Love fool.

'Romeo and Juliet', when I was in high school I used to hate this play. I could never sit patiently in the classroom and discuss how tragic it was for two innocent lovers to take their lives away in the name of love. The star- crossed love. But recently I had to watch Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo + Juliet' as I was invited to participate in a 'taster day' at the university. I joined a second year group discussing how Luhrmann's film adapts the very classical Shakespeare's play.

Despite young Leonardo diCaprio and his very romantic/boy- ish appearance (skinny, no chest/facial hair/blond and dreamy) I have enjoyed myself re- watching this film quite a lot.

First of all, the prologue of 'Romeo and Juliet' seems to be imprinted in my memory as from now on:

'Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene..'

I come from no dignified household yet still, I know the feeling when you want to go after something or someone and your parents are so against it that you'd rather kill yourself (well, my expereince was less drastic, I simply moved 1300km away from them) than stay at home and do as they wish.


The second thing about 'Romeo and Juliet' and Luhrmann's adaption is that postmodernism truly liberates the holy classics from their pedestals. These days there is absolutely nothing that you can't adapt or take inspiration from, even if you're going to go very far away from the original.
Music, books, plays, icons, historical events- all of that can be mixed within pop culture to unbelievable extends.

Someone might say that Luhrmann's adaptation is no adaptation as it is done so freely that only remainder of the original play is the spoken text itself.
Not so many people notice how many similarities are there to the original poem by Arthur Brooke, on which Shakespeare has based his play. But considering that Luhrmann denied knowing Brooke's work (only that he was aware of its existence) let's not get into that as it is a very hypothetical discussion.

Let's say that the film doesn't resemble the play- so what? Luhrmann takes what's crucial for the story and puts subcultural marks all over it. The location of the film, costumes, design, music, influences of punk, pop, western, Mexican and Christian culture, representing love as a drug and water as healing and soothing element. The camera moves in bizarre ways and slows down only at the end where Romeo finds Juliet dead (temporarily dead, if you wish). The two lovers are even granted by Luhrmann with a last kiss, something that Shakespeare didn't allow to happen.

Also, I think that we can all accept Luhrmann's adaptation as a work that is fun to watch because to be absolutely honest- how many of us really find ourselves in Shakespeare's play?

Even if there are many obstacles in the way of our romantic relationships, no one is likely to drink up a magic potion or a poison to prove our love.
Sometimes you have to hide your relationship, keep it quiet and secret because it may affect some other aspects of your life. But you're not going to fight swords with your enemies over it, won't you?

Luhrmann's version of the story is a true masterpiece to me and I didn't expect to enjoy it that much. Might be that I didn't watch 'Romeo + Juliet' carefully enough before. Might be that polish education system has killed many books and plays for us. But I also think that academic text and sitting in a class with other literature- lovers has helped me a lot with reconsidering this work of Shakespeare. It truly inspired me to read the play again and as difficult as it might be- I'll try doing that in English.

'From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean...'