Review of ROMEO + JULIET (1996)
The Book-Lover's Guide to Cinema
http://www.panix.com/~mgold/meter.htm copyright1998 Matthew K. Gold all rights reserved
Kitsch For Sale
ROMEO + JULIET does to Shakespeare's play what CLUELESS did to Jane Austen's novel: it modernizes and updates a classic work for the 18-24 year-old market. After seeing this loud, ambitious movie twice, I remain conflicted about it: while I was moved by it, I also think that it is a piece of manipulative fluff--a kind of "Teen Beat" magazine in cinemascope.
Each generation reinvents Shakespeare for itself. This ROMEO + JULIET is ridden with 90's kitsch. It uses Shakespeare's words, but takes its imagery from the exaggerated vocabulary of soap operas, MTV, and Andy Warhol. It was filmed in Mexico City, which is an exaggeration of urban life in itself. The kitsch works well in some sequences: in an invigorating party scene, at which Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Juliet (Claire Danes) first meet, characters wear costumes that effectively communicate their personalities: Romeo wears the stylish armor of a post-modern knight, Juliet wears the foam wings of an earthbound angel, Capulet (Juliet's dominating father) wears the Caesaric robes of an august patriarch, Mercutio (Romeo's friend and the Prince's kinsman) wears the sequined dress of a drag queen, and Paris (Juliet's establishment-minded suitor) wears the dorky space-gear of an enthusiastic astronaut. I appreciated the way the movie updated Shakespeare's characters. In this movie, the Prince of Verona is a tough police commissioner, the Capulets and Montagues are rival gangs, the chorus is a TV anchorwoman, and the Friar Laurence (Pete Postlethwaite, who gives a fun performance) is a hip priest who proclaims the benefits of "herbs." Many of these touches are original and thought-provoking; this movie could be understood as a comment on recent racial disturbances in Los Angeles, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Miami, and Crown Heights. The problem is that I'm not sure what, exactly, it might be saying.
As Romeo and Juliet, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Daines give effective performances. The camera adores these young stars. As soft golden light plays over DiCaprio's wet hair, skinny torso, and sensuous lips, one thinks of James Dean's body and Marlon Brando's cheekbones. As the angelic Juliet, Danes looks pristine--until she smirks naughtily while considering that "other part/ belonging to a man." The single best scene of the movie occurs when DiCaprio and Danes first lock eyes through a fish tank. For a few brief moments, pure innocence and charm take command of the screen. These actors, both on the cusp of puberty, convey the wonder and the angst of two young lovers in the throes of an overpowering, but impossible, love. DiCaprio and Danes are a perfect Romeo and Juliet for the 1990's: their budding bodies are completely in sync with the recent trend of unisex ad campaigns.
At a certain point during the movie, the many excesses began to bother me. The brashness that was at first charming soon became tiresome. In many scenes, such as the one in Church where Juliet reposes amid millions of crosses and candles, the layers of kitsch became so thick that I had trouble locating any glimmer of sincerity or feeling. The imagery of ROMEO + JULIET has the puffed-up ethos of a TV commercial. Watching this movie made me think of Thomas Carlyle, who, in Past and Present (1843), decried the effects of advertising on shoemaking: "Thy shoes are vamped up falsely to meet the market; behold, the leather only seemed to be tanned; thy shoes melt under me to rubbishy pulp, and are not veritable mud-defying shoes, but plausible vendible similitudes of shoes." At their best, movies like ROMEO + JULIET cannot create true emotions, because they themselves evince none; they can only produce "vendible similitudes" of emotions. In the end, that's just not enough for me.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
1/31/97 © Matthew K. Gold 1998
Production Notes:
ROMEO + JULIET is rated PG-13. Cast: Claire Danes (Juliet Capulet), Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo Montague), Harold Perrineau (Mercutio), Pete Postlethwaite (Father Laurence), Paul Sorvino (Fulgencio Capulet), Brian Dennehy (Ted Montague).
Directed by Bas Luhrmann. Screenplay by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce. Based on the play by William Shakespeare. Running time: 120 minutes.
The Book-Lover's Guide to Cinema http://www.panix.com/~mgold/meter.htm copyright 1998 Matthew K. Gold
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