Romeo and Juliet: Fate and Love Julian Fellowes and Carlo Carlei's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (2013) depicts the tragic nature of "star-cross'd lovers" (Prologue.6). This is evident through the contrasting scenes of tragedy and romance interspersed throughout the trailer. For instance, Romeo and Juliet's first meeting at the Capulet's masquerade (0.19-0.25) evokes sentiments of doom from the beginning of their love as this is continuously juxtaposed with the play's grim ending (0.04-0.14) and the family feud between the Capulets and Montagues (0.25-0.35). This looming sense of an inescapable fate for the lovers is further reinforced by the scene when Romeo finds Juliet on her deathbed, seemingly dead (1.56). It is a …show more content…
As mentioned previously, this is a critical scene in Act Five, Scene Three that creates a domino effect starting with Romeo's death, followed by Juliet's. The tragedy of the scene lies in its unfortunate timing, resulting in their deaths. Although the unfortunate timing may appear to be a coincidence, the never ending obstacles in their relationship affirm that Romeo and Juliet's love is ill-fated and not meant to be. Moreover, this scene is followed by flash frames of the poison and sword that Romeo and Juliet respectively use to commit suicide (2.02). The short length and speed of these flash frames further intensifies this domino effect, thereby reflecting the rapid development of Romeo and Juliet's romance leading up to their tragic fate. Hence, this domino effect creates the impression that Romeo and Juliet's love is destined to end in death due to the inescapability of fate. It is only through death that Romeo and Juliet can transcend their miserable fates and be together, as expressed in Juliet's voiceover at the end of the trailer (2.14-2.25), "when he shall die, cut him out in little stars. He will make the face of Heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night" from Act Three, Scene Two. Juliet voices this over a silhouette scene of Romeo and Juliet riding on horseback into the sunset while holding hands, as shown in the trailer (2.16).