Lurhmann’s Romeo Essay

The first camera-shot is the television at a medium shot; we slowly zoom in, while the television image shows the names of the families, then a news reporter. This show’s the families are important to be on headline news. The female reporter says about half the prologue, when the camera stops zooming, but as she nears the end the camera zooms again. When she finishes he reading the camera zooms through the television quite rapidly. As it passes the screen it continues to zoom down the street extremely fast this also shows the films speed. The zoom comes to a stop and freezes for a few seconds and a big religious icon. This is the first sign of irony, because in the action packed film they still have time to notice God. The music is a choir with a loud volume, quick pace, it has a sinister tone because it is high pitched and quite quick it sound threatening, choir is high male voices to get the sinister speed and change of the notes. The voiceover starts and the music get quieter and drop behind the voiceover; it is still play but a lot quieter. A sound of a helicopter can be heard, the camera zooms out. It comes to the family tree of the two families of Capulet and Montague. The shot changes to fire, this symbolize war, anger and aggression between the two families. This is linked by the voiceover’s words of â€Å"From ancient grudge†¦Ã¢â‚¬  his voice sounds aggressive, this shows his anger. As he says the words headlines from newspapers appear. This show powerful families and modern times. These newspapers have heads like â€Å"Montague Vs Capulet†, â€Å"From ancient grudge†, â€Å"New Mutiny† and â€Å"Civil Blood makes civil hands unclean† These headlines appear as the voiceover says them. It shows the modern families that spans of a period of time. With the quick change of the headlines it shows us it is continually changing. There is a straight cut to two tall buildings with one has â€Å"Montague† on the other has â€Å"Capulet† with a holy icon in the middle. This show power on both sides and religion caught in the middle. This also shows irony that God is between the two feuding families. At this point the music gets louder to build tension. As the music gains momentum, there is a long shot of another religious icon to that they all believe in God. The music gets even louder as they show the characters. They begin with two men of the families; both are big stocky and powerful looking men, they both wear suit and shirt, the shirts are worn casually without a tie, they are big to represent that they are the head of the families. The women are very different; the Montague Lady is smartly dressed with neat hair. She looks a few years younger that her husband, she looks intelligent and mature. Lady Capulet is young, a lot younger than her husband, blonde with puffed out hair this is more stylish and so young age more. This also so that she is as mature or smart or tidy as Lady Montague. Prince is smartly dressed, with an angry face, he is the authority figure. Paris is smartly dressed this shows he is a business man, his vanity is show by his neat but floppy hair and his little smile. Mercustio is lively but can get angry shown by the close-up of his eyes with a mean, aggressive stare. There is a straight cut as the music gets louder and a series of fast cut images, mainly about violence and hatred between the families. The music climaxes then blends into a more drum beat. As a medium shot of a group of men, labeled â€Å"the Boys† The men are acting immature and acting like boys, by shouting and being a nuisance. There clothes are Hawaii shirts with the buttons undone which exposes there skinny bodies. This shows they are rude and obnoxious but are wimps if they were in a fight. A low shot is taken of the yellow car to stand out. A point of view shot of Benvolio goes off. The Capulet car arrives we get a low angle shot of the car coming towards us, this is to show they are threatening. One of the boys, who has pink hair, makes a stupid action. Abra is seen, there is an extreme close-up on Abra’s teeth of a metal plate. Abra is big muscular, this is show with his clothes which are tight on his body. Abra has an aggressive face and looks threatening and mean. Benvolio comes back, a close-up on his face as he pulls out a gun. Extreme close-up on the gun so we can see the name, nervousness can be seen in Benvolio’s face. Benvolio is big but not as muscular as Abra. There is silence when the camera cuts to Tybalt drops a match, there is a low angle shot to show Tybalt’s shoes, it shows he is flash because he has silver heals, he crushes the match, grinding it with his solid heal as it was an enemy, this is a very strong action symbolizing hatred and aggression. Tybalt has small cat like teeth, he is thin but toned and nimble. He wears black clothes which represents bad. Also he has two guns which show he is a good gun handler this also implies he is bad. He has slick hair and a little well groomed goatee which is a cat like feature. He has a red waist coat with an image of Jesus on, this shows irony that they fight but still believe in God.  Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragic romantic story, I will tell you about the opening scenes of this video e.g. Voiceover, camera angles, characters, clothes and soundtrack. The voiceover is slow with a calm tone and a low pitch. They have this voice because it fits with the slow pace of the beginning of the film; the tone is calm, slow but upset. The music in the scene is of slow pace as well and links well with the slow pace of the voiceover. The soundtrack is hushed smooth rhythm with a slow and drowsy pace; this has high notes and a sympathetic sound. The music sounds like it was composed during the time of Shakespeare. Because the music is slow and if flows nicely with the text which is an old style italic font, this suggests that the film is set in along time ago as well as the music. We get a high-angle camera shot at the beginning which pans across the town smoothly and calmly like the music and the voiceover. The camera angle shows us a medieval town. The shot shows a river flowing in the middle of the town and all the colours are pastel and flow. The camera turns up and zooms slowly at the sun, it stops and it the big italic writing saying â€Å"William Shakespeare† as though his is the best. Straight cut to town’s court medium height angle, in the background a horse and cart can be seen this shows the period of time. There is a straight cut to the Montague boys feet, kicking a dog, this show them acting badly and causing trouble. There is a long shot on the Capulets they are dressed smartly and also polite. They wear darker coloured clothes to stand out. The Montague boys are dressed in bright clothes and stand out as well but they are rude. There is a straight cut to the Montague biting his thumb which is a close up, then a close-up on the people talking. Straight cut to towns people noticing trouble, then back to a medium shot of the Montague boys.