Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet as an Adaptation of Shakespeare's Text.

The story of Romeo and Juliet is easily one of the world's most famous love stories, told and retold many times in English, French, and Italian, from which the real origins of the story come. Shakespeare retold the story too in 1595, creating the most popular version of the story ever told. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a masterpiece exploding with verbal genius: double entendres, puns, rhyme schemes, and complete sonnets within the text. Shakespeare took …

…some differences from Shakespeare's original idea, but still keeps the story intact. Ironically, the Elizabethan language that Luhrmann decided to keep in his film was one of the main aspects that made the play inaccessible to a modern audience. Luhrmann breaks the language barrier through the modern actions, gestures, clothing, cars and weapons. Consequently, we know through these visual aids that when Juliet asks "Wherefore art thou Romeo?", she's not wondering where her lover is.