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