We've written stacks of book reviews by this point; this time I'd like you to write a review of Baz Lurhman's 1996 film version of 'Romeo and Juliet', and talk about the ways in which he stuck to the text and the ways in which he made it into something fresh. He uses lots of symbolism (remember we talked a lot about symbolism when we studied poetry, and we had that lesson where we looked at the front cover art for 'Twilight' in particular and discussed all the symbolism that was going on in that picture).
You can find information about the names of actors and who was responsible for direction and cinematography etc on imdb.com.
You can also watch clips of the film on YouTube if you need to refresh your memory (which you probably will).
Please answer the following points USING FULL SENTENCES WHICH MAKE SENSE EVEN TO SOMEBODY WHO HAS NOT READ THE QUESTIONS.
1) Do you think the main actors were well cast? Why? What is good or bad about how they play their characters? (Think about Romeo, Juliet, the Nurse, the Friar, Tybalt, Mercutio, Benvolio and Paris, and perhaps Juliet's parents.) Did anything surprise you? Did the characters look the way you imagined? If not, why not?
2) What parts were funny, and why?
3) How did the music add to the impact? Would it have been the same experience with different music?
4) Think about Act I, Scene V - the party at the Capulets' house, where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time. What are the different characters wearing? What does this tell us about them?
5) Did the actors do a convincing job of making you believe Romeo and Juliet were in love? Did they make you care about what was happening? If so - why? If not, why not?
6) One image that you find in this movie and also in some of the director's other films, like Moulin Rouge, is something that looks like the Coca Cola advert - but instead of Coca Cola written in that distinctive white font on a red background, it says L'amour instead. (French for Love, as I'm sure you know.) He obviously likes this quite a lot, since he's used it in several films. What do you think he's trying to communicate with this image?
