Hamlet

Let's talk about Hamlet!
Shakespeare's play and Branagh's unabridged movie edition.
Was it too explicit or too subtle?
Because after all it's pretty obvious Branagh did the whole spiel that made him lose 15 million dollars only to have a sex scene with Kate Winslet in her prime.

Attached: hamletandophelia.png (500x228, 191K)

Good film except the nigger actors to be honest. What the fuck was he thinking?!?!

>dude Shakespeare but let's set it in a completely different time and place than it is supposed to be, I'm sure one of the greatest writers of all time wrote in such a manner that the setting is completely meaningless

Blacks are good at acting

It's still Denmark. His decision to make it more 1850-ish than 1550-ish did no harm. I feel closer to the 19th century, the dresses are more elegant or at least less ridiculous, and there are still kings around. Who cares for realism anyhow?

the soldiers were great, the maid acted mediocre at best

What did you guys thought about specific scenes?
To-be-not-to-be-monologue, Alas-poor-Yorrik-scene, the duell, Fortinbras' victory....

The sex scene is not even part of the play. The intimate stuff happens before the time period of the plot. But Branagh smuggled it in anyway.

The BBC production with David Tennant is superior in my view, modern takes on shakespeare are a guilty pleasure of mine.

To be or Not to be monologue, interestingly I watched a youtube video in which Orson Welles and a few other blokes were discussing whether or not Hamlet was suicidal at this point of the play, which I thought was a strange conversation to have in that I've always seen it as Hamlet quite obviously expressing suicidal thoughts/intentions. I think it was Welles in the video who says he believed Hamlet actually to be past the point of feeling suicidal at that point, I suppose he believed "to be or not to be" was more an acknowledgement of the feelings he'd had as opposed to a current state of mind? I'm not sure how else it can be interpreted

With Ophelia alive, chances to heir the throne still up, and his mother still on the brink to turn good, I would say Hamlet still has hopes in Act III. He knew what he lived for was at stake. Later, he knew he will be killed, but he gave a good fight. Welles is not wrong, I guess.

What do more 'liberal' fellows call the mushroom called 'dead man's finger'?

Pleb opinion desu. The settings of Shakespearean plays are irrelevant. Do you think Romeo and Juliet is an accurate depiction of Verona?
And besides, if you are going to bitch about authenticity, the presence of actresses is a far bigger blunder

Once i heard Gielgud's 1948 Hamlet, no other Hamlet nor any other shakespeare production can satisfy me.
Branagh has autism

It reminds me of The Simpsons in terms of its delivery. Not a bad thing at all

Welles usually has awful takes to be quite honest, so I'm not surprised he said that

>hey guys lets perform this play without any backdrops in Elizabethan attire!

>Branagh had autism
so did shakespeare, but that's why Branagh feels his plays

Zeffereli > Branagh

He's suicidal but I've never read it as the "depths of despair" monologue that most actors interpret it as. Hamlet seems to be quite academic in his questioning of death. It's not a morose howl but a Montaigne esque excursion into the unknown and if I were an actor I'd play it much more matter of factly and with more levity than the majority of other performances.

Branagh has both gravity of death and levity of curiosity in it, which is visualized as the duality between him and the his picture in the mirror. First you see both, than only his image. He points his dagger against his image, his curious (pro-suicide) side and refrains from suicide.

Inb4: Mirrors are a trope, yes, but also a part of life, and here is good use of it. It also is a window from the other side. Plus, the shot with Kate Winslet's face pressed against its glass is kino.

To the nunnery!