Romeo + Juliet - Shakespeare Month the Second 

God. I love this movie. This is the first movie that helped me realize that Shakespeare wasn't necessarily highbrow and inaccessible. Also I really liked Mercutio, he was fun.

I remember our year 12 teacher telling the class we would be studying Hamlet and everyone but me and a select few groaning. One girl started to complain that Shakespeare was rubbish if you couldn't understand it and it had no place or relevance anymore. I thought about ripping her a new one, but then I realised something. She was from a broken home. This text was perfect. I told her that it's easier to understand and like Shakespeare if you know the plot first sometimes, and explained to her that once you remove the espionage and supernatural, Hamlet can be read as a young man trying and failing to understand and accept that his mother has remarried. His loyalty is completely with his father and he hates it that he is obligated to love a new father and feels like he has no say in it. As we read through the story in class over the next few days, she got more and more into it, getting extremely emotional in the discussion at some points and actually crying at the end of the play. I thought it was wonderful.

The problem is Claire Danes and DiCaprio hated each other on set. Danes felt DiCaprio was too goofy and immature, playing pranks and shiz. Dicaprio felt Danes was too stuck-up and snooty

Hamlet hides from his parents, listens to Radiohead, and recites his own poetry

I guess I'm alone in actually liking the idea of everybody calling their guns "swords." I think they went too far with pringing the word "SWORD" on all the guns like the audience will have no clue what you're talking about if you don't, but I like the idea of just transposing the old vernacular to modern visuals.

"quoted by everyone" is my favourite bit

I also really wish he had included the clip of Patrick Star saying "I DEFY YOU, HEART MAN!" in the montage of all of the movies and shows that quote this play.

One kid in my church group had to read Romeo and Juliet for English class and his teacher said that as a reward for reading the play they could watch a movie version after. It was Romeo + Juliet and this kid hated it so much. Probably because he read the play first.

One of the few things I remember from my English class in my senior year of high school was my English teacher saying that one of Romeo's biggest flaws was making decisions too quickly and without much thought and one of Hamlet's biggest flaws was taking too long to make decisions and overthinking things. He said if Romeo and Hamlet switched plays, than things would turn out better for the heroes.

Maybe its because I was a teenager in the 90s, I was just the right audience for this. I personally feel, that what this movie gets right is the "teenage hormone" angle. Out of control, irrational, stupid kind of love that you can only feel as a teenager. This movie nails it!

The woman who sings "wherefore out thou? Romeo? " in the Wizard of Oz is Adriana Caselotti, aka, the voice of Snow White.

I actually love this movie. A lot of people say stuff like "oh you just like it cause you're a 90s kid", but actually, I didn't see it until a while after it came out, like a few good years. Yes I knowledge that this movie has a lot of problems. But, like you said, when the actors are good, they are really good. The cinematography is gorgeous, and I absolutely love the aesthetic of it. That mid 90s west coast/ Miami look. Lots of neon. It's gorgeous.

"Remember that time when Donald Trump's chauffeurs got into a knife fight with Warren Buffet's secretaries?" I think you just made a very accurate prediction of year three of the Trump administration.

The use of guns in this movie instead of swords was iconic in my opinion

13:36 And now, the Royal Shakespeare Company presents: Harmony Korine's Springbreakers.

I understand how Shakespearean English isn't hard to read, per se, but I think the major reason why I had such a hard time with it back in high school is because of the poetry itself being really dense and really hard to grasp. There's so many layered metaphors that keep going on and on, and it's really hard to keep track as to "wait, what is normal and what is supposed to be flowery poetry," especially since they tend to be based on allusion that isn't immediately apparent in the context. I admire anyone's ability to understand just exactly how beautifully-crafted Shakespeare's densely-packed wordplay is, but ironically it's the exact reason why I can't get into him. Then again, I have trouble reading anything that isn't pure prose or mildly informal, so eh.

Dude, Leonardo DiCaprio in that "It's not morning" scene was the "oh, I guess I'm into guys too" moment for me. I'll always have a special place in my heart for this movie cuz of it

Thanks for pointing out the difference between Old English and Modern, but Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English, so yes, it is different and takes getting used to.

I disagree, I personally love Baz's films. I think he understood the source material more than people give him credit for; "Our philosophy has always been that we think up what we need in our life, choose something creative that will make that life fulfilling, and then follow that road. With Romeo and Juliet what I wanted to do was to look at the way in which Shakespeare might make a movie of one of his plays if he was a director. How would he make it? We don't know a lot about Shakespeare, but we do know he would make a `movie' movie. He was a player. We know about the Elizabethan stage and that he was playing for 3000 drunken punters, from the street sweeper to the Queen of England - and his competition was bear-baiting and prostitution. So he was a relentless entertainer and a user of incredible devices and theatrical tricks to ultimately create something of meaning and convey a story. That was what we wanted to do." Luhrmann has cited Italian grand opera and Bollywood films as big influences on his work, neither of which is known for their subtlety. Bollywood studios will heavily promote the soundtrack (which often has big name stars) to a new film because they believe if the soundtrack is a big hit than the film will be a big hit. Both soundtracks to Romeo + Juliet sold over 8 million copies, the film went on the gross $147 million. The art and set decorators did receive Oscar Nominations for their work too. I can tell you when my high school English class watched this we were all hooked. Some were even misty eyed afterwards but too embarrassed to admit it.

I agree with the bafflement with people who think Shakespeare is hard. Yeah, a few way out of date phrases (There's a line in Hamlet regarding a man's 'beaver' that comes to mind) and the rhythm is a bit different. But it's still the same language, using the same words, and grammar rules that we use today, why is is so difficult?

"Hey there, kid from the 90s," was a pretty risky phrase to drop, there, dude.

Apparently the guns in the film are from a line of commercial firearms that are actually named after sword types. Wasn't just done for the movie, which blew my mind.

"Man, those Trump boys sure can bite thumbs." Welll, this quote aged like milk

Honestly, I feel like this film still speaks to teenagers. It's the only outdated thing I've ever seen that didn't completely miss on today's teenage audience. It's gone from nostalgiac to... retro? I'm not sure the proper word for appealingly cheesy, but the message still lands and my 9th grade english class loved it.

Actual best version of this play. Not even joking. It's most accurate, captures the tone of the feud and translates it for a modern audience the best, and actually plays the jokes as the jokes they are and not as serious dialogue (looking at you bite my thumb scene)

This movie is a mess and I love it. Also it does have the best Mercutio of any adaption, the rest of the movie is just a fun ridiculous ride but Mercutio's performance is genuinely brilliant and I will die on this hill

His adaptation of The Great Gatsby is of similar caliber. The dialogue in this film is half Fitzgerald text and half SparkNotes commentary explaining the subtext within the dialogue itself. The target audience of the film is literally "Teenagers who have to study the book but watch the movie adaptation instead."

I've watched this video I don't even know how many times, and I never fail to crack up at "El Mariachi versus the Burger King Kids Club."

I saw this movie while we were studying it for school. Though I begged my teacher that we watch the 1968 version, I guess she disagreed with me. I think my class was laughing more than actually watching.

Omg. Thank you for speaking old and middle English. So much lolzing.

This has to be one of the most bizarre movies I've seen.

Totally agree with you, I've always found this movie to be kind of overrated even back when I was in the target audience for it.

Probably a good thing for Friar Pete that in this modern day retelling, Juliet's parents didn't decide they needed an autopsy done to find out why their kid died so suddenly.

I thought the two leads' almost monotonous delivery of the lines was to show a stark contrast between them and everyone else. Like they are "the smartest kids in the room," delivering their lines in quiet, almost inflection-less tones--and the friends and family members are all crazy and don't see The Truth that they see.

The lack of chemistry between DiCaprio and Danes can be explained by the fact that they hated each other on set. They didn't want anything to do with each other. Danes thought DiCaprio was too much of a goofball and DiCaprio thought Danes was too stuck up. Side note, I read that Natalie Portman was the original choice to play Juliet, but the producers thought the age difference between DiCaprio and Portman was too distracting, so Claire Danes was brought in to replace Portman.

This film came out the year I was studying Romeo and Juliet in high school. Honestly? It really fucking helped! Usually Shakespeare sounds like very pretty poetry. Like when you listen to a song for the very first time, you're listening more to the beat and the melody rather than the lyrics. So this version of Romeo and Juliet got 14 year old me to actually pay attention to the story. Plus I had a huge crush on Leonardo Dicaprio at the time. I was 14! We all did! Especially when Titanic came out! But now as an adult, I appreciate Shakespeare so much more than most people my age, because this version was my gateway drug. Hell, even by the time I was 16 studying The Merchant of Venice, I was genuinely excited! Another thing that was popular round this time was Jerry Springer. So my class had to create a sketch where Juliet was essentially the Cash Me Outside girl LONG before that was a meme.

"Man those Trump boys sure could bite a thumb!" Turns out he wasn't wrong. Although in his case, his grudges are about as ancient as five seconds. XD

The part where he speaks old English cracks me up lol

I've always seen Romeo and Juliet as more of a cautionary tale of prejudice.

Oh Kyle, I love this review. I really enjoy how you think about movies and dissect them. My younger brothers and I were the target demographic when this came out and it hit its mark like Katniss with a bow. My brothers discovered that Shakespeare could be cool and had something valid to say that had relevance to their lives. And I too felt validated in all my young, whimsical romanticism. Past renditions of R&J always made them seem foolish and overly adult in a way that didn't speak to me but this movie spoke my late 90s language. Their love felt as deep and dramatic as I felt love was at that age. Though it's sad that this movie, despite reaching its audience as I'm sure Bahz intended, wont be as timeless as other renditions. i still applaud him for sprinkling his insane magic all over the story and telling it in a different way. I think there are still audiences that this rendition will touch despite the 90s being long gone. Like all his work, Bahz clearly makes it a point to make his version of a story stand out as something unique, whether good or bad. I adore this movie, it's my favorite version of Romeo and Juliet. Most likely because of my age when I was first exposed to it. Hell, I even wore my high school sweetheart's ring on a chain so we could act out the final scene together. Wow, that's a shame based memory haha. Oh to be seventeen again :D

Your crazy. John leguizamo as tybalt is casting genius.

4:31 This is basically like saying "Well if you're used to a modern sewing machine, why are you having so much trouble using this Singer from 1919?"

I always took the 'trailer in the movie' as a visual complement to the verbal prologue.

Saw this in the theater back in ‘96. Still remember when that TV came on the screen in a darkened room. Then that glorious first 5 minutes 🔥

The forbidden love of Romeo and Juliet would be perfect in an LGBT story. Two boys or two girls in love, or a regular man or woman in love with a transgender person of different genders would really flesh out the forbidden love aspect. Speaking as a cynical member of the "LGBT community" who believes romantic love only exists in fairy tales. : 3

Actually I always saw the montagues and capulets in this version as sort of shell companies for two rival gangs...

8:54 Hey. Hey. I see what you did there in the closed captions.

Every single time i finish a movie and have complex feelings about, i run to your channel.. and there it is. You never disappoint ✨ thank you thank you thank you

OMG, is that one Romeo and Juliet movie adaptation that was recorded in Veracruz, México? my parents told me about it (the thing the remember the most about it is the characters calling the guns 'swords'), told me is the worst Romeo and Juliet adaptation ever made (or at least that they've watched) XD

7:39 well it does deliver the text faithfully, and the way the scenes play out it can give kids context for what it means. Oddly enough, SOME people can't just read something written hundreds of years before they were born and understand all the vintage slang terms and turns of phrase.

Harold Perrineau stole my heart when I first watched this and still does. He delivered the words so naturally and with actual energy lacking from the leads I was upset once his character was killed. Like dammit, now i have to sit through the rest of this madness without this beautiful man

I can't bring myself to hate this movie. I loved the hell out of it in high school and it served as my introduction to Shakespeare .

Funnily enough that joke from The Simpsons turned out to be true when researchers actually tested how people rated the smell of roses without knowing what they were smelling and being told they had different names

I find it hilarious that one of my favorite parts of the movie is what you hated the most. Also, in regards to the delivery of DiCaprio and Daines, I see where you're coming from. But to me, it also helps to give the impression that they really don't know what they're doing, as such ignorance makes their stupidity a little easier to believe. At least to me, anyway.

At least this movie can give a modern context to teenager and help them get a better visual of what's going on. Again, not everyone can read old text from a book and perfectly imagine what's going on.

Kyle I love your videos, and I completely agree that actors completely drop the ball when they don't take the time to understand Shakespeare's text before performing it, but let's be real here. A FEW antique words and poetic rewordings? Shakespeare's plays are LITTERED with antique words and poetic rewordings. Is it really difficult to understand why people have trouble reading lines like "Look here, upon this picture, and on this,The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;" without a lot of effort?

We saw clips of this in English and everyone in my class literally went "....WTF"

Freshman English, 1996. My teacher somehow had a VHS copy, and used it to teach us the play (since those of us who remember, VHS release took over a year once the film left theaters). My class, as much as we didn't want to watch an Elizabethan era version of the play, found ourselves so confused by this version. I mean to be fair there are parts that heavily cater to teenagers, and wonderful symbolic cinematography, but as for a teaching device? This film shouldn't be used. Six years later (2002) my brother took the same class, with the same teacher, and he was just as frustrated lol By the way, I like Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet. It far surpasses Mel Gibson's version :P

While I didn't care for this film... I will say I found their "substitutions" (Dagger is a type of gun) to be smart to me. Heck even your example of sending a text while your line says letter is something I enjoyed.

I saw this movie in high school right after studying the play. Someone pointed out how dumb the Sword- and Longsword-brand guns were, and the teacher pointed out that the text itself--the specific lines Shakespeare wrote, his very words--were basically the only original thing about the play. Makes me wonder what the point of adapting Shakespeare is... ...aside from prestige, I mean. Stupid teen romances aren't artistic unless they were written centuries ago.

12:26 Romeo and Juliet is about two teenagers screwing their lives and the lives of others because of teenage rebellion and young love. Romeo and Juliet has people acting irrationally.

i've always thought it was terrible but i love the art direction lol

I remember seeing this movie when it first came out in 1996. My friends and I were 19 at the time. We left in the middle of the film. We all thought it was so terrible for all of the reasons you mentioned! We'd have asked for our money back but we had free tickets. I wish I could have gotten those 45 minutes of my life back. I enjoyed your review.

Next Shakespeare Month: Gnomeo and Juliet!

between my first time watching this and now, I have memorized the first 18 lines of the Canterbury tales it's a good party trick

Not me shouting "THAT'S PAUL SORVINO" at my phone while sitting alone in my office 😅

Queen Mab's drug trip. This man directed "Moulin Rouge"? I'm shocked!

The aquarium scene is also a reflection of Julieta vision of seeing Romeo in a tomb towards the end. "O God, I have an ill-divining soul. Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale." It seems magical when they're first meeting, but takes on new meaning as the film continues and water is used to evoke images of a tomb. The illusion of pallor created by water for shadows the pallor of death, even in their first meeting. A friend and I watched this movie a dozen times during and after taking an elective summer course on reading Shakespeare. I used to hate the movie, but eventually we kind of decided its the best adaptation of the work. In its teenager-y-ness it hits home on what I think is the core principle, Romeo and Juliet are idiots, but of course they are, we're not supposed to see them as romantic, but as the inevitably of their guardians failures. including but not limited to parents, government, and pseudo parental figures. Every one fails them, they don't die because their love was too good for this world, they die because the people who were supposed to guide them through the roughest most hormonal part of their development failed to do so. And I think this version, more than any other, shows how childish their love is, and how the tragedy was in lost potential not lost love. Also I think it does a particularly good job of illustrating the differences in the young lovers. Romeo has an impulsive consequence free attitude, his heart flips on a dime. Where as Juliet has to be much more aware of consequences because her survival rests on the men in her life, and her reputation. She may get swept along, she is still so young, but she keeps trying to hold back. The weight of her responsibilities is clearly visible. It took me a long time to get Romeo and Juliet, cause I just couldn't sympathize, even when young, with such stupid children getting themselves killed. With age and responsibilities though, I've realized that it's ok not to feel like it's the greatest love story ever told, cause it's not, it's an ordinary "fickle" childish one, and I'm sad that they never got to grow up and experience real mature love, that's the part of the tragedy of potential that really makes me feel something. Your first stupid crazy love, shouldn't be your last. Romeo+Juliet really nails that I think.

Yes we got it back!

4:32 to 5:07 could be used in classrooms...

This was actually the very first theatrical release that my Parents did saw a long time ago when they started dating. My Dad nearly fell asleep and My Mom had to watch through the rest. Of course, she didn't like the ending but this is one of my Favorite Adaptations of the Play itself.

I may be a minority on this, but I love the guns in this flick. I dont care for guns in reality, but I do love guns with artistic custom grips. Especially Tybalt's Rapier 9mm Series R (which is either a Taurus PT99 or a Berretta 92F...my personal favorite for asthetic reasons) I mean its got the Virgin Mother on the grips....fucking love it

Haha, Leo has an Oscar now

I absolutely love that the guns are called swords. It's so dumb and good!

I remember seeing this in school as a kid. I never got why they didn't update the dialogue with the setting. It looked very out of place.

As soon as this film opened I knew instantly who directed it. The same guy who directed moulan rouge. And it shows SO MUCH in this move.

The T-Rex always gets me! :-D

Harold Perrineau was always my favorite part of this film.

DONT SLANDER THE SWORD GUNS THEIR CAMP AND I ADORE THEM. 😊.

2:45 He had a character called Pistol, if that's not proof enough he knew what guns were.

My personal rule for Shakespeare adaptations is "if we did not have the cultural history of Shakespeare, and this was still made, how would we regard it?". I think we'd regard this in the same vein as "Moulin Rouge", "Mad Max: Fury Road", and "Bitch Slap": relatively simple stories with delightfully over the top cinematography.

The 1968 is my fave version of the play. Brilliant.

7:31, That is, exactly​ me.

I kind of love this movie for its amazing camp value; it's hard to believe that everyone was actually taking it seriously. That said, and I feel petty for it, I can't stand pandering to kids or teens. To be fair, Luhrmann seems to be genuine in his desire to reach his audience, rather than just wanting to hold their attention so that the studio can get money from them and their parents. And this direction doesn't feel that out of sync with Moulin Rouge or The Great Gatsby. On a side note, I never would have guessed that he directed Australia. ...Except maybe that early scene where Hugh Jackman, through a bar fight, ends up laying in Nicole Kidman's undergarments strewn out on the street.

Fun fact, one of my teachers in high school absolutely hated Romeo and Juliet. She even refused to teach it.

Are there any videos on this channel about the Great Gatsby? Love the novel but always felt that Fitzgerald's prose not the story itself that made it a classic. Thus the 3 movie versions I've seen range from boring to flawed. Entirely my opinion, my background isn't in the humanities. Would love to hear his thoughts on the book & 4+ films.

I always liked this movie - it is fun.

Finally saw it. I think that although there is definitely a lot of corniness in it, I think it's quite well done.

Has he ever reviewed the 1968 adaptation?

I have a great deal of nostalgia for this movie. I understand it's pretty stupid, but I feel like it perfectly encapsulates this sort of late-nineties, head-trippy insanity that I can't help but love. I mean come on, they had Thom York and Shirley Manson do the soundtrack.

I actually thought that tybalt was pretty good in this version

I have a delightful guilty pleasure for this movie.

I miss this version of Kyle

The entire Romeo and Juliet story is so over the top I think this version captures that well. It's a flawed film but I still love it(and I was not a teenager in the 90s lol)

I miss Shakespeare month

I'm actually really looking forward to reading this when I get back to school from break

As weird and flawed as this version was, Luhrmann's change to the ending is what seals it for me. In the original, Romeo enters the Capulet Tomb, kills Paris, says his famous goodbye, drinks the poison, says, "Thus with a kiss I die", and then dies before Juliette revives in the presence of Friar Lawrence, whereupon she sees the dead Romeo and Paris and stabs herself. Luhrmann switches it up: Romeo says his goodbye, but Juliette awakes just as he drinks the poison, which means that HE DIES IN HER ARMS WHILE SHE IS TOTALLY AWARE. Somehow I think it works better because this hurts more to watch.

So Shakespeare was a 1500's to 1600's John Huges? Wow

This movie opened my eyes to the idea that when someone said "Shakespearean", they don't mean 'good', they mean bombastic, over-the-top, and campy. I wish highschool didn't shove the idea down my throat that the plays were meant to be taken seriously because, when you watch a love performance of any of his plays, they are ridiculous and require a laboring amount of suspension of disbelief. You are much more likely to accept a movie with a stupid premise if every part of it is stupid in the best possible ways. Also no one can change my mind that Horatio is black, that's stuck in my head forever because his performance is what stuck in my head more than the main characters. My english teachers all said that this is was their favorite interpretation because it literally DID NOT take itself seriously, and that's the true vision that shakespeare had.

My class had to sit through this movie. Almost everyone thought it was boring or hated it.