Romeo and Juliet

Here's a quick summary giving you the plot's main points:

Got that?

Now usually adaptations of Shakespeare can be a little boooooring...  For example, when I was at school, we were forced to watch this.

Fortunately, while I was still relatively young, an Australian by the name of Baz Luhrmann (who later also did the Great Gatsby, Australia and Moulin Rouge) did a slightly more interesting version, here's the prologue:

Two households, both alike in dignity

(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-marked love

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage—

The which, if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Here are some clips from the film:

Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time at the party:

Some poetry and that all important first kiss:

Here's the background to the 'balcony scene':  Romeo goes to Juliet's house and waits around in the garden (STALKER!), he sees Juliet appear at the balcony but stays hidden  Juliet is at her balcony, and soliloquising (she thinks) about how she wishes that Romeo had a different name:

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet."

or in modern English:

"Oh, Romeo, Romeo, why do you have to be Romeo? Forget about your father and change your name. Or else, if you won’t change your name, just promise you will love me and I’ll stop being a Capulet."

she goes on to say:

"Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet."

in modern English:

"It’s only your name that’s my enemy. You’d still be yourself even if you stopped being a Montague. What’s a Montague anyway? It isn’t a hand, a foot, an arm, a face, or any other part of a man. Oh, be some other name! What does a name mean? The thing we call a rose would smell just as sweet if we called it by any other name."

What does she mean?
Well...  Juliet speaks these lines, perhaps the most famous in the play, in the balcony scene (2.1.74–78). Leaning out of her upstairs window, unaware that Romeo is below in the orchard, she asks why Romeo must be Romeo—why he must be a Montague, the son of her family’s greatest enemy (“wherefore” means “why,”). Still unaware of Romeo’s presence, she asks him to deny his family for her love. She adds, however, that if he will not, she will deny her family in order to be with him if he merely tells her that he loves her.

A major theme in Romeo and Juliet is the tension between social and family identity (represented by one’s name) and one’s inner identity. Juliet believes that love stems from one’s inner identity, and that the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets is a product of the outer identity, based only on names. She thinks of Romeo in individual terms, and thus her love for him overrides her family’s hatred for the Montague name. She says that if Romeo were not called “Romeo” or “Montague,” he would still be the person she loves. “What’s in a name?” she asks. “That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet” (2.1.85–86).

Here's the scene (sorry it's not the Leonardo di Caprio and Claire Danes version):

They get married in secret:

Romeo is now very happy and in love and returns to find that an argument is developing between his friends and family (particularly Mercutio) and Tybalt (Juliet's cousin).  He wanders into the middle of it and tells Tybalt that he doesn't want to fight him (we know that this is because he's Juliet's cousin).  Tybalt thinks that Romeo is ridiculing him and challenges him to fight.  Mercutio tries to defend Romeo and Tybalt stabs him, injuring him fatally.

Romeo is banished (sent away from the town) as a punishment.  Juliet goes to see Friar Lawrence and they work out a complicated escape plan that involves Juliet faking her own death with a strange potion. They send a letter to Romeo, but...

the letter doesn't arrive in time (POSTE ITALIANE?????)

Romeo arrives at the tomb after hearing that Juliet has died.  He meets Paris (the man that Juliet was engaged to be married to), Paris attacks him and Romeo kills him.   He enters the tomb, sees her body and drinks some poison.  Juliet wakes up and realises that Romeo believed that her death was real.  Noooooo.......  [SPOILER ALERT: This story doesn't have a happy ending..]

Possibly the best thing about the whole film is the ending music, by Radiohead:

Lyrics:

Wake
From your sleep
The drying of
Your tears
Today
We escape
We escape

Pack
And get dressed
Before your father hears us
Before
All hell
Breaks loose

Breathe
Keep breathing
Don't loose
Your nerve
Breathe
Keep breathing
I can't do this
Alone

Sing
Us a song
A song to keep
Us warm
There's
Such a chill
Such a chill

You can laugh
A spineless laugh
We hope your
Rules and wisdom choke you

Now
We are one
In everlasting peace

We hope that you choke
That you choke
We hope that you choke
That you choke
We hope
That you choke
That you choke