Romeo + Juliet (1996) truly has everything…heavy religious imagery…young leo…90s fashion…a brief drag scene….neon lights…those iconic angel wings
guns labeled “sword”
being better than anything shakespeare ever produced
i dislike the implication that shakespeare wouldn’t have done the exact same thing if he were alive in the 90′s
Fun fact, the guns being labelled “sword” is not just them being Extra™.
Most of the guns being used by the main characters are modified Taurus PT99 pistols, the different types of which are often named after specific types of knives and swords, thus enabling them to not have to change the Shakespearean dialogue, but to also manage that specific visual pun.
So Shakespeare would have absolutely been 100% all over that shit.
For example, Tybalt’s gun is a modified 9mm “Rapier” (from the Taurus PT99 Series ‘R’) and is actually one of my favorite visual aesthetics of quite probably any weapon in movie history to date.
While everyone else seems to be using a much more heavier and “powerful” version of pistol, his is sleek and light in frame, making it much easier for him to fight the way that he does. Which is undoubtedly Extra™ in comparison to everyone else, but also intended to mimic the dueling stance of actual rapier swordsmen of the time who relied on speed rather than brute force. They were Gentlemen after all. If you were going to cut someone down you ought to do it with some finesse.
If you look closely at his hand you’ll notice that with the exception of his middle finger on the trigger, he’s actually holding it the way one would a sword hilt. He’s also got the poise of a honed duelist.
This is someone who has been brought up with a very strong sense of Family Honor, and is expected to fight to defend it, but not as a common foot soldier (who carry “longswords” which are modified shotguns in the film), but as a Gentleman.
A gentleman who suddenly finds himself having to fight in the streets with people carrying “daggers”.
Like Mercutio’s modified pistol, which while beautiful and (importantly thematic) transparent in its function, is also heavy and cumbersome in comparison to Tybalt’s rapier, which also has a much further range, something he also makes better use of with the addition of a quick release mount for a c-scope, which allows him to either be slow and accurate, or to forgo accuracy for speed during say, a one on one duel vs a street brawl.
Which means even if he can’t make as many quickfire short range movements as Mercutio can, he’s still going to fucking obliterate him with the practiced ease of someone who has been training for duels their entire life.
Not to mention just how fucking ornate this thing is. Look at it. What an extra little sob, I love it. I love the whole movie. It’s an excellent adaptation and I’ll bite my thumb at anyone who says otherwise.
When we left the theater after seeing it, my partner asked me that same question about what Shakespeare would think. Then, as now, I think he would have loved it. Elizabethan theater was a popular art form and at it’s best, Shakespeare is deliberately playing to everyone from the drunks standing up front to the toffs in the boxes. he’s competing with vendors and orange girls who weren’t just selling oranges. He’s competing with conversations and possible fist fights or worse. There were none of the modern cues we use to get audiences to shut up, like dimming lights, curtain opening, etc. as they were performing on an open air stage.
Most of his plays are designed specifically to do something attention grabbing in the first scene to get the audience to SHUT UP and Watch. This production does that with noise and action and glorious visuals. It grabbed everyone in the theater, and the production did what the original was meant to do: bring in all walks of life. The showing we went to had as many teens as adults and they were all really enjoying it. As we were leaving, the gaggle of teens in front of us were planning to come back and see it again.
Which was kind of the point. These plays survived because they drew in audiences over and over. They could remount Romeo and Juliet next year and people would want to see it again. Before we labelled them high art and dissected them, they were crowd pleasures full of slang and dirty jokes and swordfights as well as the poetry and characters and themes that gave them staying power. They work best when all those things are still in there and accessible so people can experience all of those things.
This version captures that better than any other Romeo & Juliet I’ve seen. Romeo + Juliet is alive and brash and still grabs me every fucking time. This version is the closest I’m likely to get to what it felt like to watch it the first time, even if the outfits are different and as the poster points out Luhrmann has carefully translated the swords and fighting styles into modern weaponry. I know next to nothing about firearms, but I could see that Tybalt moved right, like a swordsman. I could read the body language in the fights just as clearly.
I still think I’m unlikely to see a version I’ll like better.
