Baz Luhrmann vs. Zeffirelli

We talked in class last Wednesday and today about how iambic pentameter in Shakespeare can itself be a useful tool of interpretation and analysis simply because it exists. I would suggest that even if you choose to stray from the meter really drastically to make the language seem more conversational and possibly more accessible to a contemporary audience, you've made a definite interpretive choice. The same is true if you choose to adhere to the meter really strictly. I wouldn't go as far as Cecily Berry does to call one way "fascist" and the other "populist," but one might seem to come across as more conservative and the other more resistant.

Also, as I mentioned in class, it's easiest to notice how the departure from meter shows what happens with a character when you actually speak the text several times through. You can feel the tension in your body between what the meter is "supposed" to be and what you have to do to make sense of the text. And it's important to remember, as Berry suggests, that once you are aware of all the linguistic rules of form in Shakespeare, and have recognized how they work in the text you are studying, you don't need to emphasize them. The awareness will stick with you, and that's usually enough.

Here are two different film interpretations of Romeo and Juliet. The first is from Baz Luhrmann's version, the second is from the 1968 Zeffirelli version. I chose clips that contain Mercutio's Queen Mab speech and the scene that leads up to it. Notice how differently they approach the language.





Also (since we're moving ahead to talk about a musical next) if you think of the language as being musical, you can imagine that speaking the words is akin to phrasing for a singer or musician. Here, for example, are two versions of "My Favorite Things" to show how varying rhythm can completely change tone and interpretation, and can be used to comment on the knowledge of how something is supposedly intended to sound:

Julie Andrews --



and John Coltrane --



There is of course pitch and tone and everything else to work with, but just changing where the notes fall in relation to the percussive elements changes everything about the song. There's that much room for playing around with the meter of Shakespeare, as well.