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On its own terms (and for a thrifty $16 million or so), the ploy works: it's the societal psychosis from which the lovers flee and to which they ultimately succumb. Luhrmann, an Australian who pretty much let his camera go nuts in the egregiously overrated Strictly Ballroom, here makes reasonable, imaginative decisions that are, arguably, true to Shakespeare. "His stories are full of sex, violence, tragedy, comedy because he was, first of all, a great entertainer," Luhrmann says. "His audience was 3,000 drunken, fighting people, bear baiters and prostitutes." Sounds like a Friday-night crowd at a big-city 'plex.
R and J's style also allows the actors to speak the dialogue (all from the play) without worrying about whether they sound like John Gielgud. "We tried to bring the language to the actors," he says, "and not have the actors try to satisfy some spurious notion of the correct Shakespearean pronunciation."
Danes and DiCaprio speak most eloquently with their faces (hers strong, his soft) and with the hurt and ardor that make this a Rebel Without a Cause for the '90s--1590s or 1990s. Sometimes it takes a radical like Luhrmann to get to the root of a natural-born screenwriter like Shakespeare.
--With reporting by Helen Gibson/London, Georgia Harbison/New York and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles