Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in the movies: Comparing Franco Zeffirelli's (1968) and Baz Luhrman's (1996) film versions

Examination Thesis from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3 (A), University of Trier (English Department Trier), language: English, abstract: The paper is organised in three main parts, theoretics, application and evaluation. The first part will deal with issues necessary to fully apprehend Shakespearean moviemaking. I will examine the history of it and explain what made the two films discussed herein possible and what eventually led to them. Furthermore, I will depict the two directors’ different backgrounds and how they lead on to their individual styles. I will consider some other films that have paved the way for Zeffirelli and Luhrmann. A chapter is dedicated to the filmic realisation, which will consider the cuts, rearrangements and general approach of the films and their directors. These issues will be confirmed by the secondary literature used herein. The second part will apply these issues to single and in my opinion particularly revealing film-scenes, which will be examined to perceive Zeffirelli’s and Luhrmann’s access to the characters, early and latter scientific reception and how Zeffirelli’s approach might differ due to the times his motion picture was made in and how both may or may not have succeeded in mirroring its times. The second part will thus rely on my interpretation and less on secondary literature. The third part will try to bring these perceptions to a conclusive evaluation. These are subjective and thus liable to objection. They cannot be universally valid, but since I am dealing with art, nothing is. Luhrmann was obviously firmly affected by Zeffirelli’s work, and moreover used it as a guiding line for his film, which gives rise to the question, if he was merely an epigone, or maybe rather struck by Zeffirelli’s scenic ideas as being plausible and practical. This is a question which I shall seek to respond to, if I cannot answer it, in the progress of this paper. Furthermore, I will try to point out Morris’s2 dictum, that Shakespeare movies are an art form and a genre in their own right and should not be confused with or compared to a theatrical production of Shakespeare, but have an aesthetic language of their own. [...] 2 Morris, Peter. Shakespeare On Film. Canadian Film Institute/Institut canadien du film. Ottawa: 1972