Connecting to Juliet

It is possible to define what separates photographs into ones with which we can have an emotional connection and ones in which we stand as only observers. In this paper I will analyze two artistic photos that depict the same scene from the play, Romeo and Juliet, to determine where exactly the separation lies. Certain artistic choices and elements such as color symbolism, facial expression, and figure position are the keys to understanding the difference. Siona's Romeo and Juliet and Annie Leibovitz's the end illustrate how emotional, sensory connections can be made with a character and also how those same connections can be nullified.

What does it mean to have or not have an emotional connection to a character? Aren’t both images of the two lovers, seen from a third-person perspective? Yes, but only in a superficial way. Both images show Romeo and Juliet in the final scene of the play where they die. However, Siona’s depicts the scene at the moment right after Romeo has killed himself and before Juliet does the same. This is the psychological difference – one character is alive and thus we can empathize, relate, and see through her eyes. We can feel Romeo on our backs. We can sense the dull panic and despair, her internal, agonizing understanding that her love will be the end of her. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away, she tells the Friar. She knows her fate is sealed. Our hearts grow heavy in the muted, cool colors of this photo as we feel her slowly succumbing to the weight of him. The symbolic position of his body on hers, her unbearable burden, becomes palpable. We are Juliet.

Leibovitz’s shows a different perspective. Once again we see the two figures, but we know that since Juliet lies atop Romeo, both are finally dead. The characters breathe no more. And since they are dead and we have never been, we can no longer empathize with them. We stand a short distance away from them, just as the watchmen must have stopped short upon discovering the bodies in Act V. The warm, autumnal colors and intertwined bodies in Leibovitz’s photo show a peaceful, loving couple that almost appear to be asleep, not dead. This is the external perspective - one that only the audience can appreciate and interpret now that the characters are deceased. Their love looks sweetened and tranquil, not impassioned and violent like it had been just moments before. We can appraise and view the love, but we can no longer experience it as with the living Juliet in the previous image. We can pity them, understand the cursed love and faulty social systems that caused the tragedy, but we can feel their pain no more. They are now objects. They have been released. As the Prince assesses and decrees,
     Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
     Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
     For never was a story of more woe
     Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

It is interesting that we relate and have a emotional response to the symbolic image more than the photo that merely captures a scene. That leaves us with the question of when does the ability to empathize evaporate? Is it when we know that the character is dead? We can immediately empathize with Juliet in the blue one because she is the living, she is the one with a slightly warmer skin tone, and she is the one whose expression is unclear – Romeo’s is a startling dead stare. With the Liebowitz piece they are both dead, and since both characters are deceased, it is impossible to empathize with them. The difference is, quite literally, between life and death.