Romeo and Juliet

How are the two gangs represented in the initial scene of Romeo and Juliet.


The gangs are represented through things such as Camera angles, Editing, Sound and Mise-en-scene.

For example the camera angles show things like high camera angles when Tybalt holds a gun to the small childs head. This showed how important the Capulet was and also the fact he is threatening to shoot a child shows that he is not a very nice person.

When the two gangs start to argue with eachother, the fast camera shots show the comparason between the two different types of gangs, showing their posture and their facial expressions, the Montague seemed quite worried and scared, where-as the Capulets seemed quite broad minded and sure of themselfs.

The title edits at the begingintroducing '' the boys'' gives of a kind of gang feel to the film already and when theres one gang theres always a bad gang aswell. Because we are introduced first to the Montague we already have a kind of ''bond'' as i would say as from the camera shot at the start where the audience feels as though we are being talked to by one of the gang members in the car.

The punky hippie kind of music that is played when the Montague are in the car seems quite happy and joyfull so it gives of a sence that the Montague are good guys and that they like to be with their friends and go on roadtrips and parties. Where as when we meet the capulets, the music changes intensively, it changed to a old western showdown type of music which could show signs of trouble and that it is not a safe place to be. It also shows that the Capulets are not very safe people to be around.

The way the Capulets get out of the car, not showing their faces is kind of scary as they are not showing their identity so we do not know what they look like, not showing their faces tell us that this ''gang'' could be quite mysterios and sly.

Even though we are not told who the ''bad boys'' and the ''good boys'' are but we can tell by what they are wearing, how they present themselfs and how the other group show their facial expressions when they meet.