Hamlet
by Gregory Doran
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Tennant, Mariah Gale, Oliver Ford Davies, Patrick Stewart, Penny DownieDirector: Gregory Doran
Brand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Bethan Jones
Producer: David Horn
Producer: Denise Wood
Producer: John Wyver
Producer: Seb Grant
Producer: Taro Teraoka
Writer: William Shakespeare
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 182 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2010-05-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- HAMLET 2009 BBC (DVD MOVIE)
Movie Reviews of Hamlet
Movie Review: The most universal "Hamlet"? (Hamlet is "you.")
Summary: 5 Stars
Arguably (but barely) Shakespeare's greatest play (not to mention the most indispensable piece of literature in English), "Hamlet" is a work of such depth, complexity and universal resonance that it defies not only explication but representations that can come close to the themes that unfold in each individual spectator's "theater of the mind." Yet this latest, admittedly spare but protein-powered production comes as close as any to "getting it right." A production transferred to the cinematic screen with a minimum of fuss, this is a version of theater's most renowned character that, much like the numerous mirrors on the set, reflects back to the spectator the archetypal, universal Hamlet that IS each one of us. The occasional B&W shots through a TV camera lens, while initially slightly jarring and distracting, are soon mere reminders that in this version of the Bard's text, we are not theater patrons witnessing a public spectacle but "privileged" participants in a very private, personalized "playing out" of the problematic existence each of us struggles to understand. Like Hamlet, each of us is blessed/cursed with the gift of self-consciousness, forcing us to confront--despite all distractions, entertainments, and various diversions and denials--the inescapable, overriding fact of human existence: we all will die.
Though I was tired after experiencing with the family the usual "cinematic noise" and non-stop feverish pitch of "Up," "Polar Bear Express," and "How to Train a Dragon" (is there really any hope left for the close reading of non-illustrated texts or, for that matter, the life of the imagination?)--I stayed up and soon became too caught up in this "Hamlet" to follow common sense and get some sleep in preparation for yet another attempt at playing a genial grandpa Santa Claus. Despite seeing a dozen previous Hamlets, including Olivier, Williamson, Burton, Gibson, Branagh, and Hawke (I'm still waiting for the inevitable appearance of a female Hamlet), I couldn't tear myself loose from this Hamlet--or perhaps it was Claudius--even as the time approached 4 A.M.).
Perhaps as never before, the play best epitomizing Keats' praise of Shakespeare as the author who, more than any other, possessed that rarest of all qualities--i.e. "negative capability"--cast its spell, taking me not to the usual remediable excesses of tragic heroes but to the fallibility--and frailty--of the human condition itself. Even King Lear's suffering and insanity, his extreme destitution and irrevocable loss--while it has the power to unnerve the strongest among us--offers a rationale, a fatal flaw, a consolation in the form of a reason for Lear's descent to nihilism. But Hamlet is unique. No work in literature focuses so intensely, insistently, uncompromisingly and unsparingly on the subject of death, in the process leading us to meditate on the meaning of life, on religion, and on the value and validity of the consolations (such as the Christmas story) that we turn to in the face of death's unavoidable arrival.
As in all of Shakespeare's plays and poetry, there are no "claims" that cannot be proven by the language itself. Hamlet's hypothesizing about a "Providence governing the affairs of men," about a Divinity "whose attention is on the eye of a sparrow," is quickly neutralized by Hamlet's language expressing a different, even opposite, point of view. Any positive notion is expressed less as a certitude than as a faint hope, a wish, a prayer rather than an epiphany, revelation, or "earned" insight. The play starts with Hamlet's search for certainty, and it ends in uncertainty. And after the death of Hamlet, we as spectators are left with the point of view of his surviving friend Horatio, offering a prayer that somehow Hamlet's life has had meaning. Or we may struggle to find meaning in Hamlet's dying request of Horatio that his "story" will be told (what story? what's to tell? why? what's the gain?). But Horatio can only pray that the soul of his friend, the "sweet prince," may be "accompanied by flights of angels." And what are we to make of this death scene? Like all Hamlets preceding him (and like each of us), this Hamlet wants, at the very least, to be remembered, and better yet, as an individual whose life meant something. After experiencing (and expressing) the gamut of human emotions concerning the subject of death, Hamlet allows us to see that death is the loneliest experience of all. Compared to the adolescent feelings of a Romeo or Juliet, Hamlet is extraordinarily wise beyond his years. He knows that death cannot be "shared": it's each man's and woman's necessarily private journey--and it's the thought that the destination could lead to oblivion, or the extinction of "self," that weighs on him most heavily of all.
It's ironic but understandable that such a role does not call for an actor who projects singular strength of character, or extraordinary eloquence ("Words, words, words" Hamlet utters dismissively) or, above all, the self-assurance of someone who confidently, blindly, habitually thinks he's "right" (even about the circumstances of his father's death) and accordingly presumes he has privileged access to and possession of "the" truth. Rather, the character is at once "driven"--first, by virtually every emotion that death is capable of arousing and, secondly, he's impelled to say everything that human beings are capable of expressing about the subject whose only certainty is the end will come, whether sooner or later: therefore "readiness is all." "Hamlet" takes us from the fleshly chamber of the womb to the worm-ridden skulls of the tomb: it's Shakespeare's "realistic" account of the actions we read about in the New Testament; it's an essential prelude to reading Quentin's unforgettable monologue (Chapter 2) in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury."
David Tennant may not be the most handsome, assured, "heroic" actor to play Hamlet. But we're more likely to recognize ourselves in his performance than most other Hamlets who come to mind. He's a Hamlet who's "in over his head"--and so too are we all, from the very moment of birth into a finite existence that defies us to make sense of the sensory world (let alone speak with certainty about a non-sensory realm). This production uses Tennant as a vehicle for Shakespeare's language and ideas--it doesn't burden the character with Oedipal complexes, incestuous feelings toward his mother, obsessive paralysis, florid rhetoric, and a host of original twists some later directors and actors feel obliged to introduce into the play.
But what is most notable about this production is Patrick Stewart's Claudius, who is without a doubt the most dignified and admirable adulterer, murderer, and usurper to play the so-called "villainous" role. What do we make of such a character? Is his enviable composure so great that we can only infer that the man he replaced--i.e. Hamlet's "real" father--must have been a scoundrel deserving to be forever denied access to Gertrude's bed? Or might we surmise that if Claudius looks this good to us, Hamlet's real father must have been some sort of demigod? Or is it just possible that Claudius is unconvincing as a "villain" or "scoundrel" because "Hamlet" is simply too great and honest a work to bother with the cliched plot of good guys vs. bad guys? or with the familiar Manichaean dichotomy (condemned by the early Christian church as heresy) between good and evil? Even when evil is defeated--and removed--human existence continues to be about question and uncertainty; life remains unbearably hard. As Buddhists seem to know so well, to live is to suffer. The movies may provide us with a "happy ending," but who can leave the theater without sensing that there WILL be, happy or not, an "ending"? Of course, some fairy tales presume to go beyond their endings, adding that the character(s) "lived happily ever after." It's a comfort, to be sure, but as mature and self-reflective mortals we cannot deny that it's also a lie.
Shakespeare doesn't lie. No play testifies to the Bard's honesty as powerfully as "Hamlet," and few productions of the play testify to Shakespeare's unequalled candor as believably as this one.
Summary of Hamlet
David Tennant and Patrick Stewart star in this critically acclaimed production of Shakespeare?s masterpiece from Britain?s renowned Royal Shakespeare Company. No recent stage production in Britain has attracted the excitement and nearly unanimous critical praise as this Hamlet. Tennant's interpretation was recognized as defining the role fora generation, and Stewart?s complex Claudius won the Olivier award, Britain?s highest stage honor. In this specially-shot screen version, filmed on location rather than in the theater, Tennant and Stewart reprise their roles. Dynamic, exciting and contemporary, it breathes newlife into Shakespeare's greatest play.Similar DVD Movies
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