Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet: Final Scene

How do you like to watch a movie? Wearing jammies and eating snacks, obviously. But I mean, do you like to shift your brain into neutral and let the story go in one ear and out the other? Do you sit in rapt silence lest you miss any dialogue? (FYI: you’re probably about to join Club Subtitles. I’ll save you a seat.) Do you talk through the whole thing? Do you look forward to the movie, get all comfortable, and then fall asleep immediately? (Also guilty as charged.) Or do you watch with your analyzers on maximum so you can glean all the goodies that the director stuck in there?

If you’re normal, you probably enjoy a combination of these movie-watching styles depending on your mood, your company, and the film itself. I usually alternate between full-blast analyzing and sound asleep in a matter of moments. Welcome to 40.

Holy Motifs, Batman!

You may not always be on high alert for motifs when you watch a movie, but there’s no way on planet earth that you could watch Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and not notice the religious imagery. I mean, he stuffs your eyeballs full of holy relics every few seconds. Last time we looked at why he chose to include so many religious elements. Today we’ll see how the final scene is the visual and thematic crescendo to this cinematic masterpiece.

The Stars Bring Peace by Death

The story of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. It begins with the couple falling in love and ends with their deaths. Everyone knows this. But Luhrmann’s motif of religious icons highlights the theme that Fortune—a.k.a the stars, fate, the saints, or God—is the force behind their deaths. Shakespeare himself starts the story by sketching out the plot and highlighting the role of the stars. In the prologue, he says:

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

In other words, the feud will stop eventually, but it will be at the cost of the lovers’ lives. Their death will “bury their parents’ strife.” Did it really need to get to that point? The prologue says that “the continuance of their parents’ rage,/…but their children’s end, naught could remove.” Their death is the only thing that could stop the feuding families. The lovers are described as star-crossed, since Fate would do what it takes to make peace between the families.

Victims or Fools?

So who’s to blame here? Is it Fate? The families? The lovers? In a word, yes.

While Shakespeare and Luhrmann draw attention to the role of Fate in the story, it’s also true that the characters themselves are responsible. After yet another public brawl between the families, the prince warns Capulet and Montague that the next fight would result in capital punishment. “If ever you disturb our streets again,/Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.” The families are warned, but that doesn’t stop Tybalt from fighting Mercutio and Romeo from killing Tybalt as retribution. The law cannot turn a blind eye to their violence.

The Guiltiest Party

But, in my opinion, the one who is most to blame is not Fate but Romeo. When you study the play itself, you see that Romeo is rash, impulsive, immature, and foolish. That’s to be expected since he’s only 16 years old—and Juliet’s only 13! I guess it was more common for people to get married when they still had braces and pimples back then. A few more years would have eliminated much of the melodrama. Even so, Romeo had plenty of warnings. If he had listened to them, these deaths could have been avoided.

The priest warns Romeo several times to slow down with Juliet, reminding him that “these violent delights have violent ends/And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,/Which, as they kiss, consume.” Juliet herself cautions Romeo at the beginning, reminding him of the imminent danger between their families. But Romeo never stops to think; instead, he acts impulsively throughout the play, right up to the moment of his totally preventable and unnecessary death.

So there you have it. It’s not a popular or romantic take on the story, but it’s the truth. It was Romeo and Juliet’s choice to disregard wisdom, but it was Fortune’s decree that they pay the price for their families’ hatred.

Wedding Bed or Death Bed?

With that in mind, let’s see how Luhrmann crafts the final scene to show the young lovers’ sacrifice to Fate. Juliet has followed the priest’s advice and taken a poison that makes her appear dead. Romeo gets half this news, hearing only that she’s dead. He rushes to the church and locks himself inside. The torrential rain, blaring police loudspeakers, helicopters whirring, and sirens screaming are immediately silenced in a hush of holiness.

Romeo slowly turns to find the church aisle lined with blazing, neon crosses leading to his bride laid on a bed like an altar. The whole front of the church glows with thousands of candles lit in prayer for Juliet’s soul. She lies resting in peace, a mirror of the Mary statues beside her.

The Sound of Silence

Her heartbroken husband joins her on her death bed and takes poison himself, dying just moments after Juliet wakes up. The timing makes you want to scream. Surely Fate could have spared them a few seconds. Instead, Juliet watches as Romeo dies.

Reality slowly sinks in. Juliet sobs in anguish, but she’s completely alone. Her voice echoes off the church walls; her only answer is her own cry. As she holds Romeo’s gun to her head, Juliet looks up at the heavens—toward the forces who have brought them so much suffering—and she pulls the trigger. And so a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

The camera slowly zooms out, revealing the blood-spattered lovers at the center of a cross of candles. Their lives were the ultimate sacrifice that eventually brought a “glooming peace” between the hateful families. Did they sacrifice themselves willingly, or did Fate drive them to it? In Luhrmann’s interpretation, they were the puppets of Fortune, led to the slaughter and abandoned in the end.

But there is beauty still. The families finally make peace, and Luhrmann shows Romeo and Juliet getting what they wanted all along—to be together forever. Their souls slowly rise above the cross on the altar, and the final shot is a flashback of the young lovers embracing in the water. Why is an underwater kiss the final image? We’ll attempt to answer that next time.