Four Star Crossed Lovers

Romeo & Juliet and Tony & Maria

The stories are similar, a boy and girl meet and fall in love, but this is not a love destined to last long. Romeo and Juliet will take their own lives for fear of living without each other, just as Tony seeks out death upon believing that Maria is dead. These two sets of young lovers are so blinded by their infatuation with each other that they are incapable of ever seeing themselves live without the other one. Baz Luhrmann takes the story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and places it in a modern, urban setting while retaining the essence of the Shakespearean English text. Meanwhile, Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise, and Arthur Laurents set our story in the streets of a 1950's New York. Robbins, Wise, and Laurents keep the basic outline of the play while they take liberties with the text, and add numerous choreographed song and dance numbers. The hearts of both stories still lie in the idea of an ill-fated love, of two young kids from opposite worlds falling in love, and not being able to overcome the obstacle that hate creates. Both films are able to uphold the basic structure of Shakespeare’s story, and prove that hate breads hate and that for some love alone cannot conquer all.

Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet opens with a television news reporter delivering the lines of the prologue. It then quickly cuts to a myriad of images being quickly thrust upon the audience. They are images of the city of Verona Beach, police, newspaper headlines, and violence as a voice over restates the beginning of the prologue as the opening credits begin to flash across the screen. In this modern day adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, Luhrmann takes many creative liberties. While the Capulets and Montagues are now gun-toting teenagers and the heads of the families are rival business owners, Luhrmann does keep the language strictly Shakespearean.

Luhrmann’s 1996 adaptation of Shakespeare’s work stars Leonardo DiCaprio as our tragic hero, Romeo Montague and portraying his ill-fated soul-mate Juliet Capulet, we have Claire Danes. DiCaprio’s Romeo first meets Danes’ Juliet at a masquerade ball at the Capulet Mansion. Romeo has entered the ball as an uninvited guest, and while the room is spinning around him, as this Romeo has been taken on a little LSD trip, he seeks refuge by way of drowning his face in a sink full of water. After dousing himself with the cold, reviving water he turns to admire an enormous aquarium filled with numerous tropical fish in bright hues of blue and yellow. While leaning in for a closer inspection of said aquarium, his eyes set their gaze upon the eyes of fair Juliet on the other side. They continue to stare at one another through this aquarium for a while until Juliet is whisked away by her Nurse. After a quick dance with Paris, Juliet is pulled away by Romeo speaking of his desire to kiss her. After much vain protest they steal away for a kiss. They are found kissing in the elevator by Juliet’s Nurse who informs a lovesick Juliet that Romeo is indeed a Montague, all the while their love theme, “Kissing You” is being sung in the background. This realization comes too late, as they have already fallen hard for each other.

Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise take Romeo and Juliet to the urban world of 1950's New York Street gangs in West Side Story. The rival gangs of the Sharks and the Jets replace the Capulets and Montagues, but the heart of Shakespeare’s story still remains. Tony and Maria are West Side Story’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Tony, a prominent Jet, falls for Maria, a Puerto Rican and the sister of the Shark’s leader Bernardo. Just as in the story of Romeo and Juliet this is a love that is ultimately fated to fail.

There are many reasons why West Side Story is not an ideal adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play, but it is still easy to see that Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins got their inspiration for this musical from the classic tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet. One can find obvious differences in that West Side Story is much more loosely based on Shakespeare’s play than Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. The setting and language are much different, but the story is still about two star-crossed lovers with warring family and friends who discover that love cannot always overcome hate.

In West Side Story, the two young lovers again meet at a dance. Maria is going to her very first American dance, and is quite excited, though not as excited about Chino being her date. The two rival gangs take opposite sides of the gymnasium, and in true musical fashion, begin a dance off. The entire room, however, slows down and fades away as Tony enters and he and Maria lock eyes for the first time. They seem to be magnetically drawn to one another, and they talk. They can not believe what is happening, and Tony wants to make sure that it is real, that Maria is not simply tricking him, but of course she is not. Just as the magic moment of their first kiss begins we are suddenly jarred back into the reality of the dance as Bernardo interrupts our new couple. Bernardo is less than thrilled that his little sister would be with such a Jet. Once again the knowledge that Tony is a Jet, and that Maria is Bernardo’s sister, has come too late, as Tony and Maria have, like Romeo and Juliet, fallen hard for one another.

Luhrmann uses the visual of water many times throughout Romeo + Juliet. Water is first seen as Juliet submerges her face in a tub of water much like what Romeo does later at the ball. The aquarium is quite obviously filled with water, and this is where the two young lovers first catch glimpse of one another. Then of course, there is the swimming pool. The main action of the infamous balcony scene has been moved into the swimming pool. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet water is not a key element, that was a creative choice on Luhrmann’s behalf. The water seems to come into play at times of escape. Juliet is hiding from her mother, Romeo is hiding from the craziness of the party, they both are hiding from the guards, Juliet’s Nurse, and essentially from everyone. It is in those moments, staring into an aquarium or delving into the swimming pool, that they are alone. They are able to block out everyone else around them, everyone that would come between them, and they can be alone, together.

Similar to the concept of water being repeatedly used in Romeo + Juliet, the color red is used quite dramatically throughout West Side Story. From the opening of the movie the audience is bombarded with the color red. The Jets and Sharks are wearing red shirts and red jackets, and Maria wears a red sash upon her white dress. Most dramatically, there is a red hue that covers the screen during the song, “Tonight,” as the Jets, the Sharks, Maria, Tony, and Anita all sing their own version of the song. Just as each one has their own meaning for the song, “Tonight,” there are many meanings behind the choice of the color red. Red, when used for the Jets and Sharks symbolizes anger, blood shed, and ultimately death. Anita’s red more likely symbolizes passion and lust, as she is singing of the time she will spend with Bernardo later that night. The most innocent of the meanings, of course, comes from Maria and Tony. For them the color red is more representative of their love and new-found passion for one another. The innocence of Maria was represented by her white dress at the dance, but upon her white dress she wore a red sash. That red sash represents all the things her brother “Nardo” is trying to shield her from, but that is an impossible task, but she is no longer a child that must be looked after. She has become a women in love.

While there are many reasons to compare these two films as loyal Shakespeare adaptations, there is an obvious difference between how the two films choose to handle the final scenes. In Act V Scene III, Romeo slays Paris and then our dear Romeo drinks the apothecary’s poison, and with a final kiss laid upon Juliet, he dies. Juliet then awakes from her drugged sleep of death only to find her husband lay dead beside her. In true over-dramatic teenage heart-break fashion, she takes Romeo’s dagger and thrusts herself upon it. Our young couple is dead by the end of the play, there is no happily ever after for young Romeo and Juliet.

Luhrmann creates some wonderful imagery here in the final scene of Romeo + Juliet. After Romeo has arrived at the Capulet’s church/tomb he does not kill Paris, as Paris has not been seen for sometime in this film. This was an interesting choice on Luhrmann’s behalf. Why he would choose to let Paris live speaks for the desire to feel that Romeo is still the hero of our story. While Romeo has killed Tybalt, that is forgivable since Tybalt had killed Romeo’s best friend. To have Paris die at the hand of Romeo would take something away from Romeo’s character in the film. Instead of committing murder, Romeo reaches the church after being chased by police cars and helicopters. Once safely inside the large locked doors Romeo comes face to face with the reality of Juliet’s “death.” There are glowing crosses and hundreds of candles all glowing around where Juliet has been laid in state. Romeo is undeniably upset at seeing his young wife so lifeless, yet he is amazed at how beautiful she still is. While sobbing and weeping over the loss of his one true love and his impending suicide, Luhrmann begins to have Juliet awaken. Her eyes flutter, her fingers twitch, her head moves upon the pillow, but oh how poor Romeo is so stricken with grief that he does not see this. Instead he takes out his vile of poison and drinks, just in time to hear Juliet speak, and realize he has made a tragic mistake. After their final kiss, Juliet takes Romeo’s gun and aims at her temple. Again our young couple is dead. While Luhrmann keeps the ending as we all know it, he chooses to leave out the death of Paris for time reasons perhaps, or maybe to keep Romeo’s name clean. Luhrmann also lets the audience see that Juliet is alive, each time she moves one is compelled to yell at the screen, “look Romeo, she’s alive, don’t drink that.” This is such a compelling part of the film. It makes the ultimate ending truly tragic.

Just as Paris does not die in Romeo + Juliet, neither does his West Side Story counterpart, Chino. In the final scenes of this film the message that Maria is dead is delivered to Tony by Doc. However, Maria is very much alive, and the real message sent with Anita was not of her death, but that she will be late, but after Anita is harassed by the Jets she tells them that Maria was killed by Chino after he found out about her and Tony. Upon this news Tony is distraught. He goes into the streets screaming for Chino to kill him too. Without his Maria he feels no reason to live. Tony runs and screams throughout the streets until he sees Maria coming towards him. Just as he realizes that she is indeed alive, and they are running into each others arms Chino finds him. Tony is shot by Chino, and falls into Maria’s arms. As Tony dies Maria sings “There’s a Place for Us,” but for Tony and Maria there is no happy ending. Maria gets the gun used by Chino and asks how many she can kill, and still have a bullet left for herself. She is now full of hate and is capable of killing too. Unlike Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Maria does not choose to kill herself. It is said that in the original script Maria did use the gun on herself, but in the end they felt that to have both young lovers die at the end was too tragic. Once again we are faced with the character representing Paris, Chino, alive at the end, and once again it is for the same reason. For Tony to kill again would be unforgivable in the eyes of the audience.

These two films take the story of Shakespeare and they put it on a level that is understandable by a modern youth audience. To read Shakespearean English can be difficult for many to follow and understand, but to see the scenes on the screen puts it all in context and makes it much more accessible. While these two films undoubtably received much criticism about how the interpreted Shakespeare’s story, they both were able to accurately portray the innocent love between our two young characters, and in the end the tragedy that befell them proved that sometimes love is not always enough.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. The Unabridged William Shakespeare. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1989.

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Twentieth Century Fox, 1996.

West Side Story. Dir. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise. Perf. Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood. MGM, 1961.