CARD 1.

Like Olivier's Henry V, the Bazmark production of Romeo + Juliet is a media allegory. The film depicts a world saturated by image, where mass media and corporate power have triumphed even more decisively (if such a thing is possible) than in real life. Luhrmann's "Verona" is troubled by the traces of a theatrical, perhaps a Shakespearean past; traditions of live performance, improvisation and festival persist and challenge the reign of what Guy Debord called "the spectacle;" but they do not prevail.