Analysis of Romeo + Juliet (1996), with references to the play Romeo and Juliet
Romeo + Juliet (1996)
Characters referenced:
Romeo: Leonardo DiCaprio
Juliet: Claire Danes
Benvolio: Dash Mihok
Tybalt: John Leguizamo
Mercutio: Harold Perrineau
Romeo and Juliet, one of the most infamous works by the playwright William Shakespeare, is many a time passed off as a romantic tragedy. As we delve deeper into the script, however, we find how different it is from the mere genre of romance, and how many political and social aspects are lurking in between the lines. The play’s movie adaptations have been a medium of emphasizing these aspects from within the script, and of highlighting many other elements which can be appropriately politicized. This paper focuses on one such movie adaptation, Romeo + Juliet (1996).
Romeo + Juliet (1996) is a direction of Baz Luhrmann and a production of 20th Century Fox. The film can be viewed as a postmodern representation of the play, with all its eclectic aspects. The backdrop of the movie is Verona Beach, a rusty, run-down city with all the makings of a mafia den. The two families, Montagues and Capulets are the two rival CEO families in the city, made clear in the beginning jump-cuts of the film, which basically made an entire montage clip by compiling close-up shots of the buildings around the city, ending with a shot of two high-rise towers on two ends, with Montague and Capulet built as a name on their top. In the first clip, we see a TV reporter narrate the prologue, almost exactly as Shakespeare wrote it in the play; except the prologue in the movie stops two lines before the play’s prologue. The phrase used in the prologue “…the two hours traffic of our stage” (Shakespeare) seems even more suited to the scene of the movie – with its speeding shots and fancy cars. The first scene of the movie, the brawl between Montague and Capulet “boys,” seems to give a hint of what may be lurking behind the CEO agenda of the families: the appearances of the characters seem to hint at at least a partial mafia leaning in the history of the families. The unexplained “ancient grudge” then, becomes more plausible as a gang-war than mere business rivalry.
The particular scene analyzed in this paper is the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt, with the consequential deaths of both the characters. The clip (0:58:49 – 1:09:58) is the counterpart of Act III, Scene I in the play. The scene becomes important because that is the moment when we see Tybalt and Mercutio facing each other which, in a way, leads also to a racial intermingling. Before this scene, Tybalt was only seen against his Montague counterpart, Romeo’s cousin Benvolio. While there are obvious ethnic and racial differences between the two, visible mainly by their external characteristics (the fair skin and bright and raunchy outfits of the Montagues, the olive skin, dark and too-tight clothes and the cigars of the Capulets), the two seem to have more or less the same footing. With Mercutio the equation becomes different, since he is neither a pale-skinned Montague nor a tan-skinned Capulet by blood. His entire footing in the scene in particular, and in the movie in general, is based on the foundations of his willing loyalty and friendship with Romeo.
The scene begins in a quite typical fashion, with flaunting of guns and loud guys, before it all takes a turn suddenly, as Tybalt targets Mercutio and charges him with asking if he “consorts” with Romeo. Now, the scene adheres strictly to Shakespeare’s script which is where this dialogue is taken from; but given the differences between Tybalt and Mercutio, this also seems to become a marker of racial differences. Mercutio’s ‘black’ colour becomes important here as we see this one line becoming something much more than a simple provocative remark: we see it for the modern society it is contextualized in – for the possible homophobia that might have been targeted especially at the black communities.
The scene is as fast paced as it is in the script. Romeo’s entry is treated by Tybalt with the same hostility as in the play. However, when Romeo (DiCaprio) talks to Tybalt (Leguizamo), attempting to make peace, we do see moments of confusion, or vulnerability on Tybalt’s face as he shirks all of Romeo’s efforts. The close-up of his face, especially when Romeo is lying at his feet telling him to “be satisfied,” gives away an expression of something a little more delicate, which while we cannot put a finger on, breaks the stereotype of Tybalt being nothing but full of blind rage. Towards the end of the referenced clip, when Mercutio curses the two clans while dying, we again see Tybalt’s conflicting emotions on his face: he has something akin to sorrow, maybe even regret, or it might just be an external manifestation of a hidden internal fear for his own masculinity under the affect of the curse. Either way, it comes a huge way from his usual cocky, assured and mocking expression.
Mercutio’s death may be taken as another example of a black man being a sacrificial victim for a white one, if we focus on how Mercutio throws himself into the fight to ‘save’ Romeo, since Romeo was not fighting back. His ‘blackness’ provides him a neutrality between the two sides – he does not belong to either, but he is a part of both. His death then, breaks a link in the chain of the society which connected the many interracial identities together.
The scene then rapidly speeds up to Tybalt’s death soon after he stabs Mercutio. We see a different Romeo in this shot – throughout the movie, Romeo’s character has been preoccupied with love. We have not seem him brawl in raunchy outfits like others of his clan (or family), but in suits, dressed up like a gentleman, always softly in love. The Romeo we see chasing Tybalt down in a race car is very different – his clothes are askew, there is no softness on his face and instead he is full of rage. Romeo guns down Tybalt with the very same gun he had previously stopped Mercutio from aiming. The shot of Romeo stopping Mercutio from taking out the gun previously in the referenced clip seems to be a misplacement of focus, where the gun is shown to be the pivot instead of the characters, but it later becomes clear when Romeo kills Tybalt in an act of rage (a reference can be drawn to Juliet (Danes) shooting herself with a gun in the end to die with Romeo). This becomes important as, from the four major characters to die in the play, only the two Capulets were killed by a gunshot.
The scene till before Mercutio’s death is constantly changing perspectives between Mercutio and Tybalt. While Tybalt is beating Romeo to a pulp, every other element becomes a non-diegetic presence. But then, as the camera shifts focus to Mercutio, the sounds of the fight between Tybalt and Romeo themselves become an off-camera sensation.
The scene shows us multiple evidences of the conflicts within Romeo, and the changes he has undergone since the beginning. When we look at the pool scene with Juliet (the cinematic translation of the balcony scene by Luhrmann) we see the more apparent Montague traits in him – a sense of arrogant self-assurance and an impulsive masculine energy. He seems not “mature” enough for the responsibility of bearing a star-crossed love. In the fight scene, however, we see just how much he has changed: he restrains from taking rash decisions despite repeated provocation by Tybalt, and is shown to have the awareness that by law and religion, Tybalt is his kinsman now, owing to his recent marriage with Juliet (“the reason that I have to love thee”). His previous impulses are gone, and in its wake is a new Romeo who is sensitive towards Juliet’s family.
We again see him changing when he kills Tybalt. In a split second of a frame, his expression changes from rage to disillusionment to defeat. The camera focus on Romeo stays for a long time, as we see the progression of him going from a rage-fuelled friend to a defeated lover. The gun falls from his hand as though he can’t lift a weapon anymore. In the play, Romeo remarks how Juliet’s love made him “effeminate,” and in this one camera shot, with focus on Romeo’s face, we can clearly see the battle between honour and love that had been going in his mind since long now.
With reference to this clip, the conclusion comes out that Romeo + Juliet stays loyal to the script that Shakespeare wrote. Its credibility lies in the fact that it took Verona and turned it into a hub of mafia, capitalism, religion, masculinity and above all, how it could take all of these and turn them into emotions on the faces of the various characters. Romeo’s character arc in the novel can be an interpretation of adolescence as a journey – how every person grows with the society and learns to live.
Bibliography:
Appelbaum, Robert. “”Standing to the Wall”: The Pressures of Masculinity in Romeo and Juliet.” Shakespeare Quarterly 48 (1997): 251-272.
Martin, Jennifer L. “Tights vs. Tattoos: Filmic Interpretations of “Romeo and Juliet”.” The English Journal 92 (2002): 41-46.
Romeo + Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Claire Danes Leonardo DiCaprio. 1996.
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. 1596.
Prithiva Sharma is a writer and poet from India. She is currently working as an English Editor, and spends her free time obsessing over fanfiction and bending canon till it fits her ships. Her work has previously appeared in Wellington Street Review, Vagabond City Lit and The Confessionalist Zine, among others, and can be found at https://campsite.bio/prithiva or at her Instagram, @prithuwu.