I think the director’s vision for this version of Hamlet was to recreate the entire story in a style reminiscent of a fairy tale. Some of the aspects that I see as adding to this vision are the generally bright color pallet, particularly inside the castle, the clearly magical nature of the ghost, and the general sense of grandiose. This is particularly noticable in comparison to something like the Mel Brooks version, which is set in medieval times and has an overall dark, despressing tone. In Kenneth Branagh’s version, all of the dark symbolism is centered around the protagonsit, Hamlet, creating a stark construct between him and the many people who, he feels isolated from after this great tragedy he’s undergone.
Almost all of the story in this version is just directly recreating the original play; however, the few changes that were made seem to point towards the idea that this is meant to be a fairy tale. A prime example of this is when Polonius is reading the letter Hamlet wrote to Ophelia and we, the audience, see a brief flashback to Hamlet and Ophelia happily in bed together. This directly implies to the audience that Hamlet and Ophelia did once have a romantic relationship, like something out of a fairy tale. The original play does not have any flashbacks of this manner, and so the previous state of the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is left more vague, contributing to the greater complexity of the story as a whole. Of course fairy tales can be complex, and this production is far from simple. However, by deciding to answer one of the questions the source material provides, the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet is trying to say something about the nature of their relationship rather than leaving it up to the audience’s interpretation, and fairy tales are known for teaching lessons.
Ethan Hawke version
The Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet from 2000 is a wildly different adaptation that brings the story of Hamlet into what was then modern times. The vision of the director was not just to place this story in what would be a more familiar setting for its audience, but also to use what the modern setting provided him to advance the story. This version makes extensive use of the mediums of photography and film to tell the story in a new way and give the film as a whole a whole unique flavor. Ophelia, for example, is a photographer in this adaptation who takes and gives out pictures of flowers rather than actual flowers. The ghost of Hamlet’s father, though he later shows up as an actual spector, makes his first appearance on a tv. Instead of putting on a play to try and determine whether or not Claudius is guilty of murder, Hamlet instead puts together a short film with the same premise, using clips from old movies.
This last point in particular actually serves as a methaphor for the adaptiation itself as well - it takes the story of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and remixes it, updating and rearranging the story. There are scenes that are cut or moved around, making it not a full adaption like the Kenneth Branagh movie. For example, early in the film we see a looped clip of Hamlet on multiple screens pointing a gun at his head, with the voiceover saying the famous line, “To be or not to be”. However, the full scene this line is from does not occur until later into the film, when Hamlet is in a dvd store. Ophelia’s suicide is also foreshadowed when, during a conversation between Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius at an indoor pool, Ophelia hallucinates throwing herself in.
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