Romeo and juliet

But Zefferelli is trying as close as he can to the original play. If Zefferelli had tried to set his film in his time then I expect we would have seen white men with afros, high heels and flairs. If we were studying that type of version at school then I expect we would also see them as 'camp'.
             There is one more difference between the two versions. At the end of the scene where Prince Escalus says that if the two families fight again there will be deaths, Zefferelli has portrayed the Prince riding in on a horse, and we know that princes were around in the time that the play was written, then he speaks to the families. However in Luhrman's version, he has used the modern day equivalent of a prince, a police general, this is good because there are no princes in modern day cities so Luhrman has used the next best thing, a modern day equivalent of a prince. If Shakespear were alive today I think he would have been impressed by Luhrman's attempt to modernize his story, as he has done this very intelligently and very well.
             The Ball - Act 1 Scene 5.
             This scene is where we first see Romeo and Juliet together, and this is the scene they first meet. It starts when the Montagues sneak into a Capulet party/ball. A traditional Shakespearean ball, with traditional dress and dancing is used in the Zefferelli version. Romeo and his fellow Montagues are able to make it inside the Capulet residence because the ball is a 'masked ball'. Romeo uses a cat like mask to disguise his identity. In the modernised version, Luhrman has cleverly changed the theme of the party, from a masked ball to its modern equivalent a 'fancy dress' party. For this, Romeo's costume is a knight; Luhrman has tried to show the audience that Romeo is in a sense, 'a knight in shining armour'. In both versions, Capulet welcomes everybody and, even though he's too old to dance himself, so he gets everybody else to dance because he like to watch those who have lots of life left enjoy themselves.