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Luhrmann responds to this risk by cutting even more of the final scene, choosing to convey meaning both through close-ups of his actors and more importantly, by signalling a development in the film�s aesthetic.  For as soon as Romeo closes the door to the tomb, �all the fast-cutting and heightened characterisation, all the cinematic artifice is stripped away, leaving just the boy and the girl� .  Whilst up to this point the breakneck speed of the film had only been halted by glimpses of the lover�s �other� world, the entire scene is imbued with an almost dreamlike quality.  Just as Zeffirelli�s chief signifier of the shroud (which Jorgens suggests as symbolising �character turning into destiny� ) climaxes in meaning, so the stolen moments of blissful tranquillity glimpsed with Romeo and Juliet throughout Luhrmann�s film are all re-evoked in a refuge where �hundreds of candles and blue neon crosses give the tomb a shimmering aquatic glow, as if Romeo and Juliet were indeed underwater� .  Played out in almost deathly silence, Luhrmann�s lingering close-ups of DiCaprio and Danes� contemplative faces demonstrates visually their own recognition of the tragedy.  Luhrmann takes even more artistic license with the scene by presenting the lover�s last lines as dialogue, thus making the events gut-wrenching as Romeo slowly dies in Juliet�s arms. 

The final shot of the scene, which gradually floats away before concluding with a rapid montage of the lover�s happiest moments, comes to rest on the earlier picture of them kissing underwater, dressed as angel and knight.  Their distinct otherness and inability to exist in the world around them is suggested with great poignancy.  Yet unexpectedly, this is also yet another example of Luhrmann reworking of an element of Zeffirelli�s film.  Whilst Zeffirelli focuses on the final reconciliation of the Capulets and Montagues, and so proposes that Romeo and Juliet were �in some way ahead of their time� , Luhrmann suggests the opposite. The final music of Tristan and Isolde, the romantic isolation of the lovers and finally the costumes they first wore in the balcony scene (of which the final montage reminds us) all associate the couple with a mythic past of chivalry and courtly love rather than the �raucous present of the rest of the film� .  Hence, as the lovers are finally re-framed as little more than televised body bags in his film�s conclusion, Luhrmann�s seems to give an ambiguous response to the millennium that was approaching at the time of the film�s release.  It is left open to the audience to decide whether it was the unreality of Romeo and Juliet�s romance or the cruelty of the society surrounding them that was most to blame for the tragedy. 

In conclusion, what Luhrmann�s film most succeeds in illustrating is that it is not just Shakespeare�s text that possesses a capacity for reinvention, but also the existing body of Shakespearean performance and film.  By creating a film that consciously uses the world of the movies - and most centrally Zeffirelli�s film - as a point of reference which he alternately chooses to embrace, reject, rework and parody, Luhrmann demonstrates how new film Shakespeare, rather than being crushed under the weight of previous versions, can use that history as reference points for original interpretations.
Bibliography:

Boose, Lynda and Burt, Richard ed.  Shakespeare: The Movie
Routledge: London, 1997
- Hapgood, Robert.  �Popularising Shakespeare� 80-94

Burnett, Mark and Way, Ramona ed.  Shakespeare, Film and Fin de Si�cle
Macmillan Press Ltd: London, 2000
- Loehlin, James. �Baz Luhrmann�s Millenial Shakespeare� 121-136

Cole, Tony and Chinoy, Helen ed.  Directors on Directing
New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963

Davies, Anthony and Wells, Stanley ed.  Shakespeare and the Moving Image
CUP: London, 1994
Davies, Anthony.  �Shakespeare on Film and TV: A Retrospect� 1-17
Pilkington, Ace.  �Zeffirelli�s Shakespeare� 163-179

Donaldson, Peter.  Shakespearean Film / Shakespearean Directors
Unwin: CUP, 1996

Greenblatt, Stephen ed.  The Norton Shakespeare
W.W.Norton & Company: London, 1997

Hayward, Susan.  Key Concepts in Cinema Studies
London: Routledge, 1996

Jorgens, Jack.  Shakespeare on Film
Indiana University Press: London, 1977
Nelmes, Jill ed.  An Introduction to Film Studies
Routledge: London, 1996

Wells, Stanley.  Shakespeare: A Dramatic Life
Sinclair-Stevenson: London, 1994

Zefferlli, Franco.  The Autobiography of Franco Zeffirelli
New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1986

Periodicals:

- Cineaste XXVI
- Sight and Sound (11/96)
- Shakespeare Quarterly vol. 2 1997
Davies, Anthony.  �Film Versions of Romeo and Juliet�

Websites:

<www.clairedanes/rjintro.html>


Filmography:

William Shakespeare�s Romeo + Juliet 
Dir.  Baz Luhrmann.  Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes.
  20th Century Fox, 1996. DVD.

Romeo and Juliet
   Dir.  Franco Zeffirelli.Perf. Olivia Hussey amd
Paramount Studios, 1968.  Videocassette
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