Romeo And Juliet Comparative Essay

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Adaptations of Romeo and Juliet - Compared

The famous play, Romeo and Juliet, has been rewritten and adapted many times since William Shakespeare wrote it. Two of the films recreating it, Franco Zeffireli’s 1968 version and Baz Luhrman’s 1996 film, share many commonalities in the cinematic elements of camera shots and lighting for the death scene. However, the elements of camera movement and sound in the brawl scene differ from each other dramatically.
In the very well known death scene, Franco Zeffireli and Baz Luhrman decided to take the same approach to camera shots and lighting. Both films use front and back lighting for the majority of the scene, making Romeo and Juliet look innocent and sweet even in death. The only time that the directors use bottom and side is when Juliet discovers that Romeo is dead so that she looks desperate to be with him. Romeo also enters in low
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Camera movement typically is meant to follow an important figure or object, whereas the directors decided to manage this movement differently from each other. In Zeffirelli’s film, the camera mainly follows Mercutio during his fight with Tybalt, and Luhrman follows both Tybalt and Mercutio during the fight to make it look like they have an equal chance of winning. After Mercutio is killed during each scene, the camera follows different people. In the 1968 version, Romeo is on camera as he runs through the streets of Verona to find Tybalt. Moving to follow Romeo with the camera adds drama and emotion to his tiring run which ends in discovering Tybalt walking away. In the version made in 1996, it follows both Tybalt and Romeo after the fight to show their reactions and where they go next. During the fight between Romeo and Tybalt, Baz Luhrman focuses more on the details such as unloading bullets and the dropped gun being kicked around. This is to signify the commotion included in the