Comparing Romeo And Juliet And Baz Luhrmann's Romeo

Romeo and Juliet “For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” In the classic play of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, the children of two feuding families fall in love and marry in secret. After Romeo is banished from Verona and already-married Juliet becomes engaged to the County Paris, they make a plan with the Friar which leads to their untimely death. Two adaptations were created to give different perspectives and interpretations of this play; Romeo and Juliet by Franco Zeffirelli and Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann. Although the two films are similar in plot, they differ in both character development and setting.

Romeo and Juliet and Romeo + Juliet can be compared through their plot. Both adaptations follow the play fairly close and rarely differ. Even when they did differ, Romeo and Juliet and Romeo + Juliet did the

For example, the setting is a huge difference. Romeo and Juliet takes place in fair Verona where the play is originally set. Romeo + Juliet is set in a modern city off of a coast line. The actors in Romeo and Juliet wore clothes that reflect the time period in which the story is set, while in Romeo + Juliet, the characters wear modern clothes, like floral beach shirts and jeans. Swords are used in Romeo and Juliet, while guns are used as the common weapon in Romeo + Juliet. Another difference is the character development. In Romeo and Juliet, the nurse is very outgoing and babbles on and on. She is happy that Juliet is in love and supports their marriage. The nurse in Romeo + Juliet is quieter and more reserved. At first she seemed upset with Juliet for falling in love with Romeo and looked reluctant to take a message to him. Near the end she becomes more supportive of the couple. One of the biggest character differences is that Luhrmann chose to make Juliet appear older than 13, while in Zeffirelli’s adaptation Juliet is still quite