Depictions of Violence and Bravery in films of Romeo & Juliet.

In Act I, scene i of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, a fight breaks out between the Montagues and the Capulets. Both Franco Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrmann use this first scene to comment on and set the tone for their films. My original thoughts after viewing and comparing both directors' versions of the scene was that both directors chose to depict this first scene as a kind of 'bravado gone bad,' but for each director, …

…the violence when he turns and points his gun at them. The quarrel stops traffic and results in the entire gas-station going up in flames. The violence directly affects everyone else around them. Both Zeffirelli and Luhrmann show 'bravado gone bad,' but for each director the meaning of the term is slightly different. The directors use editing decisions, color, the outside world to show what this idea of 'bravado gone bad' means to them.