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oatmilkovich · 2 years

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90s romeo and juliet supremacy forever

okay, you didn’t ask for this at all but i’m just extra and going to give it to you anyway.

one thing i will never understand is people disliking that movie — especially bc the only ‘consistent’ (eg over the years the handful of people i’ve met that say they don’t like it) surface level criticism i ever see of it is the fact that it’s the original elizabethan text set in modern day and that ‘doesn’t’ make sense.

how?! how does it not make sense 😭not to sound like i’m up some 500 year old man’s ass (except that i completely am) but shakespeare’s original language enhances the storytelling bc the words and praises he uses open the door to so many more ways of expressing feelings and emotions. romeo and juliet has some of the most beautiful dialogue and by placing it in modern day, it’s made so much more accessible because the context is so much clearer and relatable. (did anyone else watch the 60s adaptation with the zac efron look alike in school? love it, but why would you go w that one for teenagers to try and connect to the work)

baz luhrmann’s adaptation is camp, unique and all over the place in the best way. maybe i’m biased because i’ve always loved baz’s slightly off kilter signature style, but he took a story we’ve heard hundreds and times injected it with a new lease of life. shakespeare’s work is and will always be timeless – his words will exist long after we are gone, but how often does an adaptation of a play get referenced and drawn from consistently in media? for example, jules’ halloween costume on euphoria or hell, the entirety of skam season 3. the fish tank scene alone is iconic enough to garner it’s own references! shakespeare was a punk of his day and i truly believe that it’s exactly what he would’ve wanted for his work – especially 500 years later.

plus, we get great performances from harold perrineau as mercutio – his queen mab speech is legendary, claire danes – who was only 17 and kills it and john leguizamo as tybalt – who is one of my favourite actors ever. to top it all off we get 2 hours of 90s leonardo dicaprio delivering poetry in a hawaiian shirt and wielding a gun – like, what more could you ask for in life? is it his career defining performance? no, but it’s still a bloody good one and i’ll argue with anyone over how he alone is worth the film’s icon status.

this isn’t even mentioning baz’s music choices and how they too have earned their own reputation. kissing you by diseree? young hearts run free by kym mazelle? quindon tarver’s rendition of prince’s when doves cry? and my personal favourite talk show host by radiohead that kicked off my love for the band at 13. one of my favourite aspect’s of baz’s personal style is making music and the soundtrack as significant to the story as the characters are – and he does it so explicitly well in this film.

this is barely even scratching the surface of why I think this film deserves all the love it gets and how it is possibly the single most influential shakespeare adaptation... pretty much ever. i’m also a big believer that romeo and juliet (it’s one of my favourite plays and juliet is one of my favourite characters) gets misunderstood because of it’s reputation and that this is the perfect way to make his work accessible and fresh. anyways, if you unlocked a pandora’s box and if i don’t stop now, i probably won’t ever. in short: 90s romeo and juliet supremacy forever.

#me: oh i'll get some writing done today before i head out #also me: does this instead #listen. i feel very strongly about baz luhrmann's work #and shakespeare #and leonardo dicpario #and romeo and juliet #so this is all very specific to me #asks #romeo + juliet #skam s3 #baz luhrmann #leonardo dicaprio #william shakespeare #romeo and juliet

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iamnotawomanimagod · 3 years

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how would you rank the Halsey albums, if you had to?

Hmmm... tough question, anon. It's not really set in stone! But if I had to rank them right now:

4. Hopeless Fountain Kingdom

This album does have some absolute bangers on it. I still love "100 Letters" and "Devil in Me" and "Don't Play" sooo much. But there are enough songs on it that I am not absolutely obsessed with to keep it in last place.

I still love it, though! It's one of my favorites to blast while I'm cleaning. And I still think it had the best aesthetics - I loved all the bright colors, and the Romeo + Juliet references (I am a sucker for Baz Luhrmann,) and the way she color-blocked different parts of the era. We also got so many great performances from it!

3. Manic

I will always treasure this album for the way it allowed Halsey to open up and be more personal in their songwriting. It was a beautiful, broken, bipolar little era. Came out right when the pandemic began, but had such a long lead-up that the era both never quite started and simultaneously felt complete before it really ended.

"Ashley" is probably my all-time favorite song by them. The pastel/playful color palette was really pretty and fun. It's a great album - but I don't love most of the second half, and I think the bonus tracks were absolutely robbed by not being included in the official release.

2. Badlands

Without this record, we wouldn't have Halsey. They introduced themselves as a visual artist with an edgy, neon aesthetic, reflected in the videos and their style at the time. That iconic blue hair and the leather and galaxy print and skater skirts. It was such a cool era visually, never a dull moment.

There aren't any songs on this album I don't absolutely adore. Although the lyrics are simplistic (they've come a long way as a songwriter,) they capture a really specific vibe that fits so well with the industrial-pop sound. There truly isn't a bad song from this era, even if there are some I like more than others. With songs like "Gasoline" and "Hurricane" and "Young God," it was hard to imagine a more iconic time for Halsey's career. She had come so far, and created really interesting bodies of work with her second and third albums, but for me personally, nothing really had the It Factor of Badlands. Not until...

1. If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power

A masterpiece. Visually stunning and aesthetically cohesive - goth-rock with a renaissance edge, lots of lace and chiffon, and black and crimson, and dramatic shapes. Releasing an IMAX film with a story that weaves perfectly into the real-life details Halsey divulges in the lyrics - brilliant. Epic storyteller material. And the lyrics themselves are fresh and exciting, with more complexity than ever before. There are only two songs on this album that I don't absolutely adore, and I still really really like those songs.

The mystery leading up to it made hearing the songs for the first time so much more exciting, and really gave me a chance to appreciate the album as a whole, cohesive piece. That was refreshing and impressive after Manic, especially considering that they had a baby and maintained a makeup line and filmed an entire movie, which she developed the looks for - I think they worked really, really hard to deliver something complete, and they knocked it out of the park. I want another single though. "Honey" deserves a video.

I think my only criticism for this era is that so much of it is behind a paywall. Don't get me wrong, Halsey deserves to be paid for all the work they did, and so do all the people who helped make this album possible. But at the same time, while I was fortunate enough to be able to see things like the IICHLIWP film and the Moment House performance, I know a lot of people had to miss them. Since a tour is really unlikely at this point, I hope the visuals and performances that are available become more accessible with time.

Thanks for the ask, anon! Y'all know I love the opportunity to ramble about Halsey. 🥰

#halsey #iichliwp #badlands #hfk #manic #if i can't have love i want power #hopeless fountain kingdom #manic the album #stephspeaks #asks #anon

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inmyarmswrappedin · 3 years

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ok now i need to hear more of your thoughts about the remakes and how they adapted even’s favorite films

Hi anon 🎬 Sure!

So, first off, the thing about Baz Luhrmann is that he makes unapologetic love story movies. His movies have elements of action and adventure, but they’re first and foremost love stories, and that makes him stand out from other big movie directors. His movies aren’t even romcoms, first because they don’t have happy endings (as Even notes in the video with Mikael) but also because the setting is never contemporary. Like even aside The Great Gatsby or Moulin Rouge, which are not set in the present day, Romeo + Juliet does ostensibly have 90s technology. But since the characters speak in Shakespearean verse, it gives the movie an atemporal feel. So this is a super tragic, super romantic movie that is actually super toxic for Even to model his life after, because Even is convinced that, in order for him and Isak to be in true love (for any love story to be valid), their story has to end badly.

In Skam, Even provides the twist himself, by starting to make references (and model his life after) Pretty Woman when he starts to become manic. Pretty Woman is like, far from a non problematic movie lmao. But it does have an unlikely happy ending, and it’s through Isak’s understanding of how Even sees Romeo + Juliet and Pretty Woman, that he is able to ultimately reassure Even that their love story doesn’t have to end tragically.

So anyway, the fact that Even unabashedly loves this super romantic movie makes him mysterious and attractive and passionate, because it’s not a dude bro action or superhero movie. By loving this movie, Even is rejecting the macho persona Isak so badly wants to project.

I’ll start with the examples I like lol:

Only Lovers Left Alive: David identifies with this movie to the point that his cartoon persona is a vampire. Like Adam in the movie, he dresses in all black. He is convinced that he’s a monster who can’t live in society because he will be rejected. So it’s pretty clear how this movie is toxic for David. But I also think the movie is sooo telling of David’s actual desires. David likes to pretend that he can go it alone, that he doesn’t need anyone, that he wouldn’t take anyone with him in the case of a catastrophe. But... The movie is about Adam and Eve, the titular only lovers left alive. By loving this movie to the extent that he does, David is parading his major yearning for a forever partner. And like, of course he eventually asks Matteo to run away with him, but Matteo demonstrates how innately he understands David by telling him he does want a relationship with David, but he doesn’t want the toxicity of acting like they’re two monsters who’ve been cast aside from society.

Dangerous Liaisons: I think Skam España took an interesting route by choosing to not have Cris verbally connect the dots (like Druck did). The thing is, Dangerous Liaisons is a tragic love story, yes, but a love story between Valmont and Tourvel, whereas Joana projects on the Marquise de Merteuil, who is all but the villain in the story. Tragic story aside, Romeo and Juliet do love each other, as do Adam and Eve. Joana’s idea of romance (and of herself by extension since she projects on Merteuil) doesn’t even allow for loving and being loved back in return, because no one in Dangerous Liaisons loves Merteuil, and Merteuil herself has become so twisted that she can’t even call her feelings for Valmont “love” (though that’s how Joana interprets them). And the thing is, Joana still finds beauty in the movie! She writes Cris a letter with the edges burned out because it reminds them both of the story. She wants to meet at a specific park because it reminds her of the movie. So it’s just so... beautiful, that Cris takes all of this and just gives Joana the Liaisons dangereuses book. Like, she is lowkey reminding Joana that the book is just a book, that Joana is a real person (within the Skam España story I mean lmao) and not a twisted awful villain, that she is loved, and that Dangerous Liaisons can be their thing (like “their” song, but a movie in this case) without having to be the horrible thing that will destroy them. I really like that the writers chose to imply all these things in their minutt for minutt scene, without saying them explicitly.

Last Man on Earth: Honestly, like I don’t particularly have a big issue with Skam Italia making this Niccolò’s thing, other than it’s so... dude bro-y bland? Like one thing you can say about Romeo + Juliet, Only Lovers Left Alive and Dangerous Liaisons is that they are all such high key romantic (as in, emotions running high) movies, it’s what makes Even, David and Joana so mysterious and attractive and passionate. If I knew someone who told me he projects on Last Man on Earth I’d be like, “The Good Place is better” or “if you wanted to stan a SNL cast member, Andy Samberg was right there.” I mean, I do think Bessegato knew what the point of Even’s movie was, but Last Man on Earth is exactly the type of dude bro material I would expect from him, and would not expect from an Even.

Polaris: Polaris is an undeveloped motif who seems interesting because of the dark and light aspects, and I claim my five pounds. Polaris is in no way toxic for Eliott, like all the others movies and show (even Last Man on Earth) were for the other characters. It’s just... cute. Cute like everything about Eliott is cute and nothing more. Eliott drawing himself as a raccoon is cute because he has a mask and is nocturnal! Whereas Lucas is small and defensive like a hedgehog! And Lucille is elegant and mean like a cat! Etc. This motif is never really developed or explored, it’s never given a twist, Eliott is in fact still obsessed with it 3 seasons later, just like he was obsessed with it before he met Lucas and it was Idriss he envisioned in the other role. There’s no growth, Eliott just never progresses beyond what Polaris represents for him. It sure is cute as fuck though, which is why the stans love it.

???: Does Sander even have a movie? I heard he likes Baz Luhrmann and maybe even Romeo + Juliet, but this isn’t really explored. I don’t think even David Bowie’s life or sexuality or various musical personas (like you could do something with Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane if you couldn’t think of a movie) are explored. Sander likes Bowie like he could like Iggy Pop or Freddie Mercury, queer music icons who for the most part are “safe” for straight men to stan without their sexuality getting called into question. I assume Robbesander stans think the lack of an Even’s movie motif is a sign of excellent writing, and proves Sander is a better Even because he doesn’t project on anything toxic or whatever the hell, just like Robbe is the best Isak because he was so good at letting Zoë and Senne have drama uninterrupted.

#ask #skam #skam españa #druck #skam france #wtfock #Anonymous

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 3 years

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Behind The Album: OK Computer

The third studio album from Radiohead was released in May 1997 by Parlophone Records. This would mark the first album that Nigel Godrich worked on as their producer. The band would self produce the entire album themselves, which they have done on every record since. In 1995, Brian Eno asked the band to contribute a song to a charity compilation for War Child entitled Help. They were scheduled to do the recording in only a day, which led to the track, “Lucky.” Godrich would say of the recording. “Those things are the most inspiring, when you do stuff really fast and there's nothing to lose. We left feeling fairly euphoric. So after establishing a bit of a rapport work-wise, I was sort of hoping I would be involved with the next album." This track would form the foundation of what would become OK Computer. In early 1996, the group took a break from touring because they found it a bit too stressful. Thoughts now turned to a new record with the mindset of distancing themselves from anything similar to The Bends. Drummer Phillip Selway would say, “There was an awful lot of soul-searching [on The Bends]. To do that again on another album would be excruciatingly boring.” The label gave the band a rather good sized budget for recording equipment for the new release. A number of producers were considered for the album, but they kept coming back to Godrich as an advisor on equipment. Eventually, the band hired him as the producer. Ed O’Brien said of the album, “Everyone said, 'You'll sell six or seven million if you bring out The Bends Pt 2,' and we're like, 'We'll kick against that and do the opposite'."

In early 1996, Radiohead began proper recording of the LP at Canned Applause Studios in Oxfordshire, England. Issues immediately came up as the band had difficulty staying focused on one song all the way to completion. Selway would talk about this later, “We're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song ... The stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them." Although the members of the group were considered equals, the voice of Thom Yorke always represented the loudest one in terms of musical direction. Godrich would talk about his role within the group in an interview. They “need to have another person outside their unit, especially when they're all playing together, to say when the take goes well ... I take up slack when people aren't taking responsibility—the term producing a record means taking responsibility for the record ... It's my job to ensure that they get the ideas across." His permanent role on each Radiohead album would lead to the producer being called the sixth member of Radiohead. After only recording four songs, the band left the Canned Applause Studio for a variety of reasons Including the fact that the studio had no bathrooms or dining rooms. They decided to take a break from recording in order to support Alanis Morissette on tour, which gave them a chance to try some of their new tracks live. Around the same time, Director Baz Luhrmann asked the band to contribute a song to his film, Romeo and Juliet. “Exit Music for a Film” would be played as the credits rolled during the movie, but they did not give Luhrmann permission to place the track on the movie soundtrack. Yorke would later observe that this song became very important to the album. It “was the first performance we'd ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin—something I was proud of, something I could turn up really, really loud and not wince at any moment."

In September 1996, the band began recording again at a mansion in Bath, England owned by actress Jane Seymour. Jonny Greenwood would say the environment represented a much more pleasant change for the group. It “was less like a laboratory experiment, which is what being in a studio is usually like, and more about a group of people making their first record together." One quality that the band enjoyed during the sessions came in the fact that they took full advantage of the natural environment of the mansion. “Exit Music for a Film” utilized some natural reverb courtesy of a stone stairwell. They recorded Let Down” in an empty ballroom at 3 o’clock in the morning. The group worked at its own pace as Ed O’Brien observed later. “The biggest pressure was actually completing [the recording]. We weren't given any deadlines and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted. We were delaying it because we were a bit frightened of actually finishing stuff." A majority of the album would be recorded live with no overdubs because Yorke hated them. The band completed the rest of the album at the studio in Saint Catherine’s towards the end of 1996. In January 1997, the strings for the album were recorded, then they spent the next two months mastering and mixing the album. Actually, the mixing of the album only took a couple of days. Nigel Godrich would later comment, “I feel like I get too into it. I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up ... I generally take about half a day to do a mix. If it's any longer than that, you lose it. The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh, to stay objective."

Several artists would influence what would become the finished product of OK Computer. First and foremost came the 1970 album Bitches Brew by jazz great, Miles Davis. Thom Yorke would tell Q what he saw in that recording that made up his vision for this album. “It was building something up and watching it fall apart, that's the beauty of it. It was at the core of what we were trying to do with OK Computer." Other artists that helped to inspire the record included Elvis Costello, REM, PJ Harvey, the Beatles, Can, and composer Ennio Morricone. Jonny Greenwood would describe OK Computer as an attempt to recreate the sound on all these great records, but they missed the mark. The band would expand their instrumentation for this album to include electric piano, Mellotron, cello and other strings, glockenspiel and electronic effects. Spin would say this about the release, “A DIY electronica album made with guitars." The lyrics to the album focused on themes much more conceptual when contrasted with The Bends. Yorke would sing about a wide variety of topics including transportation, technology, insanity, death, globalism, capitalism, and more. The singer would say, “On this album, the outside world became all there was ... I'm just taking Polaroids of things around me moving too fast." He also took inspiration for some of the lyrics from a selection of books including Noam Chomsky, Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes, Will Hutton's The State We're In, Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up! and Philip K. Dick's VALIS. Despite the abstract nature of the lyrics on the record, many critics have looked upon OK Computer as a concept album. They argue that there exists a singular theme running throughout the record, but the band has consistently denied any attempt at making such a release. Jonny Greenwood commented, “I think one album title and one computer voice do not make a concept album. That's a bit of a red herring." They did pay particularly close attention to the order of the tracklist taking almost two weeks to complete it.

The album opens with “Airbag,” which highlights the drumming of Phillip Selway. The track had been inspired by the work of DJ Shadow. The band would later admit that they represented novices in this attempt to base a song on DJ Shadow due to their lack of time with programming. Yorke had actually read an article in a magazine entitled “An Airbag Saved My Life.” Another book that helped to create the basis for the song lyrics emerged in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Yorke had always been obsessed with the idea that any time you get into a car you could possibly die at any second. The second track “Paranoid Android” stands out as one of the longest tracks in the band's entire catalog. Two songs inspired it from classic rock, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” by the Beatles and “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. The lyrics are meant to reference the alien from Douglas Adams’s A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Yorke got the idea after watching a woman lose her mind after a drink spilled on her at a bar in Los Angeles. “Subterranean Homesick Alien” referenced “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan. The lyrics are meant to refer a person who is abducted by aliens, then returns home to realize his life is in no way any different. The beginnings of the theme for this track actually began for the singer in private school when he had an assignment to recreate a British literary movement called Martian poetry. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare inspired the lyrics to “Exit Music for a Film.” This should come as no surprise as the band had specifically created the song for a remake film. Yorke would use it as a chance to simply recap the entire narrative in the song because Zeffirelli’s version of the film greatly affected him at the age of 13. “I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. It's a song for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff starts.” The singer had tried to replicate Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison as he sang along to his acoustic guitar. “Let Down” represented an attempt by the band to recreate the sound made famous by Phil Spector and his wall of sound. Yorke would later comment that the lyrics are “about that feeling that you get when you're in transit but you're not in control of it—you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you're completely removed from it.” The singer would look upon such lyrics as perfect symbolism for Generation X, which had strongly influenced the direction of it. “Karma Police” contains two major sections that alternate between piano and guitar, which originally came from “Sexy Sadie” by the Beatles. The title of the song was an inside joke between the band during the previous tour. If something bad happened to someone, they would say that the karma police were going to get them. The short Interlude “Fitter, Happier” became something that the Radiohead frontman wrote in 10 minutes while on a break. The voice came from the Macintosh Simpletext software application. He would later describe the words as a “checklist for slogans from the 1990s.”

“Electioneering” turned out to be one of the band’s heaviest rock oriented songs probably ever with lyrics that were inspired by the Poll Tax Riots. Another source of inspiration came in the book Manufacturing Consent by Noah Chomsky. “Climbing Up the Walls” has been described by Melody Maker as “monumental chaos.” The track was arranged by Johnny Greenwood for 16 instruments based on composer Krzysztof Penderecki's “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.” No Surprises” would be initially inspired by “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys, but they really wanted to replicate the mood of “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong or the soul music of Marvin Gaye. Yorke would say the song’s narrator is “someone who's trying hard to keep it together but can't.” The track that started it all “Lucky” was actually inspired by the Bosnian War. Yorke wanted to illustrate the actual terror of that conflict on the charity album, Help. Another theme that he drew upon emerged in his own anxiety about transportation. Critics have likened the guitar on the song to 1970’s Pink Floyd. The final track on the album “The Tourist” was specifically arranged by Jonny Greenwood to create a bit of space on the LP. The lyrics originated from Yorke witnessing tourists in France trying to see as many sites as possible. The title of the album came from the 1978 radio series based on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when character Zaphod Beeblebrox says, “Okay, computer, I want full manual control now." They had first heard the line while listening to the series on the bus for their tour in 1996. Yorke would say this about the title later. It “refers to embracing the future, it refers to being terrified of the future, of our future, of everyone else's. It's to do with standing in a room where all these appliances are going off and all these machines and computers and so on ... and the sound it makes." The artwork would be created by both Yorke and Stanley Donwood using a computer. The Radiohead singer would observe this about the art, “It's quite sad, and quite funny as well. All the artwork and so on ... It was all the things that I hadn't said in the songs."

Leading up to the release of the album, the band got very little support from Capitol Records because they did not have too much faith in the commercial potential of it. Much of the pessimism came in the fact that the record did not have any singles to put on the radio. Ed O’Brien would call it the “lack of a Van Halen factor.” The singles that were released from OK Computer included “Paranoid Android,” “Karma Police,” and “Lucky.” All of the singles charted in the top 10 in the UK, while they also did very well making the top 20 on the US charts. Their official website was created in order to promote the record, as well as some non-traditional promotional techniques by the record label. One such idea came in their decision to take out full-page ads in popular British newspapers and magazines with only the lyrics to “Fitter, Happier.” Another promotion sent out floppy disks to people in the press, which included many Radiohead screensavers. Upon its official release, OK Computer would debut at number one on the UK charts, while in the US the record made it to number 21. Please note that this was the highest American debut for the band. By September 2000, the release had sold 4.5 million copies worldwide.

Critics loved the album across the board. Writer Tim Footman would comment, “Not since 1967, with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, had so many major critics agreed immediately, not only on an album's merits, but on its long-term significance, and its ability to encapsulate a particular point in history." Many critics saw it as a very important album. Mojo wrote in their review, “Others may end up selling more, but in 20 years' time I'm betting OK Computer will be seen as the key record of 1997, the one to take rock forward instead of artfully revamping images and song-structures from an earlier era.” The New Yorker would congratulate the band on taking many more risks artistically then their contemporaries like Oasis. “Throughout the album, contrasts of mood and style are extreme ... This band has pulled off one of the great art-pop balancing acts in the history of rock." Most of the reviews that were slightly mixed seemed to focus on the fact that when compared with The Bends, this record did not contain as many catchy songs. The release would go on to win the Grammy for Best Alternative Album, but did not win Album of the Year. The praise for the album seemed to inundate the band a little too much. Also, Radiohead did not agree with the universal assessment that they had made the greatest progressive or art rock record since Dark Side of the Moon. Thom Yorke would say, “We write pop songs ... there was no intention of it being 'art'. It's a reflection of all the disparate things we were listening to when we recorded it."

The legacy of the album came to be represented in a variety of ways. First, the release of OK Computer coincided with the election of Tony Blair. Some writers have pointed to the pessimism on the record as a sign of things to come. Stephen Hayden would write, “Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve, forecasting the paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that's subsequently come to characterise everyday life in the 21st century." Second, the arrival of this album directly coincided with the decline of Britpop. The Oasis album Be Here Now did not attain the commercial or critical success that What’s the Story Morning Glory had received in 1995. Third, OK Computer directly influenced a new generation of artists including bands like Bloc Party and TV on the Radio. The album has landed on many lists over the subsequent years as one of the best releases of the decade and all time. Yet, not all retrospective reviews have been kind to OK Computer as it has also landed on some lists as one of the most overrated records of all time. A New Musical Express column criticized the release as the exact point when Radiohead stopped being good, but instead started to become important.

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researchblogrj · 3 years

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Styling in the Film

Baz Luhramnn’s Romeo and Juliet combines traditional Shakespearian language with modern aesthetics.

The costuming in Romeo and Juliet has become one the memorable aesthetics of all films.

The costuming specifically focused as ‘non dateable’, meaning that the clothing could not date the film and render it timeless.

A modern 90s aesthetic is combined with traditional religious/cultural imagery, with crosses shaved into the characters heads and hanging on chains on their necks.

The majority of the costuming influences come from the differences between the Montagues and the Capulets.

“The Capulets’ style is more decorative and the Montague kids are more utilitarian...The Capulets wear ornamental and expensive pieces of clothing, and bullet-proof vests have become required accessories...it’s a place where guns are the norm so life and clothing would have changed to adapt to that. The Capulets are more manicured and preening and wear clothes that are extremely well-cut and body conscious.”

— KYM BARRETT

An exhibition of the costuming in Romeo and Juliet is shown in the Ballroom scene, where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time. The purity of the young lovers contrasting from the garish and viced guests is directly shown through their costuming.

Romeo and Juliet’s costuming are simple; with clean lines and pale/light colours.

The guests however are over-the-top and sinister, a mix of different elements and fabrics.

Each character’s costume directly represents their inner motives.

- Lady Capulet is dressed as Cleopatra; a reference to her possible infidelity and anxiety about her waning beauty.

- Lord Capulet wears a toga, referencing a roman emperor who is powerful and can do whatever he wants.

- Tybalt is dressed as the devil, accompanied by two skeletons, which I don’t think I need to explain, but it references Tybalt’s views and his future.

- Mercutio dressed in drag, showing that he’s not on any side of the feud.

- Romeo is dressed as a knight in shining armour, youthful and searching for his love.

- Juliet dressed as an angel, representing her beauty and purity, her innocence and naivety.

“The ballroom set was a way of contrasting the simplicity of Romeo and Juliet and their love to the harshness of the world that surrounds them- a world that is more concerned with appearances. It also makes it very clear that there is a reason they are together. They are both outsiders in the extraordinary over-the-top place.”

— KYM BARRETT

Kym Barrett’s costuming in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet is a perfect example of how fashion can be used to deepen a character as well as add an unique aesthetic to the overall film. The idea of presenting a Shakespearian story in a modern context seems crazy and unachievable, but choosing unique clothing to match the incredibly unique storyline puts Luhrmann’s adaptation into both a homage to the original, as well as into a league of it’s own.

Character Styling

Capulet

Led by Tybalt are dressed in Dolce & Gabbana’s diffusion line; D&G. Dressed in black and streamlined garments create a sense of simplicity.

Their accessories are dripping in embellishment with hand-crafted belt buckles, shoes, gun holsters and jewellery show off a sense of opulence.

Styled in thick, quilted vests adding a decorative yet protective look.

They are a little more intense which can be seen from their super-serious black-and-red clothing.

Montague

They are far more laid-back and utilitarian.

Created by Prada, their open Hawaiian shirts, workwear pants/shorts and combat boots create a sense of uniqueness and shows the influence of the warm climate.

Spiked and bright pink hair adds another later of distinction, as well as referencing their childish and carefree behaviour.

Romeo

Romeo wears unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts and utilitarian clothing, he keeps a sense of simplicity to his look, opting not to dye his hair bright pink or spike it up like the other young members of the Montague family.

Juliet

Whilst the Capulet’s tend to choose black garments, Juliet gravitates towards lighter colours and flowing silhouettes.

The first time we meet Juliet, she’s got her head under water.

The first outfit we see her in is an angel costume—all white.

Juliet’s costume choice is a huge departure from the Capulets’ usual black garments, and a direct opposite to Tybalt himself at the party—since he dresses up as the devil.

Juliet's looks are subtle, simple, and down to earth.

In one scene in one scene when she's waiting for the Nurse to dish about Romeo, she's styled in just a white t-shirt and jeans.

- Caitlyn

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cosmicdreamgrl · 7 months

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when you finally piece together that the standing next to you mv was inspired by one of your all time favourite movies aka baz luhrmann's romeo and juliet, no wonder some of the set design and scenes seemed familiar. also when you consider some of the lyrics in the song? it was only fitting to use one of the most impactful examples of starcrossed lovers in existence as a reference point (even though i loathe romeo and juliet, it's my least favourite play from shakespeare but that's a discussion for a different day)

#steph.text

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groupstylingmoviebrief · 3 years