.
Colours play a similar role,
e.g. the Capulet ball is colourful and dazzling, the church bright and covered in white light ( choice background for the boys-choir singing “When doves cry”) , the pool scene is pastel blue to help create a romantic mood ( romantic, and yet under the deadly risk of being discovered by the robot-like guards ).
In the scene on the beach at Sycamore Grove, the scene that leads to Mercutio’s death, we can see that a storm is brewing, with orange sky and dirty-brown sea, marking the quickly approaching tragedy. When Mercutio is fatally wounded, the clouds darken, dust fills the air, the storm swells, the wind blows and the sea becomes black and angry – the happy moments are over and from now on the series of quick events will be leading undoubtedly to a tragic end.
Foreshadowing in the play and in the film.
Although we know from the very beginning what is going to happen to Romeo and Juliet, as the prologue states that “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life”, nevertheless the text abounds in many subtle clues confirming the fact that they will die.
The film keeps many of these original clues, e.g.
Act 1, sc 4, Romeo gets a bad feeling before going to the Capulet ball:
“My mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars” ( Act 1, 4 v. 106-107 et seq. )
Act 2, sc 3, the Friar warns Romeo about rushing into things:
“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast” ( Act 2, 3 v. 94 )
In the film Romeo really slips and falls down.
And the most moving foreboding, as Juliet is looking down on Romeo from her bedroom:
“O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails or thou look’st pale.”
And Romeo’s response:
“And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!” ( Act 3, 5 v. 54 – 59 )
The inconsiderate remark by Lady Capulet:
“I would the fool were married to her grave” ( Act 3, 5 v.140 )
reminds us that we shouldn’t curse anybody, even by joke, as it might – God forbid – come true, as in the case of her own child.
Apart from the conventional means, the film makes use of the additional tool, i.e. scene repetitions and flash-backs. First of all, it is the dreamy vision of the church – full of lights, burning candles and cold-blue neon crosses. We may not know yet that the church will be eventually transformed into a temporary burial vault but the back-flashing scenes unambiguously imply the funeral.
Summary
Whenever we speak about universal, eternal, across-the-ages contents and messages ( like the ones reflected in the immortal treasury of Shakespeare’s plays), we automatically preconceive the classical anthropology, i.e. the notion of humanity, of being a Man, as transcending the material, historical and environmental background, we profess – to borrow the title from G.K. Chesterton – “the Everlasting Man”.
If we were to accept some modern, fashionable philosophical ideas ( many of them being old, long-refuted errors, like scepticism, solipsism, moral relativism – only presented in a shiny new package and under a new fancy name, like post-modernism, new age etc ), we would be obliged to scrap “Romeo and Juliet” as the old, no longer relevant expression of English society of five centuries ago. And yet, we understand that all modernizing changes made by Baz Luhrmann are of secondary, tangential importance and all the dramatis personae are humans exactly like ourselves. Once we manage to remove the barriers of time and custom, we can see our feelings reflect in the play like in a mirror.
The end.
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