'Romeo + Juliet' (1996) Opening Scene

Sampson draws his sword after instigating a quarrel.

The Mise-en-Scene of a scene in a movie refers to what we can see on the screen at any set time.  This includes the setting, props and the costume of the characters visible within a shot.

In order for us to understand this better, we watched the opening scene from the movie Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.  This film depicts a modernised version of this classic Shakespeare tragedy, however it keeps the majority of the original language from the play, allowing the film to give a new and fresh feel to a classic and well-known story.

Director, Baz Luhrmann, decided to set his movie in and round the fictional Verona Beach.  He did this because the original screenplay of Romeo & Juliet is set in the city of Verona in Italy.  His opening scene takes place at a gas station.  He may have decided to shoot his scene here because it is an exciting and perhaps stereotypical place to set a shoot-out, especially when Luhrmann could be trying to exaggerate the fact that he is making a modernised version of the 1600s story.

The costumes for the different houses, Montague and Capulet, are very different and are chosen as a way to divide the two groups.  The Montagues are given bright Hawaiian-style shirts and seen quite uncouth and urban in their appearance whilst, on the other hand, members of the Capulet house seem to dress very smartly and professionally, wearing mainly deep reds and blacks, with expensive looking leather shoes and jewellery.

Finally the props are used for effect in this scene also.  For example, when shots are firing, a sign saying "Add more fuel to your fire" starts spinning.  This is done to show the audience that there are multiple shots firing in different directions all around the gas station.  This is a good visual effect to show the watcher that gunshots are being fired without showing the shooting itself.

Overall, the scene is good at showing many visual stimulants in a short period of time and allows the viewer to understand the feud between the two houses from the very start of the film.