Thrills, Pills and Bellyaches

Rip It Up, Issue 235, 1 March 1997, Page 22

Thrills, Pills and Bellyaches

An interview with

BAZ LUHRMANN

When the scary subject of Shakespeare was broached while I was at high school, I remember my teacher endearing himself to a confused class (after a quick and tragically crippled session in which we took turns attempting to read some dusty tome or other out loud) by admitting it made no sense to him and suggesting we shelve the Bard — hoorah for sir! And I know our class weren’t alone as we tossed about on that murky sea of received English. Baz Luhrmann, director of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, also found himself in the fabled ship without a rudder. “I remember when I was a kid, there was this book on the shelf at the little tiny, tiny school I went to — it was The Merchant of Venice — and I looked at the first page, and I went, ‘I will never be able to understand that, no matter what I do, I will never understand that.’ And really, I think I thought it was like this sort of pain you had to go through, which was the sort of school production you saw of it.” But we thought plenty of stuff was yucky then we don’t now. Having since seen Two Gentlemen of Verona performed 90210 style, Romeo and Juliet played out in the shape of a sporting match, and the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s take on The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged, to name but a few, I learned you don’t have to be stuffy to be down with Bill — after all, he wasn’t. As Luhrmann says, “We don’t know a lot about him, but he wasn’t precious, he wasn’t this rarefied artist, he was out there with the 3,000 drunken punters, and he was a great entertainer/storyteller... relentless.” But Luhrmann’s initial interest was not motivated by this often overlooked perception. “I kinda was interested in it later on, more out of pretension than anything else — wanting to be kind 0f... seriously into drama. It wasn’t until I saw a really quite brilliant, brilliant production by Neil Armfield (who’s an Australian director) of Twelfth Night that, ‘bang’, it was just like this revelation to me, that it was this great story with this fabulous language. In a way I was inspired by that, because I remember years and years later thinking, Td really like to do that for someone else one day,’ to remove that curtain that makes it this obscure, distant language, where it is in fact this really immediate, alive story telling.” And now Luhrmann has reached that goal to the power of however-big-the-screen-is-at-your-nearest-multiplex. Catch

a glimpse of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet mid-action and you could be forgiven for thinking you’d tuned into a music video network. Perhaps its most striking feature is that you’ll be able to understand what’s being said straight away — no ear bending required — thanks to the completely naturalistic tones delivering the dialogue. With over-the-top visual representations further illustrating the lingo, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet manages to slay you with it’s beauty, while socking the story to you like you’ve never had it socked before. It would seem movie-goers have been aching for it. In its New Zealand opening weekend, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet achieved the third highest box office take its distributor, Twentieth Century Fox, has ever had (following Independence Day and Speed). No doubt, the very sexy leads of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes have a lot to do with its

drawing power, and they also made the film quite the rumour target. The real story behind their relationship, however, is sadly devoid of the kind of sexual/betrayal/revenge shenanigans gossip has coloured it with. “They really were like brother and sister. He was enormously supportive of her,” says Luhrmann. “He’s 21/22, she’s 16/17. There was obviously a bit of chemistry between them — particularly Claire’s way — but they were really supportive of

each other, and we were there for six months. There were a couple of snips on the set at certain points, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough gossipy stuff — that was the problem, they didn’t do anvthino too outraoeous. I mean.

Dee went out a lot with th guys, and they were pretty incredible in Mexico. Poor Claire Bear was stuck there with no one really for six months. Her Mum [was there], and she has friends, and we had a first assistant who was her friend, but... it’s a weird thing. Being a movie star is very tough, believe it or not, it’s very, very tough.” J

So, there’s no truth to the rumour about Leonardo’s on-set womanising sending Claire rebounding into a love affair with Winona Ryder? Luhrmann chuckles, “Claire’s a very good friend of Winona’s, but I don’t think they’re having an affair. Not that I deny any possibility of that, but I don’t think they are having an affair just ’cause I know who Claire is having a relationship with... and it’s not Winona.” William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet comes on like its own tabloid drama by bracketing its story with two news items about the Montague and Capulet feud — the most tragic effect of which is the heart of the story. “The notion of the television is just saying, ‘Hey, the chorus in our lives is the television,’ and every day, it’s just another little story on the TV, it’s just another teenage suicide on the television. What is story anyway? I mean, whether it’s in New Idea

about Leonardo and Claire, or whether it’s Romeo and Juliet, we’re just interested in other people’s lives, and we look to other people for their story because we try and find something about ourselves in it.” The moral majority have long held up teen-suicide and drugs (‘Drugs? Give us a drug, any drug’ll do.’) as two excellent reasons no teenager should be trusted near any take on Romeo and Juliet, and Baz Luhrmann’s version is no different, except for the fact the drugs taken tend to

esemble ecstasy (physically) and LSD (effectively) a little more closely than they might. “I don’t know if you heard the story come out of Australia last week?," asks Baz, still smarting three days later. “I went to a big press con-

srence, the premier was there, it was basically a big media beat-up. [Someone] got up and said, ‘I love the film and I’m gonna make every child at school see the film.’ The next thing they i leapt on him and said, I ‘Well, what about the pill taking?’ He said, ‘Oh, that’ll have to be cut,’ and L I said, ‘Oh, I don’t think ■kit will be.’ So, there

was a controversy. “The truth is, it is not ecstasy. It is a mythical drug called Queen Mab. In fact, if you know anything about particular experiences, it is a hallucinogenic, I mean, he sees things that appear in front of his eyes, it’s not an emotional drug so much. He throws up, it’s so disturbing an experience, and out of throwing that chemical experience up, that artificial dream maker, he sees Juliet and there’s pure love, a real love experience. “Even in the play, the boys would have gone off incredibly drunk, and on a very, very strong wine, probably mull or something like that, and probably would have traces of a drug in it by the nature of what it is. But more importantly, universally, young people tend to get into drugs or whatever ’cause it releases them and makes them brave, and they think they need it. To ignore it is to be dishonest, and this sort of storytelling’s not about dishonesty.” Indeed, this sort of story telling is about smashing such conventions, as the ‘Sycamore Grove’ in which much of the action takes place suggests, being as it is created to resemble a wrecked theatre. “The theatre was really about busting the play out of the theatre and into the world. And it’s interesting when Mercutio does ‘a plague on both your houses’, he does it on the stage, or Queen Mab is done on the stage. Not many Americans pick up on this, Europeans seem to think this is an incredibly powerful metaphor, y’know, and it is. I mean it’s our theatre joke really.” Luhrmann believes he’ll be smashing a few more conventions behind the scenes with his next move too. “Well, the next project is this two-year deal I’ve done with Fox. The convention I’m breaking is, being an Australian filmmaker working with his own team, from Australia but for the rest of the world, and that really hasn’t been done successfully. A lot of people say I’m a bit foolish to do it, but we’ll have a go.”

. * Claire’s a very good friend of Winona’s, \ • ■ ’ 1 BUT I DON’T THINK THEY'RE HAVING AN AFFAIR.

BRONWYN TRUDGEON