Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet: The Use Of Tragic Elements In A Hollywood Blockbuster To Represent The Story

Romeo and Juliet the most renowned play of all time, clashes against the modern era as Baz Luhrmann recreates it into a Hollywood blockbuster. Romeo and Juliet is shaped up of many both tragic events and hasty decisions, the story of the two star-crossed lovers takes a twist as we plunge into the depth of tragedy into Romeo and Juliet. These events include tragic hero, Revenge, sad ending and how they influence the audience whilst making the true tragic story.

Firstly, on Act 1 Scene 1 (Line 160) Romeo claims he is ‘’out of her favour where I am in love’’. Which is a clear indication of tragic hero, tragic hero is a flaw in a character’s personality and for Romeo its love that is his weakness. This is evident from both the book and movie, tragic hero in the case of Romeo and Juliet is one of the biggest components of the story, because the foundation of the play is based on love and destruction. And tragic hero in Romeo is likewise both loving and destructive for the two star-crossed lovers. Carefully thought out camera angles such as close ups and mid shots are used to create a both emotive and eventful scene. Accompanied with clam music and light colours the scene is shown identical from the movie to book.

Secondly, Act 3 Scene 1 (Line 125) demonstrates a clear and sound example of revenge which goes down as a tragedy. During the book in this scene a lot of emotions are in the air, Reason being Tybalt killed Mercutio, one of Romeo’s beloved friends. When that happened Romeo was full of anger and disgust he decided to plot revenge and kill Tybalt, this showed that Romeo does have a destructive side to him. This is essential because the foundations of the story are love and destruction. Likewise the movie for this depicts a rather more modern and descriptive representation of revenge against Tybalt for his wrongdoing. At the start you can already see major differences to the movie, some such as Cars, clothing and guns. In the book for the fight against Romeo and Tybalt, it says ‘’they fight; Tybalt falls’’ which is not very descriptive is it? Oppose to the movie where you see their facial expressions and get an idea of the character’s feelings. Plus where visual creatures so the movie representations is better if made identical to the book.

Thirdly sad ending always makes or breaks a story, on Act 5 Scene 3 (Line 170) Hollywood’s most tragic and heart breaking event takes place, it starts from love then turns into destruction as the two star-crossed lovers try to remain in loves stronghold. This scene consists of many twists, and cliff hangers, but how does it influence the audience and carve out its name of Romeo and Juliet the tragedy. During the movie on Act 5 Scene 3 (Line 170) a lot of indecisive decisions are made, such as drinking the sleeping potions which leads to ultimate destruction and suicide of Juliet. All this tragedy resulted from one small well big mistake, which is Juliet drinking the sleeping potion. This makes the audience feel sad for the couple, and both put on suspense as they try to resolve loves confusion placed upon them. Shakespeare is a very smart man for his time almost identical to a movie director these days. This means he knows how to hook viewers into a story, and through the use of tragic elements this is accomplished very effectively.

In summary, the use of tragic elements are the foundation of the blockbuster, Baz Luhrmann did a very accurate representation of the story whilst adding modern era elements, but the main construction of the movie is the same as how Shakespeare portrayed some hundred few years ago. The use of camera angles and music also adds to making the movie the movie exiting and suspenseful for the viewer.