efore fate is mistaken through sheer ignorance to the obvious. There were many key issues in both versions thatplay a significant part in the events of the story. Feuding is one of the key issues that lead to the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Had the two families not been feuding, the situation never would have existed. Dreams were also a big issue in the story. Had Romeo heeded the warnings of his premonitions he could have avoided his death. There were also the issues of decisions, sacrifices, stereotypes, and fate.Over 400 years ago Shakespeare wrote a classic story that has been retold for centuries. This new version is just a modern adoption of the classic tale of the two star crossed lovers. The actors featured in Luhrmann’s film did an excellent job in portraying the two young lovers. Throughout the film, Shakespeare’s poetic language is spoken nearly verbatim. But the terrific cast, led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, follows the well-known dialogue with nary an English accent. Nonetheless, DiCaprio and Danes on-screen chemistry transcends the antiquated language to produce the beautiful and tragic love story for today’s movie going audiences. According to George Bernard Shaw playing the parts of Romeo and Juliet is “almost impossible, except to actors of pure genius, skilled to the last degree in metrical declamation, by the way in which the poetry, magnificent as it is, is interlarded by the miserable rhetoric and silly logical conceits which were the foible of the Elizabethans. When Juliet comes out on her balcony and, having propounded the question, “What’s in a name?” proceeds to arguer it out like an amateur attorney in Christmas-card verse of the “rose by any other name” order, no actress can make it appear natural to a century which has discovered the art of giving prolonged and intense dramatic expression to pure feeling alone, without any skeleton of ...
