Baz Luhrmann Strengths

Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the play “Romeo and Juliet” has many strengths. The elements of character, plot, and setting were all areas of strength. The characters cast in Luhrmann’s version was a strength with their similarity to the original characters in Shakespeare’s play. Luhrmann did his job by modernizing them, but he still kept them in ties with the play. Mercutio, while still being Romeo’s best friend and being related to the Prince, held all of his character while still portraying a realistic role in the modern world. This is shown again with Lady Capulet and how she still remains a mother to Juliet and a wife to Capulet, but with a more flamboyant touch to her personality, as wealthy wives in the city would be today. The characters are supposed to look and act a little differently to fit in with how people are today, that was Luhrmann’s goal as he made this modernized love story. The plot is another strength in ways of better showing the feud between the houses of Capulet and Montague. It was
The gang violence and setting turns this into something quite similar to the conflict going on near Miami beaches in the 80’s, which is exactly what it looks like. Luhrmann was able to successfully give this movie the modern touch he was looking for by adding busy streets, incredible buildings, and even dark, Last-Exit-To-Brooklyn backstreets by the beaches. With characters that look and act like they belong in today’s era, you need them to live in a city that actually looks like a city, or what one would assume a city looks like. This is a great strength by how realistic and recent it looks, which, again, was Luhrmann’s main goal. Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet was supposed to be a modern-day tragic love story, just like Shakespeare’s play was his tragic love story. One must expect a few differences, as times have certainly