Compare and Contrast Act 1 – Scene 1 in the films “Romeo and Juliet” “Romeo and Juliet”, a tragedy of a star-crossed lovers, had written by Shakespeare hundreds years ago. It was the best tragedy in Shakespeare’s time, and even in now days, the story of Romeo and Juliet are still known as one of the best tragedy. And 2 directors produced two different films with a same title of Romeo and Juliet. It was 1968 by Franco Zeffirelli, and 1996 by Baz Luhrmann.
Although it had the same title, the two directors had interpreted the story in a quite different way, and it remains as the ‘classic’ and ‘modern’ Romeo and Juliet in people’s memories. From a scene of in two films, we could look at how two films are different. Firstly, the settings of two films are quite different. In the classic (1968) film, the director set the Verona in Italy. And the time goes back to hundreds years ago, to the Shakespeare’s time. The Verona in Italy is where Shakespeare had laid the scene, and the director just caught that point.
The director put the play of Romeo and Juliet, which had acted in Shakespeare’s time just into the screen. And the audience could know how was that era, and how had the Romeo and Juliet acted out in that time exactly through this film. In this film, the fight between two houses occurs in the marketplace. Marketplace was the most common place in Shakespeare’s time, and many people had gathered in the marketplace every day. And if there is a fight in the marketplace, the people who are not the Montague or the Capulet could also get hurt, and the director and Shakespeare just used this point to explain how big fight and grudge was there between Montague and Capulet and how big was their forces. In the contrary, in the modern (1996) film, the director set the Verona in USA, and the time remains in the present. If the classic film had followed the Shakespeare’s story and setting faithfully, the modern film had only followed half of it.
The outer structure of this film had followed the story of Romeo and Juliet, but the setting is completely different. The fight occurs in the gas station, which did not even exist in Shakespeare’s time. However the gas station in this movie is acting out the exactly same work with the classic film. The marketplace is where lots of people go every day, and it is a very common and an important place in a city. Same in the gas station, lots of people go there, and it is a very important place in a modern day. If the fight is occurring in the market place, lots of people who are not Montague and Capulet could get hurt, and the gas station is a little more serious. And it is more dangerous in the gas station if there is a serious fight. In the modern film, there was a big fight between them with a fire and gun, and it had cause the bump of the gas station. It shows the same thing with the classic film, how big fight was there, and how big forces had Montague and Capulet had. Secondly, the music and sound of two films are quite different. In the classic film, there is more impressive sound than the music.
The sounds of crowd, baby crying, screaming, swords, and so on. It is seemed to be quite messy, but it is well describing a place of marketplace in that time. In the fighting scene of the classic film, the screaming sound and the baby crying are showing how the war had effected to the people who are not the constituent of two houses, and the swords sound is showing how big this fight was. In this film, one servant let the prince know the war between two houses started again through the bell ring, and the prince comes with the music of trumpeting and the horse riding sound. In the contrary, in the modern film, both the music and sound of the film are impressive. The sound of screaming and the sound of shooting are making the audience to pay an attention, and these are well showing how the citizens are afraid of the war between two houses.
The sound of fire and the lighter dropping are well describing the place of the gas station where the fight had occurred like the classic film. The stopping sound of the cars and the car accident sound are representing the effect of two houses to the society. The fighting of two houses are stopping after several shooting sound of two houses, and another shooting sound of police and the sound of helicopter had followed it. The music of the modern film is quite operatic. The opera music is helping to describe the tension of citizens and two houses, and letting the audience to pay attention in every scene. The two films are quite similar in using similar sound such as weapon sound and screaming sound of citizen, but the feeling that those sound give us are still quite different. Another solid example would be the death scene in both of the movie. In the classic version, the death scene is showed pretty long, it follows the book completely its not much interesting to see.
First Romeo enters the tomb where Juliet lies unconscious, he sees Juliet dead, then gives a really long speech and kills himself, and then the priest comes up and sees this event and by then Juliet is directed to get up. Then Juliet gets up and sees Romeo dead, she refuses to go with him and a speech is given then they show Juliet kill herself by suicide with the help of a dagger. Whereas in the newer version by Luhram, this is constructed and directed very differently. Lines are cut in the play, and the scene is very suspenseful. While Romeo kissing Juliet, Her hands are moving and she’s waking up. It is pretty suspenseful. Also in both movies, equipment is used differently.
In Zefferelli, horses and dagger are shown unlike in Luhram cars and guns are more popular. Two different Romeo and Juliet, the two similar but different love story is showing the difference and similarity of classic and modern. Even the two films had made into completely different films, the true love of two stories were not change at all. It was a beautiful story, and both two films had succeeded to appeal the audience. We could see that the two films are different in setting and music from above, but we could also know that there are many similarities in the background information in two films. Two different but similar films, they would remain in people’s memory forever.