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Zefirelli Differences Between Romeo And Juliet

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William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is considered one of the greatest love stories of all time. It is about two star-crossed lovers from feuding families whose hatred brings the lovers’ lives to a tragic end. Two film directors created what are now the two most popular film versions of ‘Romeo and Juliet’: the 1973 Franco Zefirelli version and the 1997 Baz Luhrmann version. However, the two different directors took completely different approaches on how to produce and direct their films - Zefirelli took a much more ‘traditional’ approach, by keeping the setting and costuming close to Shakespeare’s time, while Luhrmann did the opposite by modernising the setting and characters so as to adapt to today’s audience. By making these changes, many would say that he was more successful than Zefirelli in portraying what Shakespeare intended, and in remaining true to the text. …show more content…

He wanted his plays to be performed and viewed around the whole country, and his legacy lives on because of people like Luhrmann. Luhrmann chose two young rising actors who were already quite famous-Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo) and Claire Danes (Juliet) - and he knew that this would attract people to view his movie, whilst Zefirelli chose two actors who weren’t as experienced, to portray the parts of Romeo and Juliet – Leonard Whiting (Romeo), and Olivia Hussey (Juliet). These two actors had not acted in any films before ‘Romeo and Juliet’ film whilst both Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes had both acted major roles in many other films before getting the main roles in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, and were more experienced than Hussey and

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