Romeo And Juliet Comparative Essay

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How can a story as old as 1591 still be relevant today? Well the answer is movies and plays. There have been so many renditions of Romeo and Juliet, and most people have likely seen at least one rendition. The real question though is how do contemporary storytellers adapt a classic to reach a new audience? The answer to that question is that all of the movies are different. Most of the contemporary storytellers make their movies have at least one thing different in their movie. For example it's usually the setting, their actions, and the scenes. The first way in which the contemporary storytellers adapt their movie to reach a new audience is the setting.In the 1996 film by Baz Luhrmann they made the film very different from the book and …show more content…

For example act 2 scene 2 in the 2013 Broadway play of Romeo and Juliet they have a scene on the balcony where Juliet crawls across the balcony back to Romeo. In the book it tells us that she runs back to talk to Romeo, but in the Broadway play it shows her crawling across the floor of the balcony because the actor is trying to convey Juliet's emotions.The other reason she does that is to add some comedy to the act. Shakespeare intended the book to be a comedy and a tragedy. The Broadway play is trying to be as close to the book as they can but what was funny then isn't as funny now so they have to add some 20th century humor into the play. In Gnomeo and Juliet during act 3 scene 1 there is a fight scene but compared to the 1996 version it's very tame. It shows lawnmowers racing and that is the fight, but in the 1996 version there are guns involved and lots of deaths. During Gnomeo and Juliet it shows Tybalt cutting off the top of Benny's hat. This is because Gnomeo and Juliet is targeted to younger children which is how the storyteller intended it to be, so there has to be less violence. But in the little bit of violence Tybalt gets smashed into a brick wall. In the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet its targeted to older people so there is more violence in this movie of course. But in this fight scene Tybalt kills Mercutio just like the book and then Romeo kills