ROMEO AND JULIET: BOOK AND MOVIE

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE BOOK AND THE MOVIE

1. The first difference that you notice is the setting. The classical version takes place in Verona, a city in the north of Italy and the movie also takes place in Verona, but in this case is Verona Beach, a modern city in USA. Also, the century is different, because the book takes place in the XVI century and the XX century (the movie was made in 1996).

2. All these things are opposites, just like Romeo and Juliet. They belong to different families which are confronted, that's why they are like the day and the night or the water and the fire, they shouldn't be together. 

A part from that, the water and the fire have another meaning: the water represents the love and the fire represents the hate between the two families. We can see water during all the movie for example when Romeo and Juliet first meet, they see each other through a fish tank, representing the love at first sight, or after the party, Romeo and Juliet are both in the swimming pool, which represents that they have fallen in love. The fact that the water appears during all the movie means that the love is always there.

We can see fire at the beginning, in the petrol station, in which there is a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets. 

These two elements have these meanings representing that love can make hate disappear, for example Romeo and Juliet, who should hate each other, but for them love is stronger than hate, just as the water is stronger than the fire because is the one who can put it out. 

3. In the book all the characters speak in verse, but the ones you notice the most are Romeo and Juliet, because they are the ones who speak the most and who speak the most about love. In the movie the majority of the characters speak in prose, except Romeo, Juliet and maybe a few more who sometimes speak in verse.

The narrator in both, the book and the movie, is an omniscent narrator, who's not any of the characters of the story. In the movie, it is the news reporter, who explains the Romeo and Juliet story.

4. In the movie, the costume that every character wears is a reflection of themselves. For exemple, Romeo is dressed as a knight because he's gentle, kind and noble, Juliet is dressed as an angle, representing her innocence, sweetness and that she's pure and Tybalt is dressed as the devil, because he's the villain and evil of the story.

5. Lots of things change from the book: the swords are guns; the style of the clothes is so much different and actual; the Capulets' party is also different (the music, Mercutio's perfomence, which isn't in the book, the house were it is celebrated, etc.); the houses in general are much more modern; the things happen in the city and in the beach, while in the book they happen in the middle of a ancient town or in the forest; the carriages and horses are fancy cars; the Prince of Verona is a policeman, etc.

6. Basically, the main difference is the period of time when the story happens, so the main differences between the movie and the book are because of this difference of time. Some of these differences are the ones I said in the previous question, and I can add some more like the fight in the petrol station, that in the book was a fight in the street; the scene in which Romeo and Juliet meet, with the aquarium; the balcony scene, which has changed a little bit with the swimming pool; Mantua, where Romeo is staying after being banished is also different from the book, etc.

KINDS OF LOVE

Love is one of the most intenses feelings in the world, but not all loves are the same kind. Here there are some of the different types of love:

- PURE LOVE: This is a kind of love which isn't about giving and taking, it's about sharing. The two parts of the relationship love eachother with the same intensity, and they don't expect anything from the other. Is a natural, gracious and freeing love.

- PLATONIC LOVE: This one is the love in a non-sexual way, the love which you feel for the mind and soul of the other, a spiritual love.

- ROMANTIC LOVE: Is the love you feel for a person and that makes you can't stop thinking about her/him. When you feel a romatic love for someone, you feel a physical attraction and you focus a lot of your energy on that person.

- UNREQUITED LOVE: This is a kind of love which is one-sided, what means that involves a person who is crazy in love with another one, but knows that he or she will never love him or her. This love often causes depressions and sadness, because of the unreturned feelings.

- UNRETURNED LOVE: This one is pretty much the same as the Unrequited love, is a feeling which is not returned and only one part of the couple feels it.

- BITTER LOVE: Is a love which gives you a bittersweet feeling: a good feeling and happines, but at the same time it gives you pain.

MY WORLD

I didn’t know what to talk about in this post, so I finally decided to talk about something that I already wanted to share some months ago.

I like to watch videos on Youtube and I follow several youtubers, like Connor Franta. He’s an American guy who about two months ago released a video coming out, saying that he was gay.

In the video he told that for years he had been thinking that maybe he was gay, but he always tried to avoid thinking about that, because he was afraid of being different. After watching the video, I read some of the comments and some of the tweets that other youtubers tweeted him, and everybody was saying that they were so proud of him. That made me think that, although the society has progressed a lot, it still has to progress a lot more.

Years ago, when someone was gay it wasn’t even accepted and the people would have never sent him this kind of messages saying that they are proud of him, and nowadays we have reached a point in which the majority of the people accept when someone is gay, but it’s still not a completely normal thing for the society.

If you like boys or if you like girls it’s part of you, just as if you like arts or if you like sciences. You can’t choose what you like, you just like it and I don’t think we should be ashamed of our tastes. And, although is society’s fault and I put myself into the group of people who does this, I don’t think we should be proud of someone who comes out, because at the end it’s just expressing one of your tastes. When someone says that he/she is heterosexual, nobody says anything, but when someone says that he/she is homosexual is such a big deal, and it shouldn’t be that way, it should be the same for everyone.

In Connor Franta’s case, we shouldn’t be proud of him for being gay or for coming out, we should be proud of him for, after years avoiding a thought which he was afraid of, finally accepting who he is and becoming happy with himself. We should be proud of him for finally being able to sit in front of a camera and tell the world something that, as he says, he had been afraid to tell even to his own reflection in the mirror for years.

That’s why I think the society will have really progressed when we reach a point in which the people don’t need to upload videos saying they are homosexuals and they don’t need to go through all this fears for being different, because everyone should be able to be who they are, without anyone impeding that.

CONNOR'S VIDEO: