4th Post for Shakespeare Unit

After watching the 3 versions of the 'party scene' from Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet", I can see large differences separating the versions.  It is due to the following differences, that makes the most recent version filmed in 1996 the favored of the three.

1. Music significantly improves between each version; the 54' and 68'versions both have very old music, but it is the 68' versions improvement to bring music into the background of the scenes even during lines. The music acts as a white noise, in the background keeping a mood flowing throughout the scene.  It is the 96' version where music transforms the film into a modern piece, setting it far apart from the past 2.  The music in the 96' film is modern, loud and extremely contrasting to tradition music from Shakespeare's time period.  
2. Colour also holds great impact on improving the film; The 54' version is a very dull and sedated scheme of colours having the only pop of colour found in the clothing, the 68' version amps up their colours by intensifying the back drop to the scene, not only are the clothing colouful but also the walls, curtains and masks.  Again it is the 96' version which pulls away by not  only intensifying the colours of the clothing and the setting but they also dramatize the costumes and setting themselves, making them bigger, and more eye catching.  
3. Finally the 96' version brings itself to the top of all the versions as it is set in a modern time rather than being set in Shakespeare's time.  The modern setting becomes more pleasing to the eye for this modern age, as well it takes the party scene and turns it into a costume party, creating a dramatic theme allowing for more fun costume ideas, and an entertaining atmosphere and to top it off it includes fireworks.  

These differences are cause of a number of things, firstly when a movie is to be remade, even when it is a Shakespeare film, changes are made in order to set the newest version from the past ones.  If you watch the versions from oldest to most recent you will see that they become more modern and hold more creative interpretation.  As a director of a Shakespeare film, your creative  allowances are more restricted, compared to the remaking of regular films.  The lines in the script may not be changed, so the director must solely rely on interpretation of the sense themselves.  Changing inflections on words, body language of characters, amount of emotion in scenes, as well as positioning in settings.