"Closed in a Dead Man's Tomb": Juliet, Space, and the Body in Franco Zeffirelli's and Baz Luhrmann's Films of Romeo and Juliet
2008; Salisbury University; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0090-4260
Autores Tópico(s)South Asian Cinema and Culture
ResumoClosed in a Dead Man's Tomb: Juliet, Space, and Body in Franco Zeffirelli's and Baz Luhrmann's Films of Romeo and Juliet Given each director's decision to adapt and popularize Romeo and Juliet for a teenage audience, it is hardly surprising that many critics have highlighted similarities between film adaptations of Franco Zeffirelli (1968) and Baz Luhrmann (1996). Critical discussions of Luhrmann's WilKam Romeo + Juliet often speculate on how much influence Zeffirelli's earlier film had on Luhrmann's approach: James N. Loehlin comments that Luhrmann's frequent borrowings from Zeffirelli tend to be simple replications rather than pointed reworkings (127); Samuel Growl describes how it was directors such as Zeffirelli who nudged Shakespeare film from art house to Cineplex, paving way for likes of Luhrmann to find success with an international teenage market (134). Both directors make large cuts to play-text in order to make its contents more accessible for audiences and, as a result, their treatment of Shakespeare has been likened to treatment of his own sources (Walker 135). Like Zeffirelli before him, Luhrmann cast young, attractive actors in roles of Romeo and Juliet and, as Elsie Walker comments, this reflects how each director saw the ability of a wide to identify with their protagonists as crucial (134). However, despite many noted similarities, these Shakespeare films offer radically different representations of Juliet for their respective audiences. What is perhaps most unexpected, given cultural climate of Luhrmann's film and the pressure put on cinema by an increasingly educated, increasingly sexually confident, and increasingly salaried female audience of nineties (Daileader 187), is that, in terms of and agency, Claire Danes's Juliet resides at opposite end of spectrum to Olivia Hussey's. While critics such as Peter S. Donaldson observe how Zeffirelli's film underscores Shakespeare's treatment of Juliet as an active, subject (165), notably less has been said about agency of Danes's Juliet under Luhrmann's direction.1 Danes's lack of agency in film becomes most apparent through a consideration of body's representation, an analytical framework that demonstrates, as Aebischer observes, how Shakespearean performance have benefited from a lively dialogue with film theory and gender studies (112). This essay looks at bodily and spatial representations of Juliet on film in order to explore differences between each director's handling of her role as desiring subject. By focusing on a comparative reading of tomb scene, my argument will consider how directorial choices of Zeffirelli and Luhrmann either promote or repress sexual agency of heroine. The spatial strategies of Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet emphasize Juliet's sexual awareness and her open expressions of desire. Despite fact that heroine hath not seen change of fourteen years (1.2.9), critics observe how Juliet's use of language would have allowed an Elizabethan to grasp her sexual knowledge and her consciousness of carnal desire (BIy 99). Zeffirelli's film visualizes this aspect of her characterization by associating images of ripeness, growth, and sexual awakening with Olivia Hussey's Juliet. While Gallop apace speech (3.2.1-31) is omitted from Zeffirelli's script, its verbalization of Juliet's sexual longing is mediated through film's gendered spaces that mark awakening of carnal desire. The colorful visual excess of Zeffirelli's ball scene creates a space for Juliet's sexual awakening and her self-progression from adolescence to womanhood: lavish displays of fruit and wine; warmly lit archways; rich fabrics, and Juliet's red dress as central focus, all connote a feminine softness that alludes to ripeness of Juliet's impending sexuality. …
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