Movies
Looking at Indian cinema through Pudovkin’s five editing techniques
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) is the only movie that I watched twice back-to-back. After getting my eyeballs singed at the matinee show, I rushed back to the box office for another fix of this delirious, psychotropic dream.
The second movie of Australian director, Baz Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy, following his debut feature, Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet featured Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the young hearts running free.
Using original Shakespearean dialogue, the movie was set in the modern day with the feuding Montagues and Capulets being powerful crime families. Fair Verona is Verona Beach where the second generation perpetuate their parents’ vendetta.
The prologue from the play is in the form of a newscaster and as she speaks of a pair of star-crossed lovers springing forth from the fatal loins of two foes, images of violence flash on the screen behind her. While Romeo’s first look set to the dreamy background score of Radiohead’s "Talk Show Host" is exemplary, it is Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt’s (John Leguizamo) introduction that gets all the claps and whistles.
In the gas station as the Montague and Capulet boys bait each other, there is a shot of a cigarillo being lit, the match falling to the ground, a heel with a sparkly shiny spur, and the camera panning to the Prince of Cats, Tybalt. Dressed in a red waistcoat with the Sacred Heart printed on it, and two guns, Tybalt squints menacingly to say “I hate peace”.
And we are off again, a breathless scene as Juliet’s mum (Diane Venora) gets ready for the ball all the while telling Juliet that the very eligible Paris (Paul Rudd) wishes to marry her. Romeo crashes the party on ecstasy with best friend Mercutio, (Harold Perrineau) sees and falls in love with Juliet and the tragedy is set in motion.
The fact that the 59-year-old auteur does an in-depth reading of Shakespeare through a heady cocktail of drugs, sex, rock and roll, and religion makes the film the perfect introduction to the Bard. With Romeo + Juliet, Luhrmann drags the Bard out of dusty tomes and trips the light fantastic with him — in iambic pentameter no less. The homoerotic subtext of Mercutio’s relationship with Romeo and the concept of time, for instance, are given raucous life.
For the greatest love story ever told, there is a fleetingness to Romeo and Juliet that Luhrmann underlines. Romeo comes to the party to see Rosaline who he claims he cannot live without. He is under the influence when he sees Juliet and the two decide to marry the next day! It is after this that evil chance decides to take a hand in the fate of the lovers.
In an interview Luhrmann said, “With Romeo and Juliet I wanted to look at the way in which Shakespeare might make a movie of one of his plays.” He goes on to correctly describe Shakespeare as a player. “He was playing for 3,000 drunken punters, from the street sweeper to the Queen of England. He was a relentless entertainer.” Luhrmann, with Romeo + Juliet, created a relentlessly entertaining film with a soundtrack that went triple platinum.
On a trip to India, Luhrmann watched a Hindi film and decided to break past Western habits of “cerebral cool” to recreate the experience of low comedy jostling with high tragedy and elaborately produced musical numbers, in Moulin Rouge! (2001). While there have been learned treatises on Luhrmann’s use of modern songs in a movie set in the turn-of-the-century Montmartre Quarter of Paris, to make a postmodern musical, all of us who have been brought up on Nasir Hussain’s exuberant musicals have no difficulty in understanding and appreciating Moulin Rouge!.
There is the impoverished writer, Christian (Ewan McGregor) in love with the consumptive courtesan with the heart of gold, Satine (Nicole Kidman). Paisa comes in the way of pyaar in the form of the wicked Duke (Richard Roxburgh). The avuncular Zidler (Jim Broadbent), the owner of Moulin Rouge, is kind-hearted but also has an eye on the bottom-line. The hero has a motley group of friends including artist Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo) and the Unconscious Argentinean (Jacek Koman).
There is a play within the movie, Spectacular, Spectacular, set in India about the forbidden love between a penniless sitar player and a courtesan, and an evil maharaja’s wicked efforts to thwart that love. As the Duke holds the purse strings and the deed to Moulin Rouge, the lovers have to tread carefully. The sets including the elephant-shaped boudoir are worthy of Hussain and Subhash Ghai.
The sound track of Moulin Rouge! is awe-inspiring to put it mildly. It is not surprising that it took Luhrmann two-and-a-half years to secure the rights for them all. From songs from The Sound of Music to Madonna’s “Material Girl” and everything in between including Anu Malik’s “Chamma Chamma” from China Gate, Luhrmann rolls out a magic carpet of song. The cherry on the cake is the tango take on The Police’s "Roxanne".
The Oscar-winning film completes Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy. The three movies, while not sharing characters or story arcs, share a filmmaking style and have a connection to theatre. Luhrmann’s mother was a ballroom dance teacher and a dress maker while his father ran a petrol station and a movie theatre, which might have contributed to Luhrmann’s uniquely colourful worldview.
Following 2013’s The Great Gatsby, we are all waiting with bated breath for… Elvis. The film, starring Tom Hanks as Elvis' manager, Tom Parker, and Austin Butler as the King, will have a premiere at Cannes 2022. It is surely time to slip on those blue suede shoes.
