TO BE YOUNG FOREVER.

The notion of being young forever is a hidden and nearly shameful dream that's nuzzled deep in the crevices of the heart of a youth-obsessed America. Youth is synonymous with beauty. Youth is the glittering promise of possibility and purity in one--the untainted adventure of adolescence that hasn't been dampened by the horror of adulthood. What story better incapsulates youth than Romeo and Juliet?

There's a reason that this story has withstood the test of time. Sure, most of Shakespeare's work has been adapted and adapted again, some bearing little resemblance to the original piece it once was. But why is Romeo and Juliet undoubtedly the most popular? In this iconic story we are met with star-crossed lovers, doomed from the start, who inevitably fall into a deep and passionate romance. Young, pure, and faced with threats from both sides of their rival families, Romeo and Juliet embody the ideas of youth we are so obsessed with.

Better yet, their youth is interrupted. By the story's end, both our lovers are dead--young forever. Never aging. Never blemished. Never jaded. Their love is eternal--existing somewhere where the devastation of age can't deteriorate it.

Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version of this story comes to us packaged in a vibrant, camp, gang war set on the turbulent Verona Beach. The dialogue of the film is the same as Shakespeare's original written word, keeping his iconic iambic pentameter intact, but visually we are presented with a 90's extravaganza, complete with Hawaiian shirts and Mercutio dressed in drag.

The question Luhrmann's choices poses to us is: what counts as an adaptation? How faithfully does a work need to resemble the original to be counted as "legitimate" rather than an "appropriation"? According to Julie Sanders, an adaptation has "a relationship with the source" while an appropriation takes "a decisive journey away from the text," transforming it into a new "cultural product" of its own. Her definition is straight-forward, and one I personally find fitting in terms of discerning adaptation.

Luhrmann's version of Romeo and Juliet has a healthy relationship with the original play, whereas other films that claim to be based off the work hardly are distinguishable as such, Disney's Pocahontas being an example. Luhrmann is faithful to the original text yet inventive in his stylization and creates his own viewing experience; he modernizes, dramatizes, and paints a colorful and vivid picture. His choices help bring the archaic and frankly difficult language to life in a way that modern viewers can understand. The actors deliver each line smoothly, speaking the words as if "thou" and "beseech" are simply a part of their everyday language.

In relation to the topic of youth and its portrayal in media, Romeo and Juliet is an interesting film to analyze. The original play, as stated previously, embodies most of the tropes we associate with young love. Perhaps started most of our modern young romance tropes: forbidden love, passion, adults not understanding, and ultimately a tragic ending. Shakespeare had all of these themes present in the original text.

However Luhrmann heightens them even further. Unaware of the future fame he would reach, Baz casted Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo who would then go on to be one of the greatest Hollywood heartthrobs of all time. He is boyish, conventionally attractive, white, and overall incredibly young. Leonardo is wide-eyed and expressive, wearing his heart on his sleeve, and even plays Romeo's annoying obsession with Rosaline at the beginning of the film as a hopeless romantic rather than a lustful, obsessive, whiner--the tone the lines are written in.

Claire Danes was also very young when filming the movie--17 in fact. Luhrmann chooses to show Juliet in as pure of a light as he can during the film, dressing her in white with minimal makeup and keeping her hair long and flowing. She even is dressed as an angel during the costume party in the film--symbolic of her purity and representing how Romeo sees her.

Interesting that a director casted two very young actors in the titular roles whereas it is commonplace in Hollywood to cast even 30 year olds in roles of teenagers. There is a huge emphasis on the youth of both the characters and the actors. Perhaps Romeo and Juliet have to be young in order to convincingly sell the idea of their passionate romance without it seeming too crazy. Why is mind-bending, all encompassing, obsessive love only something we associate with youth? Why is it only attainable within a small window of time? And why can this love not last--either succumbing to a bitter end that age and familiarity will inevitably bring, or stopped short by death. This love cannot endure, just as youth cannot endure.

Water is also a frequent motif in the film--we first meet Juliet with her head in water. She and Romeo first catch a glimpse of each other through a fish tank. They further go on to make out and confess their love to one another in Juliet's pool. There are frequent beach scenes, rain storms, and Tybalt even falls back into water when he dies. Water suggests purity. Water is also fluid--always in motion, like the two of them. Water is powerful, yet volatile. Water can destroy and also give life. In many ways this symbolizes their chaotic yet nourishing relationship, which ends for them in disaster, but ultimately brings peace to their opposing families.

Romeo and Juliet's love exists where only this kind of love can: in a short window of untainted affection, encapsulated in a third dimension where the trials of everyday ruin its purity. This love exists and is rewritten over and over to this day. Forever young, forever in love. This story reminds me of The Fault in Our Stars: a modern tale of two cancer-stricken teenagers who have a fairytale, picturesque love story that isn't torn apart by feuding parents, but instead disease. Although Hazel, Juliet in this story's case, doesn't die, Augustus (Romeo) does. There is even a reference in the text to another Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, which says "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves." Hazel, the protagonist, disagrees and blames the stars for she and Augustus's strife, much like our grief-stricken Romeo cries out, "I defy you stars!" Though not a direct interpretation of Shakespeare, it proves that taking on these themes of love, tragedy, and death will not only guarantee a blockbuster hit, but resonate with youth no matter if you were a baby boomer, an MTV kid, or belong to the Selfie generation.

Baz Luhrmann's film serves as a wonderful 90's aesthetic time capsule and innovative look at a literary masterpiece. The various adaptations, whether true or simply "appropriations", proves that not only is Romeo and Juliet a timeless story that will be reinvented for years to come, it also gives us a cultural take on our ideas of youth, love, and time that have prevailed throughout generations. We love youth, we love love, and both coexist in a symbiotic relationship that only time, or death, can tear apart.