Hamlet
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Movie Reviews of Hamlet
Movie Review: Laertes is Awesome
Summary: 4 Stars
Normally I don't really get into Shakepeare that has been transplanted into modern times, but I think this 2000 version set in modern day New York City does a wonderful job of making that transition smoothly. The "kingdom" is now a large corporation which Hamlet's uncle has taken over. Fortinbras is an interloper looking to make a corporate takeover. You have modern young adults with their angst about life, which is quite believable. I really didn't have a problem with "Shakespearian English" being spoken - I fell into the rhythm of that quite easily.
I really tried to like Ethan Hawke as Hamlet. He definitely had the angst down. However, Hamlet was supposed to be incredibly witty and crafty. This Hamlet seemed mopey. A particular scene that bothered me is when Hamlet barges into his uncle's office ready to kill him. In the regular story Hamlet was about *in*action.
Ophelia was too snotty / eye-rolling. She is supposed to be very dutiful, following her father's orders without question. When she goes mad, she's supposed to be cheerful at her father's death. Instead she is (rightfully) grieving which doesn't make her mad, it makes her sane. I think the best scene with her was the break-up scene. This is one of the only versions I've seen where you really get a sense that this is a couple breaking up, that they loved each other and have a real emotional strain. The fact that Hamlet's emotions "turn" when he realizes Ophelia's father is listening in adds meaning.
Speaking of dad, I know Polonius is supposed to be half-comic but he's also supposed to be half-serious. Bill Murray played him straight as a bumbling idiot which was a shame. The "saying goodbye to his son" scene especially bothered me. It seemed very cold. In most versions this is a meaningful "final talk" between father and son.
Which comes to one of my favorite two cast members. Laertes. I really think this is the best Laertes in all the versions I've seen. Liev Schreiber is awesome. When he says goodbye to Ophelia you really get the sense that he loves his sister - and his talk with her about "be cautious with Hamlet" is delivered with honest caring, not with the snotty overbearingness that many other Laertes put into the talk. Later when he comes back after his father's death, you again really get the sense that Laertes loved his father, loved his sister dearly. In other versions Laertes is about rage. Here Laertes really loved his family and you can feel it.
The second cast member I think was awesome was, ironically, the Ghost :) In most versions the Ghost is an incredibly wooden, pasty character only there to recite some lines and vanish again. Given that the Ghost is the whole reason Hamlet does everything, that is a great shame. Here, the Ghost shows up multiple times and he has a real character. You get a sense that he was a firm, powerful executive who is furious at his conniving brother, disappointed in his wife and loves his son dearly. I am very impressed with this Ghost.
Kyle MacLachlan also deserves credit as one of the best Claudius characters. Usually it is really hard to figure out why Gertrude would have jumped for the Claudius in the show, or why the people love him so. Here you really can see Kyle's manipulating charisma, his sliminess and his oozing appeal all at once. He is definitely the scheming younger brother who has chafed in his brother's shadow for years and finally couldn't take it any more. You see this in the later scenes too, where he hits Hamlet. He is simmering, the heat cranks up, and finally he can't take it any more. I think this interpretation was very well done and far more believable than most other versions I've seen.
Gertrude, on the other hand, is very cold. She hardly flinches when she's told her son is mad. She is embarassed at Ophelia's madness!! That was just *wrong*. She is supposed to love Ophelia and be really emotionally upset by Ophelia's downfall, not worried about what the crowd might think.
I have many negative feelings about the ending fencing fight. I disagreed with how they did that for many reasons.
Someday I'll have to chop up all the Hamlet versions with video editing software and create a "master Hamlet" with my favorite Horatio, favorite Laertes and so on to see how they would all work together. I'd definitely take Laertes and the Ghost from this one. Maybe Claudius. The rest, however, will stay on the cutting room floor.
Still, fun to watch for those characters' scenes, and well worth having in your library.
Movie Review: Hamlet For The 21st Century
Summary: 4 Stars
This brand new version of Hamlet has it modernized for the 21st century.Set in a modern New York background but not changing the Shakespearean dialogue.This film is another nice view on the play of Hamlet.But not the best of the film adaptations of Hamlet to film.But a good one for younger and unknown crowd to Shakespeare.
The plot familiar to most people.Is of Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) prince of Denmark that returns to find out his father is dead and that his mother has married his father's brother Claudius.So everything is confusing to him in his return.Seeking the truth is his goal which is escalated by the ghost of his father.Further to explain the plot is pointless.Whats not pointless is to mention the the little bits changed by writer-director to modernize it.The film is presented in the 21 century in New York.With cameras and computers and Hamlet using these things to present his uncles guilt.Also guns.I mean for a modernization of Shakespeare they have done a good job.As well the best part is the retaining the original Shakespeare dialogue and not changing it.So you can retain the true essence of Shakespeare.
The film very well cast in my opinion for the young generation.Ethan Hawke not what you would call a theater-Shakespeare actor but he is not bad at all.The choices that I especially admired and liked were the casting of Kyle Maclachlan perfect as Claudius.Bill Murray as Polonious.This was really the start of Bill Murray getting some recognition for his dramatic acting ability and some other roles as well.And last Liev Schreiber giving a great performance as Laertes and being in my opinion a great actor for the future.We have seen further into his acting ability in The Manchurian Candidate as well.Now to talk about the writer-director Michael Almereyda.Not a big director with big film on its resume.But a man with a long list of credits though his resume.This probably is his biggest production.
Another thing to mention is to compare this film.This film you can compare it in two ways.One this to the other Hamlet films and this to the other modernizations of Shakespeare into film.This not the best version of Hamlet.Its cool,nice and very well made.But this is really for the young and unknown crowd of Shakespeare.The best is Hamlet by the great Laurence Olivier.For classic Hamlet lovers.My preference is to Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet.But there also Anthony Hopkins Hamlet and the Mel Gibson Hamlet film are nice as well.To the modernization.Its very well placed in my opinion in New York.But I didn't like the whole thing of Hamlet filming things with a video camera.I don't know.That just me.The best change of Shakepeare material to something modern is Titus.It mixes old Roman sets and envroment with a nice touch of guns,cars and other little bits.And another modern Shakespeare film is O for Othello.That just takes the story and charcaters and changes the setting and the dialogue.Good film.But without the dialogue you lose Shakespeare.
The DVD is a dudd.No special features at all.Only the German Region 2 DVD release had some interviews of Ethan Hawke and Kyle Maclachlan but that's it.The look of film is outstanding due to the great cinemetograpy.If anybody is interested in being immersed into Shakespeare for the first time this film is not a bad start.But dont forget classic Shakespeare as well.
Movie Review: An interesting take
Summary: 4 Stars
I was thinking for quite some time about the incongruity of using Shakespearan english in the modern context. The problem is:
1) In modern NY, no one speaks like that. This is known, accepted. So the moment we hear them use Shakespeare's original language, full naturalism, no matter how strictly attempted, cannot be fully achieved. You cannot suck the audience in completely.
2) Shakespeare is nothing without the language. You can't just take the plot, change the lines around, simplify them: without the twists and turns, the wordplay and the thick meanings, a filming of merely the plot will amount to utilising the skeleton of any old folk tale.
I believe that the modern relatively deadpan acting method is contrary to the inherent theatricality of Shakespeare's language. Therefore, if it needs to be filmed in a modern context, it must necessarily be
1) over-the-top, and theatrical, and outrageous, like Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" or
2) it must be done by exceptionally gifted and experienced actors already steeped in Shakespeare who can recite the soliloquys even while comatose and can import all their experience, all their gravitas, all their past successes into a medium that is essentially new to Shakespeare. All films of Shakespeare so far have been "filmed plays" with theatrical acting, or over-the-top attempts like R+J or like this one -
Hamlet (2000) is a noble attempt, and some parts really work, but in the end it's a somewhat lethargic, uncertain prod, overall. Laertes does well, and Shepard's ghost is convincingly restrained.
Bill Murray and Ethan Hawke, sorry to say, are all at sea. The complexity of Hamlet is completely gone. Yes, Hamlet is melancholy. Yes, he is young and foolish, at times, but also noble and innocent. But he is divided, pulled and pushed by forces within and without, feelings in him are awakened after a grisly murder of his own father that were alien to him before - and every word of the soliloquys is painstakingly written and meant to support that. Every small nuance is meant to be acted, to be played, to be demonstrated to the discerning viewer - here, it's about 80% gone. Gibson played him as a raving lunatic, a Mad Max of Elsinore, but there was still a lot in there. Unfortunately, there's very little here.
Murray had apparently never done Shakespeare before, and it shows - he's reciting it, not acting it. It was very painful to watch him Laertes' farewell scene. Julia Stiles isn't given much, as if sometimes she seems on the verge of saying something, but doesn't. Venora and MacLachlan play their parts well - Venora with gusto and MacLachlan a little too passive at times.
I would still recommend this to those who'd like to check out what can be done with it in the modern setting - it is an interesting effort, a good amount of thought has gone into it and some of it comes of very well. But this isn't a definitive Hamlet by any means, and no way in hell should it be the FIRST Hamlet a person watches.
Movie Review: See this version!!!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
In this version of Hamlet, Michael Almereyda boldly answers the question: what is one to do after Branagh?He shows us a Hamlet that we haven't seen on the screen before. First of all, his Hamlet is exactly the right age. In Shakespeare's play, Hamlet is around 20 for the first four acts, and then he is (inexplicably) 30 in the final act. Watching a series of 40 + year-olds play Hamlet in my life has had much the same effect as sitting too close at the opera when 350 pound 40 year-olds are playing young star-crossed lovers---I'd like to have a sense of wonder, but the casting makes it difficult. (after my first couple of operas, I learned to sit toward the back)
Almereyda's intelligent direction uses the advantages of film to show us the inherent split in Hamlet's personality. Through voice-overs, Hamlet's obsession with film and home-recording, we are able to see Hamlet-as-actor and Hamlet-as-director all at once. We see Hamlet on a screen delivering an impassioned soliloquy, but we also see Hamlet, the director, watching, calculating, cold. What a perfect way to represent Hamlet as the director of himself, as the endless reviser.
Many film versions of Hamlet don't take advantage of the medium nearly enough. So, we end up seeing a play-on-film. Almereyda's use of the medium gives fresh insight to the character. For the first time, I see the a Hamlet who loves no one. I see how the nihilistic drive was likely there before any of this ever happened. And, I see, as Harold Bloom suggested, a Hamlet who is in the wrong play.
Julia Stiles is brilliant as Ophelia. I felt like I understood more about this character after seeing this film. Once again, we have a greater sense of backstory in this film. We understand in this presentation how fragile Ophelia has always been.
The biggest criticism I have of the direction of the film, which leaves probably about 60% of the original dialogue out, is the near-exclusion of Hamlet's madness. We don't really see Hamlet's feigned madness, which is so central to both the plot and understanding the motivations of all of the other characters. There are a few moments where we feel very strongly what is missing. At 111 minutes, they may have included more....
I also think that Hamlet's film version of "The Mousetrap" doesn't work. I like the idea very much, but the execution falls short. Instead of illuminating the film, giving us an understanding of how Hamlet so easily outsmarts Claudius, we are left with a disappointing moment of a director showing off what he learned in film school. It's just a bad sign when the viewer senses that a filmmaker is trying to be smart.
Luckily, this director IS smart, and he shows us a Hamlet worth seeing.
Movie Review: more authentic than you might think
Summary: 4 Stars
This 2000 version of "Hamlet" works. There is no need to be hung up on the acting or the setting of this most famous of Shakespeare's plays: the bringing of the Bard to an early 21st Century metropolis has resulted in an inspired and altogether new perspective on the play. When Ethan Hawke's Hamlet, returning to Manhattan, strolls out of the clear doors of an airport, a gray hood drawn tight over his head, it is hard not to see him an avenging angel and a confused lad at one and same instant. In a single motion he catches a motorcycle helmet and embraces Horatio, and we are hooked-- we are along for this ride, whether for good or ill. This multifluous tone in the character of Hamlet is brought out clearly in the film, and it strikes a chord with both the modern world and the Hamlet of Shakespeare's play. The tendrils of Fate and the perplexity of Existence are eternal themes to humanity, not ones molding away in our past.Shakespeare's text was created at the dawn of the 17th Century, and even after 400 years these seminal ruminations on death, the meaning of life, love and revenge have yet to be topped by any other writer. Almereyda's film wisely does not try to be a perfect Hamlet, but a *precise* one. The plot is fully intact, though some major speeches and characters are excised. Where this Hamlet works is in Hamlet's intense interiority and introspection. It is completely believable that a 21st Century Hamlet would be playing around with video cameras and making short films of anything catching his eye; not to mention leaving angry messages on his girlfriend's answering machine. These small, snappy details are what make this movie work, and work well. In my view, the film is true to the spirit of the play.
While this is by no means the best film of Hamlet or even the one most well adapted-- I would view Olivier's and Branagh's versions in those terms-- I still would recommend this one to anyone who feels they may not "get" Shakespeare. I think it is a better Hamlet than the Mel Gibson one, and I also prefer it to Baz Luhrmann's Shakespeare. The clinical imagery, the moody soundtrack and the understated grandeur of the performances are yet more reasons I think this Hamlet should be taken seriously.