William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
(Video, DVD) 

Based on the play by William Shakespeare.

Originally produced as a motion picture in 1996.

Special features: Commentary with Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Craig Pearce, and Don McAlpine [audio feature]; Director's gallery featurettes: Impact (4 min.); Why Shakespeare? (3 min.); Pitching Shakespeare (10 min.); The gas station (7 min.); The pool scene (5 min.); Tybalt's execution (4 min.). Cinematographer's gallery featurettes: A hole in the wall, One light, Operator, The Fishtank, The elevator, The church (6 min.); Design gallery slide shows: The books (5 min.); Guns of Verona Beach (1 min.); Cars of Verona Beach (1 min.); Production design (11 min.); Fashion of Verona Beach (3 min.); Branding of Verona Beach (1 min.); Interview gallery featurettes: Co-writer (2 min.); Editor (2 min.); Choreographer (2 min.); Costume designer (2 min.); Leonardo DiCaprio (2 min.); Claire Danes (2 min.); John Leguizamo (2 min.); Music clips (8 min.); Marketing R+J (4 min.); DVD-ROM feature Script to screen [requires a DVD-ROM drive].

Director of photography, Donald M. McAlpine ; film editor, Jill Bilcock ; production designer, Catherine Martin ; costume designer, Kym Barrett ; music, Nellee Hooper ; original score, Craig Armstrong, Marius de Vries, Nellee Hooper.

Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo), Claire Danes (Juliet), Jesse Bradford (Balthasar), Vondie Curtis-Hall (Captain Prince), Brian Dennehy (Ted Montague), John Leguizamo (Tybalt), Miriam Margolyes (Nurse), Harold Perrineau (Mercutio), Christina Pickles (Caroline Montague), Pete Postlethwaite (Father Laurence), Paul Rudd (Dave Paris), Paul Sorvino (Fulgencio Capulet), Diane Venora (Gloria Capulet), M. Emmet Walsh (Apothecary).

Forsooth, this is a pretty play! In fair, tropical Verona Beach in the present day, Romeo + Juliet blithely weds 400-year-old dialog to MTV style visuals. Swords have become guns, and the Montagues and Capulets have become Mafia-style family-based gangs, while their sons run their own rich-kid gangs whose rumbles bring out armies of cops. Whilst these two households are constantly fighting, Romeo and Juliet meet up and fall in love. Unfortunately, life is not as simple as fall-in-love-and-get-married in this city. Much trouble ensues, with banishments, curses, and finally death. Shakespeare bereft of snobbery, language intact, accessible for all those who think that Shakespeare is "too hard" to understand.

DVD; Region 1, NTSC; 5.1 Dolby Digital surround, Dolby surround; anamorphic widescreen presentation, aspect ratio 2.35:1.

In English or dubbed French with optional subtitles in English or Spanish; closed-captioned.