Shakespeare on Screen: Romeo and Juliet assembly

Transcription

1 Romeo and Juliet assembly Our resources are designed to be used with selected film titles, which are available free for clubs at See, think, make. Imagine intofilm.org Into Film is a trading name of Film Nation UK. Registered Charity number

2 Assembly notes Slide 1 Title slide Slide 2 Ask the pupils if they recognise the person in the picture and why he is famous. Based on the painting, you can also ask for their ideas on what era he lived in, or how we are able to know that the person in the portrait is Shakespeare. Get students together in groups and ask them to come up with a series of five facts about Shakespeare. Upper primary pupils can use the Internet to research. For younger students it can be done as a whole class discussion. Bring the pupils back together and discuss their findings. Reveal the quotes on the slide one-by-one, asking students for their reactions and if they can expand on them at all. Slide 3 This slide has two simple maths exercises. Given his birth and death dates, ask the pupils to work out how old Shakespeare was when he died. Once that is done, ask them to work out how long ago be died. This will lead on to the fact that next year will be the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare s death. Slide 4 Ask students to come up with ideas for why filmmakers have always been drawn to adapting Shakespeare s plays. Shakespeare has been used in films from the earliest days of cinema, and there are thought to have been at least 200 cinematic adaptations of his work. Many of his plays deal with universal issues that continue to resonate today. Despite the difficult language, the plays tell compelling stories full of relatable and recognisable characters. Consequently, he is a constant source of inspiration for filmmakers who are always trying to find new ways of interpreting his writing. Slide 5 Introduce Romeo & Juliet to the discussion and ask if any of the children know the story. You then talk about the film s basic plot, such as: young teenagers who meet and fall in love but face threats to their romance from the outside world. we lay our scene as the play s famous prologue puts it. Montagues and Capulets. Romeo is a Montague and Juliet a Capulet, which is the reason why it is difficult for them to be together and the central cause of tension and conflict in the play. Romeo and Juliet meet and fall in love, but they do not realise until it is too late which family the other belongs to. plays. By the end of the play, Romeo has mistakenly heard that Juliet has killed herself and decides to take his own life. Before he realises his mistake, Juliet wakes up but it is too late and she also dies. comedies, such as A Midsummer Night s Dream and Twelfth Night, as well as historical plays including Richard III and. Slide 6 Discuss with pupils how popular the play has always been with filmmakers. There have been numerous film versions of the play made throughout cinema history. One of the most famous is a 1968 version, which was fairly traditional and set in Shakespearean times. Other notable versions are discussed in the assembly slide. You may wish to look at some examples on the Into Film Clubs website. Slide 7 Ask if anyone in the group has seen the film Gnomeo and Juliet, then introduce the basic elements of the story: Gnomeo and Juliet was an attempt to introduce Shakespeare to a younger generation by making an animated film set in the world of garden gnomes. intofilm.org 2

3 Mrs Montague and Mr Capulet are neighbours who hate each other. When they leave their houses, their garden gnomes come alive but they hate each other too! That is until Gnomeo meets Juliet Slide 8 Introduce this scene from early on in the play, where the filmmakers have changed the action from the play s famous swordfight to a frantic lawnmower chase between Gnomeo and Tybalt. Ask pupils to focus on one aspect of the scene while watching the clip, using the 3Cs and 3Ss. The 3Cs are Colour, Character and Camera, and the 3Ss are Story, Setting and Sound. Younger children can focus on one of these; older students could be encouraged to focus on more than one element. Alternatively, you could ask the class to focus on one particular question: How does the setting help to make the scene exciting? Slide 9 Discuss the questions raised prior to showing the clip. rivalry between Gnomeo and Tybalt, and their two families, telling the audience that they have been rivals for a long time. The scene works as a self-contained story involving two people having a race, but the audience are also aware that it is part of the larger story told in the rest of the film. the various gnomes watching the race are on, as they match what Tybalt and Gnomeo are wearing, as well as the lawnmowers they are riding. Tybalt is very red in the face throughout, suggesting he is losing his temper with Gnomeo, who remains much cooler and is more able to tease Tybalt. of the scene, making it much more fun and frantic. The music also works in tandem with the sound of the lawnmowers, which sound a bit like motorcar engines. However the music changes and becomes more dramatic at the end as Gnomeo and Tybalt s quarrels play out increasingly dangerously. and gives them a new spin by having the characters ride lawnmowers instead of drive cars. However much of the action is similar to what we see in car chases, with lots of shots of the two lawnmowers racing side-by-side, and close-ups of the central characters interspersed with shots of spectators, for example. How does the setting help to make the scene exciting? The film takes the normal, everyday location of an alleyway and changes it into a racetrack for the purposes of the lawnmower chase. The various obstacles on the track present objects of danger to Gnomeo and Tybalt. The reckless way in which they approach these obstacles tells the audience of the dangers both characters are willing to face because of their rivalry. The accidents that the gnomes almost have towards the end of the chase, involving cars and humans on skateboards establish that these are small characters in a much larger world. There are dangers that they cannot control but have to be aware of. Widen the discussion to include the other points raised on the slide, in terms of the student s expectations for the rest of the film following this scene. Slide 10 Introduce the same scene from the 1968 version of the play, told much more traditionally, asking students to focus on the same filmmaking techniques, or looking again at the use of setting to generate excitement. Slide 11 Like the Gnomeo and Juliet clip, the scene establishes the history of the rivalry between the two groups, and like the lawnmower chase, the action is fairly chaotic. on the same characters throughout, often changing the audiences point-of-view. Whereas the lawnmower chase just involved two characters, there are many people involved in this fight, even though it starts off being between two people. willing to put themselves in great danger, and perhaps even kill each other over their rivalry. setting and the characters are also speaking the intofilm.org 3

4 original Shakespearean language. This language only sounds difficult to modern ears, when Shakespeare was writing his plays it would have sounded much more normal to audiences watching. fight, telling us that this is a rivalry that has gone on for a long time and does not just involve two people. This is seen in Gnomeo and Juliet too, but it is less obvious because the characters are all gnomes! establishes that the characters are fairly rich, but also illusrates that they are living in a fairly small town where many residents will be affected by their fighting, not just the two families. This is also seen through the use of extras, caught up in the mayhem. All of the sounds we here come from the action, such as the clinking of swords, or the town bell which rings out throughout the fight to signal to the residents that there is an emergency. Although there is no music, the sound in this scene is perhaps much more dramatic than Gnomeo and Juliet. Slide 12 Introduce another key scene from the play, the famous balcony scene. Ask the students if they know any famous quotations from this scene. Students may well recognise Ask them what they think this line means. You can then introduce the next clip from West Side Story and ask students to think about some of these questions: What is going on in the scene? How do the two characters feel about one another? How is the camera used? What are the characters singing about? Slide 13 Watch the clip from West Side Story and discuss some of the questions raised on the previous slide. You could talk about how the lyrics of the song tell us that Tony and Maria are falling in love with each other, or how the film relocates the action from a balcony to a fire escape in a city apartment block. One reason for this is that people are much less likely to live somewhere with a balcony, particularly in the middle of a big city! The clip also uses lots of close-ups of the two characters together to demonstrate that they are falling in love. The three different approaches to Shakespeare seen in the clips can then be summed up, and the students asked if they have a particular favourite or which film they would like to watch in its entirety. Slide 14 Ask pupils if they have any ideas for how they would stage as possible. They could draw pictures of how they imagine the two central characters in their version of the story. Slide 15 Watch this clip from Gnomeo and Juliet where Gnomeo comes across a statue of William Shakespeare in the park. The statue comes to life and compares the story Gnomeo has just told him to that of the play he wrote. Ask the children what they think Shakespeare would have thought of a film like Gnomeo and Juliet. Would he be pleased that audiences are still having his stories told to them? This leads onto the discussion on the next slide. Slide 16 Bring the discussion back to the topic of why Shakespeare is important, and why his plays are so popular for filmmakers opinions on why he is important and celebrated, as well as asking them if they find Shakespeare exciting. Slide 17 This is an extract from Into Film s interview with the actor Kevin Spacey where he explains why Shakespeare remains so important to us today. Slide 18 Suggest other films that explore Shakespeare on film. These can all be ordered from the Into Film Clubs website. These films represent a range of styles and genres. When looking for further viewing it is important to consider who has made the film, what the intended audiences are, and how the issues are represented. intofilm.org 4

5 The Lion King (U, 1994): This classic Disney animation is loosely based on Shakespeare s Hamlet, and is another great way of introducing younger children to the themes in his plays. Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (PG, 1992): Wonderful animated versions of twelve Shakespeare plays, each done in a different animation style to suit the story and trimmed down to a tidy half hour. West Side Story (PG, 1961): Romeo and Juliet is transported to 1950s New York, incorporating themes around street crime, immigration and the American dream into a dazzling spectacle featuring some amazing song and dance routines. Slide 19 Join thousands of primary schools, families and organisations around the UK to inspire a generation of children through Shakespeare s stories, language and heritage with one of Into Film s partners, Shakespeare Week. For ideas on how to set up a Shakespeare themed screening, please download the following guide Show the trailer for Bill a forthcoming family comedy from BBC Films. It is a fictional telling of William Shakespeare s quest for fame and fortune when he first arrived in London. intofilm.org 5