Romeo and Juliet first catch sight of each other on opposite sides of an aquarium the “blue calm of the water, with its glowing tropical fish, replaces the deafening revelry of the party as the lovers stare at each other, entranced, through the glass” (Loehlin 128). Juliet first appears submerged in a bathtub Romeo tries to clear his drug-addled head by dunking it in a sink. There is a recurring motif of water, which serves to insulate them from the outside world. They are often “surrounded by moments of stillness, and some of the longest unmoving takes of the film are in the extreme close-ups of their faces, creating a ‘sweet counterpoint to the chaos’” (Hamilton 122).
Romeo and Juliet’s love stands in complete contrast to the chaotic, fast-paced world they inhabit.
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"You Won't Be Alone" (2022) Review: Horror That is More Than Skin Deep Where Do the Lovers Fit In? Luhrmann presents the problems of the western world at the turn of the century. In such a frenetic, lurid place as Verona Beach, how can the innocent and idealistic love of Romeo and Juliet survive? Indeed, the setting of Romeo + Juliet places the characters in a postmodern “dystopia of guns, drugs, conspicuous consumption and civic breakdown” (Loehlin 121). Verona Beach is “a world that is modern and yet unfamiliar: a world where the youth might conceivably always go armed a world where love can still be so thwarted and endangered” (Hamilton 120). The entire world of Romeo + Juliet is violent and threatening the “sensation-crazed, trigger-happy populace are kept in check only by police helicopters and riot squads” (Loehlin 121). The audience can no longer feel detached from and entertained by the violence the danger is real for the characters. As Elsie Walker states: “The ‘reality’ of Mercutio’s death is the opposite of the hyper-reality, the fast cars and flashguns, of the opening brawl” (135). The hand-held camera is jumpy and unsteady, and the tone shifts from comedy to tragedy after Mercutio is stabbed. The duel between Mercutio and Tybalt is “staged very differently, in cinema vérité style, with a hand-held camera thrust among the awkwardly scuffling combatants” (Loehlin 126). In contrast to the opening feud between the Capulets and Montagues is the much more serious and violent fighting between Mercutio, Tybalt, and Romeo. As Luhrmann “places us in a privileged position, seeing the characters (as they cannot) locked within recognizable genre frames,” we the audience feel distanced from real danger, sealed off from “reality” (Walker 134). This brawl is for entertainment purposes the audience does not feel threatened by the Western and action genres. The parodying of these two film genres serves to set the audience at ease in the beginning of the film.
The frenetic editing and slow-motion gunplay (especially with the “shots of the leaping Tybalt firing two guns at once”) pay tribute to Hong Kong director John Woo (Loehlin 126). Even the music contributes to the Western feel, with the “eerie whistlings Ennio Morricone’s trademark western scores” (Loehlin 126). There is a close-up of Tybalt’s cowboy boot stamping out a lit match in the style of Westerns like A Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in the West. Mercutio urges Romeo to draw his sword The Reality of Fight ScenesĪfter the prologue, Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet starts off with a brawl between the Montague and Capulet boys at a gas station, an amalgamation of the spaghetti Western and the Hong Kong action movie.
While the Montague and Capulet “boys” seem like ordinary obnoxious punks (with the pink hair and the convertibles blaring punk music), they also come off as menacing and dangerous. Luhrmann even cheekily inserts “Shakespearean language and ideas into his squalid late capitalist world: the gangs wield flashy handguns with brand names like ‘Rapier’ and ‘Sword 9 mm’” (Loehlin 125). Boys and girls in Romeo + Juliet carry handguns the way real-life kids carry cell phones and iPods. The setting is also “explicitly millennial,” as the pop-culture world of drugs and gang violence is not make-believe (Loehlin 121). The audience can suspend their disbelief when they see teenagers in Hawaiian shirts toting guns and spouting Shakespeare because Verona Beach is so colorful and fantastic. Part of the reason that the postmodern setting of Romeo + Juliet works is that it is different from the real world but frighteningly believable at the same time. The Montague boys These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends
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