Lurman vs Zefferelli

Two star struck lovers come together in dignity where two families are at feud with each other, left for destiny.

Many have tried to interpret their own version of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet based on the renaissance period.

The function of the film making is to draw the audience in to watch it and stay interested then to give them a understanding of the story and introduce a setting of what time and the place of where the action is taking place.

It usually works with an establishing shot or aerial shot of the main place of where the action is taking place given the audience a greater sense of the atmosphere and environment.

Zefferelli has presented his opening sequence with the renaissance setting with a establishing shot looking over the village of Verona with the Celtic scripture as subtitles, the first scene of the early morning square with the horse and carriage is just give the audience a feel for the movie telling you of how the setting is going to be and what the expectations are of the 1960s approach.

Where as Lurhman has used great effects due to modern technology and creating a quick montage and an explosive opening sequence.

This would be more exciting and better for quality entertainment.

Many have commented upon the two settings and have agreed that the Lurhman approach of creating a quality entertainment based setting does work better because it attracts the viewers with a wider range of effects and fast paced scenes with explosive entrances.

This is because it would attract a wider range of viewers and contains more quantity of themes and the themes are so bold that you can’t miss them they are shouting in your face from the first scene.

The main advantage of this opening scene is your attention has been grabbed, very quickly and the audience are interested the difference between these films is that they use modern weapons such as guns instead of swords from the Zefferelli films but are labelled swords and labelled Montague Capulet so you know who is who.

The disadvantages of the Zefferelli is there is no explosive entry to the first scene and comes across very dull and lacks concentration from the audiences.

The advantages of the Zefferelli are that it’s quicker in that the first scene is over so quickly.

Both directors used an aerial shot from which the action is going to be based for instance Zeffereli uses a aerial shot of Verona showing the village and lurhman uses an aerial shot of Verona beach these directors are both using conventional establishing shots.

Many have argued that Lurman films have greater and more effective techniques but this becomes unfair in the way that Zeffereli did not have these techniques to exploit but Lurman did this thrillingly.

These explosive scenes from Lurmans film and his techniques he exploits extremely well would make you decide to watch his specific film then effectively.

Lurmans opening scene would encourage viewers effectively to take interest in watching the film and pay more attention towards this.

Opening scene of Lurman film grabs your attention immediately and makes you focus more on the action and the scripture being said.

The scene that stood out from the rest was when Tibalt stepped out of his car with a close up shot of his ankles and his macho attitude towards everything and everyone with his metal heels grinding a cigarette into the floor.

Lurhman created this atmosphere effectively showing Tibalt with attitude and great confidence.

The zeffereli version of this great performance is what the audiences would of expected to see, where as the Baz Lurhman version was uncalled for with many experts complaining that it was manipulating the play dramatically but this wasn’t the case because when Shakespeare was writing these plays he involved nudity violence and action to keep the audience intrigued with the performance which was exactly what Lurman did with his version.

I think that Baz Lurhman version is more engaging for audiences to watch and the would appreciate this version much better then the Franco Zeffereli because this is a modern version and fits in well with the culture of today’s society.