She is a more mature, expressive and articulate Juliet than Olivia Hussey in the 1968 film. Her face registers a range of emotions with impressive subtlety. Danes conveys Juliet's practical nature, and she seems older than Romeo, even though this is not the case. DiCaprio's Romeo is a romantic and a dreamer. In both cases, this is quite true to Shakespeare's play. Luhrmann also exercises his creativity in the traditional balcony scene, in which Romeo and Juliet first pledge their love. This Romeo, like every other Romeo for four hundred years, spies a light at the window and thinks he sees Juliet, but then who should poke her head out of the window but the disapproving Nurse. Meanwhile, Juliet just happens to be taking the elevator downstairs, and when the two finally meet face to face outside, she is so surprised she falls backwards into the swimming pool, taking Romeo with her. The scene that follows has all the innocent appeal that the text demands. Like Zeffirelli, Luhrmann manages to convey Shakespeare's themes through some startling visual effects. In this all-action, quick-cutting movie, which was aimed at the supposedly short attention spans of teens, there are nonetheless two moments of utter stillness. The first is when the lovers are shown lying asleep together, and this foreshadows the moment they lie together in death at the end. The position of their bodies, with Juliet's right arm draped over Romeo's midriff, and both heads turned to the right, is almost exactly the same in both shots. As in the Shakespearean text, love and death are intimately, tragically, linked. In the death scene, Luhrmann makes a dramatically effective innovation. Juliet shows signs of life several times as Romeo prepares to take the poison. He is looking elsewhere and fails to see her. Then, just as he downs the fatal mixture, Juliet wakes up fully, smiles and touches him on the cheek. It is too late, but Juliet utters her last speech, beginning "What's here? Romeo's final line, "Thus with a kiss I die," is spoken to a conscious, anguished Juliet, about a kiss initiated by her, not, as in the text, by Romeo on the lips of a Juliet he believes to be dead. In the cutting of the text, Luhrmann makes different decisions than Zeffirelli. Then comes the scene in which Romeo sees Juliet for the first time. He is instantly enamored and entranced, and his melancholy and despair are quickly transformed. Not long before, Romeo had been speaking of Rosaline's charms but upon seeing Juliet, he claims he "ne'er saw true beauty till this night. Our prices here! Or visit our site >> research papers on global warming More info about: sociology research project customs writing essay of mice and men psychology dissertation topics essay on mccarthyism topics for english papers terrorism research paper topics architecture papers
