<p>**REPOST** On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present Baz Lurman’s 90s frenetic teen angst extravaganza, Romeo + Juliet (1996). Known for his kinetic color-fueled explosions of images and sound, Lurman’s “red curtain trilogy” put him on the film world’s map as an Auteur with a distinct and immediately recognizable style. Bright, brash, and unforgiving to anyone who prefers a more minimal <em>Mise-en-scène, Lurman’s penchant for decadence was ripe for a world of high octane emotions, brawls, masquerades, and the lush arc of an epic demise. </em>However, Lurman’s vision of bringing the dusty pages of the oft produced Shakespearean play into the hearts and minds of the notoriously apathetic 90s teenage market was a rather unprecedented and hard sell for commercial studios at the time. Particularly when Lurman insisted that not only would he win over a teen audience, he would do it all without altering a single syllable of the original Shakespearean language of the play. And he would use a cast of mostly young people to do it. </p><p>Lurman’s vision succeeded and the decade to follow would be one stuffed with Shakespearean adaptations for teens, and yet, ‘R+J’ remains distinct among them all. A burning strange indefinable star, that shall not be defied. </p><p><br></p><p>Deep dives include: The film’s production history, editing and cinematography; the lineage of Romeo and Juliet literature that lead to Shakespeare’s 1596 adaptation of the tale; the 1996 film’s comparisons with the exactly 400 years older play; the historical roots of the warring Guelph vs. Ghibelline factionalism that led to such constant civil brawls; how amazing it is that Romeo spends a full third of the play desperately and despondently in love with someone else; why the developing teenage mind lacks impulse control; and why even Dante personally hated the Montagues and Capulets enough to write them into his levels of Hell two centuries before Shakespeare was even born. </p><p><br></p><p>Episode Safe Word(s): “impulse control” </p><p><br></p><p>(REPOSTED Episode from 2023 that traveled over from the old Anchor platform with a broken link).</p>
