By: Isabella Guzmán, Veronique Villeda, diego Burgos, and Rafael Aguilar

Luhrmann Version

Critique  In Act 5 of Romeo and Juliet there are many differences between all of the movies. Luhrmann’s version is one that has more changes and that these changes heavily impact in how you see the movie. This version gives you more action and suspense like the persecution of the police to catch Romeo and how he enters the church. This demonstrates us how desperate, angry, and sad he is with himself because of the death of his loved one. Also, Juliet is in her coffin at the church instead of the grave. This makes us see a very sad and somewhat romantic scene because of all the candles lightened up and how the church is arranged. When Romeo is taking the poison he sees that Juliet, his love, is alive. This scene is very shocking and makes us think what Romeo and Juliet would be feeling at that time: Juliet seeing how her love is committing suicide because of her fault and Romeo seeing how he took his life away in vane because his wife is still alive. I think that Luhrmann’s version has more action and is more interesting for modern teenagers and young people.

Zeffirelli Version

Critique  In this version of Romeo and Juliet Act 5 is different to the Luhrmann version and the West Side Stories but it is very similar to the original version of Romeo and Juliet. I believe that for Act 5 this is the best movie because it shows everything as it really happened, there are good actors and the scenes look very real. Romeo finds Juliet in the coffin lying asleep and he thinks she is dead so then he kills himself by drinking poison and when Juliet finds out she kills herself also. I believe that it was a very sad scene because if Romeo would have gotten a few minutes later to where Juliet was, they could have spend the rest of their life happily together since he would of find her awake, but that does not happen in the story. The costumes are like the ones people used to wear when the original play was written although the movie is not old. This is a very good version although it does not seem modern.

West Side Stories

Critique  The differences between act 5 of the actual Romeo and Juliet play and act 5 of the movie West Side Story are notable. In West Side Story Tony which is the representation of Romeo gets killed in a very different way than in the actual play. He is really mad with a character named Chino because he had supposedly killed Maria. He goes throughout the whole city shouting his name because he wanted to confront him. He arrives at a basketball court where he surprisingly sees Maria. In the moment they were about to hug a bullet hits Tony and he dies. Maria, which is the representation of Juliet does not die but acts also like a representation of the Prince from Romeo and Juliet. Who scolds the two sides that hate each other for what they have caused. In the actual Romeo and Juliet play, Romeo thinks Juliet is dead because he does not receive the letter the Friar had sent him explaining the plan. The plan messed up and as a product both Romeo and Juliet suicide. So in the West Side story Romeo and Juliet/ Tony and Maria do not suicide like in the actual Romeo and Juliet play. Tony does die, but Maria does not die at all making it really different from the actual work. Also, Maria also represents another character than Juliet from the actual play which was the prince. These differences from the West Side story from the actual work exist because the creators probably wanted to create a similar trauma, and as impacting as the actual which in my opinion they got near. The fact that Tony thought Chino had killed Maria affected the overall story since he had someone to blame, unlike Romeo who just received news she was dead with no specific cause. This reason made Tony want revenge, and not suicide himself like Romeo. Likewise, he dies like Romeo but is killed instead of committing suicide. The fact that Maria was in front of all that crowd which were who caused the death of Tony made her mad and gave her desire to want to scold all of them. Which she does like the prince in Romeo and Juliet. Both are similar stories but many factors made the outcome from the West Side Story to be different from the one of the actual Romeo and Juliet play.

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO…

We Think that the Oscar goes to the interpretation of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo de Capri and Claire Danes because it’s a better form for us student to understand it we get it better because it do as a modern form adaptation so that’s it is easier for us to get because the play Romeo and Juliet in some parts its really hard to get so we give the Oscar to the modern adaptation Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo Di Capri and Claire Danes WHY?