Simultaneously the worst and best movie ever made
Actually one of my teachers watched every single version of Romeo and Juliet with the original text in front of him to prove that this was the worst version, but to his great dismay its the most accurate film adaptation of it, with the lines closest to the original text and most similar stage direction and relayed emotions.
He proceeded to show it to us in class.
Dude, seriously. This version is actually very accurate.
My Shakespeare professor in grad school said the same thing.
I think most Shakespeare movies are just so classy and highbrow with their gorgeous period costumes and mandatory snooty elocutionary accents that people forget how goofy this play actually is. The lines, the characters, the motivations, the babyfaced teen stars, I just… oh my god it’s all so real. I’ve heard a lot of people blast Baz Luhrmann for making such a campy adaptation and it’s just like no, you don’t understand, that was all Shakespeare.
Sometimes I wonder if the real reason it’s disliked is because it was so damn popular with teenage girls.
You mean… Like the actual play?
Plus, it’s not like Shakespeare himself wouldn’t have produced it that way if he’d had the resources and the technology to do so. His shows were infamous for their over-the-top production values, and in particular for their pioneering use of pyrotechnic special effects; the original Globe Theatre burned to the ground due to an SFX mishap during the premier of Henry VIII. This was not a man concerned overmuch with the sober dignity of his craft.
I’m not enough a Shakespeare scholar to say how emotionally accurate the Baz Luhrmann adaptation is, but I do know a lot of the high mustiness attached to Shakespeare is because of the language (see also King James Bible). I had a pretty interesting linguistics class that was strongly for a retranslation of Shakespeare into modern English. “Why aren’t we making this more accessible, because it was really accessible in Shakespeare’s day.”
Meanwhile, I think the Baz Luhrmann movie is bright, wonderful fun.