Hamlet is a great play that has been interpreted in many different ways. The following articles all have their own views on Hamlet, but relate to each other in one way or another. The articles include: “An essay on Hamlet” by Sir Laurence Olivier, “Breaking the Classical Barrier,” “Making Hamlet” by Kenneth Branagh, and “The Rotten State of Denmark Corp.” Each of these articles has one common thread; it doesn’t matter how it was done the same points of the play were still delivered to the audience.
In the first article Laurence Olivier describes the steps and stages that he went through to come up with his version of “Hamlet”. He wanted to keep the movie simple but yet intriguing. He did this by keeping the set as empty as he could; no furniture was placed on set unless it dealt with the story and gave meaning to the play. He used special camera effects that would show an
In the fourth article Michael Almereyda, director of “Hamlet”, decides to portray the play in a different atmosphere. He changed the setting to correspond with present times. It takes place in New York City and the actors used present day clothing and accessories. Although all this had changed he kept one very important aspect of the play the same, the language. This movie was not a big “Hollywood extravaganza”. It was made fast and cheap. In attempts to make it shorter and still being able to get the point across, scenes were deleted and text was trimmed.
actor 150ft. away up close but yet show the surroundings. After his version was put on film he still wasn’t done. The play, originally four and a half hours long, needed to be revised to two and a half hours. This meant many hours in the editing room deciding what scenes were not necessary but yet still getting across Shakespe
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