Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

Shakespearean Marketing

Tags: Shakespeare, Blog-a-thon, Art Direction

NOTE: This post is a contribution to the William Shakespeare Blog-a-thon at Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee.

It’s trendy to hate Baz Luhrman’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. I don’t.

But that’s not the point of this entry, because whether you like the film or not, it’s hard to ignore its style. The art direction in this film is hip, flashy, and when you break it down, it’s downright cool.

Looking at the film, I was struck by the amount of reference there is to the Shakespearean Universe; ads, newspapers, and magazines contain images and phrases straight out of Shakespeare’s other plays. Let’s take a look at just a few of these.

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We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep….

The Tempest

Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of sack….

And here’s a pot of good double beer, neighbour: drink, and fear not your man.

Henry VI, Part 2

O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door.

King Lear

O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!

Henry VI, Part 2

Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend….

Henry IV, Part 2

Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!

Macbeth

Aside, aside; here is more matter for a hot brain….

The Winter’s Tale

…you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse….

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth….

Timon of Athens

…Allow’d with absolute power and thy good name….

Timon of Athens

Is there no manners left among maids?

The Winter’s Tale

You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings….

Henry IV, Part 1

…Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning….

Henry V

There’s a dainty madwoman, master, comes i’ th’ nick, as mad as a March hare.

The Two Noble Kinsmen

But if I live, his feigned ecstasies shall be no shelter to these outrages….

Titus Andronicus

The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords….

Troilus and Cressida

Their music frightful as the serpent’s hiss….

Henry VI, Part 2

They bleed on both sides. How is ‘t, my lord!

Hamlet

All manner of men assembled here in arms this day against God’s peace and the king’s….

Henry VI, Part I

Let me not think on’t! Frailty, thy name is woman!

Hamlet

These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air….

The Tempest

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t!

The Tempest

Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!

Macbeth

Knock, Knock. Who’s there in th’other devil’s name?

Macbeth

Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend….

Twelfth Night

SCENE I. The English camp at Agincourt.

Henry V

…that thou soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?

Henry IV, Part 1

Dramatis Personae.
VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, OSRIC
courtiers.

Hamlet

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Now just skimming through the first half hour or so of the film, I’ve found even more references, including these:

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Dramatis Personae.
SHYLOCK, a rich Jew

The Merchant of Venice

…Command an argosy to stem the waves.

Henry VI, Part 3

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last….

Richard II

…let a cup of sack be my poison….

Henry IV, Part 1

I need not add more fuel to your fire, for well I wot ye blaze to burn them out….

Henry VI, Part 3

…Methinks the truth should live from age to age, as ‘twere retail’d to all posterity….

Richard III

Experience is by industry achieved and perfected by the swift course of time.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Dramatis Personae.
MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap

Henry IV

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights that give a name to every fixed star have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and wot not what they are.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!

Macbeth

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I’ve only touched the surface of this film, but it’s obviously rich with reference, and let’s face it, Shakespeare gave them a lot to play with. I can’t believe how much thought went in to just the look of this film.