Romeo And Juliet And The Great Gatsby Comparison

In both the films Romeo and Juliet and The Great Gatsby Baz Luhrmann uses the same specific style of storytelling to ensure his audience remains captivated throughout the entire movie. Through the editing choices, lighting, camera work, music choices and actor choices he shows how his style grips the audience.
Luhrmann has a definite way of telling stories. In both Romeo and Juliet and The Great Gatsby he uses a prologue to narrate the story. Both are used to provide the audience with initial information they need to understand the rest of the story. Without this prologue the audience would spend majority of the film trying to fill in the missing pieces of the story. In Romeo and Juliet the prologue is the news presenter’s presentation followed by a montage of events of

If the audience feels the anguish that the actors are portraying throughout dramatic scenes in the films it makes it more believable. It is then easier for the viewers to engross themselves with the other emotions throughout the film. Baz uses lighting in both films to create tension. In The Great Gatsby the lighting over the industrial area is always dark and murky. This is a representation that only bad things happen in that area and this area is used as a symbol for moral corruption. This gives the audience an ominous feeling whenever there is a scene in the industrial area. The lighting in Romeo and Juliet is used to create a more direct tension for specific events. When Mercuito dies the weather immediately picks up and turns into a storm. The lighting is dark and direful and this heightens the tension at this point in the film as well as indicates to the audience how serious the consequences of this death will be. Because the lighting is used to add to the dramatics of the movie is makes it easier for the audience to feel the