Hamlet. Book vs Movies

To play Hamlet well is to succeed on the stage or on the screen. It is one of the most complex of the Shakespearian roles that many actors have aspired to master or at least, bring something distinctive and fresh to the pivotal character. There is no doubt that Hamlet “brazenly solicits interpretation”, demonstrated by modern day actors including Mel Gibson, Ethan Hawke and Kenneth Branagh, in the medium of film. Throughout the 20th Century, film adaptations have finely developed both the character of Hamlet and have nurtured a performance of the play, in some very creative and exciting ways. Film directors Franco Zeffirelli, Michael Almereyda and Kenneth Branagh have brought “Hamlet” to varying levels of success on the screen while achieving this through stark differences in interpretation and through realising very different creative ideas.

Zeffirelli’s 1990“Hamlet” is an interpretation designed for the mainstream Hollywood audience, who by now were thoroughly interested in Mel Gibson – one of the rising stars of the early nineties. Gibson does well to externalize the flurry of emotions tormenting Hamlet and this allows the mainstream audience to follow quite easily, his complex and changing mindsets. The famous Act Three, Scene One “To be or not to be…” soliloquy is done especially well, with Gibson maintaining an aura of strength, even as Hamlet revels in his own misery and contemplates suicide. Zeffirelli and Gibson have combined their ideas to create an interpretation of Hamlet that is sensitive but never weak, very active and external in the portrayal of emotion – but not over the top.

Perhaps the most controversial scene in any screen adaptation of Hamlet is contained in the Zeffirelli production, in which Hamlet confronts Gertrude in her bedroom. Interestingly, this confrontation is one of the most successful scenes of the movie as it is finely acted and very intense! At the same time, it leaves itself most open to criticism. Hamlet’s fury at