THEATRICALITY OF FILM LANGUAGE IN BAZ LUHRMANN’S FILMS
THEATRICALITY OF FILM LANGUAGE IN BAZ LUHRMANN’S FILMS

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the study is to identify such strategies that reveal the theatrical quality of film language in the movies of Australian director, screen writer, and producer Baz Luhrmann, and to examine how they reflect the development of his poetics as an auteur. Theatricality defines his first three film projects Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001), therefore they are together referred to as the so called Red Curtain Trilogy. The explication of ties to theatre that characterizes Luhrmann’s oeuvre reveals the connection between various types of stage, and staging, as well as the specific qualities and development of Luhrmann’s directorial style, and his understanding of film, and its language. Luhrmann’s film image is complex in the semiotic reading, each detail has an aesthetic, and semantic value often due to the disposition of film language. Luhrmann’s artworks remain in a number of cases saturated by his performative vision of the world. The degree and specific quality of film language such as ostension (manifested as illusionism, meticulously arranged mise-en-scène, and aestheticized sets, and costumes or pompous carnivalesque musical and dancing show), camp, and citations are closely examined in feature films such as Australia (2008) and The Great Gatsby (2013), in the series of short staged interviews between two icons of fashion world Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations (2012) and in the TV series The Get Down (2016 – 2017). These cultural products also confirm their connection to theatre and their author’s interest in various stage forms reflecting on culture based on a play principle.

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