Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” speech is ubiquitous. From a Sesame Street lesson to a Charlie Chaplin movie to a Malcolm X speech, it is a soundbite, the epitome of acting, and a rallying cry for action. Like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, Shakespeare’s ponderous soliloquy seems to be more famous for its fame than for its merits, though it has many. How do directors and actors convince their audiences to engage with Hamlet’s words, when the audience is more inclined to be pulled into their own thoughts and ideas about the soliloquy as soon as they hear the signifier of “To be”?
I will be examining approaches taken by directors and actors across the history of filmed Hamlets to create Hamlet’s famous speech, focusing on
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In film, audiences are more naturally voyeurs than confidantes, so an audience for the soliloquy must be created inside of the context of the production. In Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film, the camera seems to zoom into the back of Hamlet’s head and enter his mind. A blurry focus shifting from Hamlet’s eyes’s point of view, looking at the water below, to a frame on Hamlet’s face, allows the possibility that the audience is experiencing Hamlet’s perspective, and Hamlet is having an out of body experience. This explains why the audience can still hear Hamlet’s thoughts when his lips stop moving. Then upon “perchance to dream”, the jarring musical cue, camera shift away from Hamlet’s head to a more normal frame of his entire body, and Hamlet’s opening of his eyes comprise moving outside of Hamlet’s head as he wakes from a trance. Hamlet speaks the rest of the monologue out loud, with no audience except himself and the cliffs. The shift from inside Hamlet’s mind to outside comes at the tone shift in the speech, the realization that the dreams of death are probably nightmares. Hamlet’s desire to express his thoughts about the horrors of life and death out loud is believable and natural. Since the audience has been inside of Hamlet’s mind, they are not likely to feel they are intruding upon Hamlet’s thoughts.
The boundary between public and private life is erased many times in Hamlet. For example, Hamlet’s troubles and concerns come from his personal
To play one of Shakespeare’s most complex roles successfully on stage or on screen has been the aspiration of many actors. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet has been the focus on various accounts throughout the 20th Century, each actor attempting to bring something unique and unmarked to the focal character. Franco Zeffirelli and Kenneth Branagh, both film directors, introduce varying levels of success on the screen through downright differences in ways of translation and original ideas. Zeffirelli’s much shorter interpretation of the film is able to convey the importance of Hamlet as a masterwork by using modern approaches to film but still capturing the traditional work behind Shakespeare’s well-known play.
Tony Robbins said, “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others”. Shakespeare’s writing has had many different ways of being presented because people perceive it in different ways. Whether it is a literal representation or a spin, directors like to show viewers the way they perceive the text. In the movie version of Hamlet the director, Kenneth Branagh, wanted the viewers to find Shakespeare interesting and full of action and drama. Kenneth chose the right direction to go in to keep the audience’s attention but it
I first want to dissect the 1996 movie in which Kenneth Branagh plays Hamlet. The “To be or not to be” scene is clearly one of the most important scenes of the entire movie, so the directors
Throughout history, literature has been able to captivate and enchant audiences of all backgrounds. Words have an undeniable ability to sway a crowd’s emotions and truly affect them. William Shakespeare, one of the most revered writers of all time, had such skills. His plays are timeless pieces of art considered the foundations of the English literature. Shakespeare’s most dramatic and infamous tragedy, Hamlet, has earned its place as a cornerstone. In the play, Shakespeare poetically writes speeches that show the true colours of the characters, whether good or devious. The main antagonist, Claudius, shows his treachery to the Elizabethan audience, through his speech to his wife Gertrude. Claudius’ conversation with Gertrude in Act 4,
I Hamlet's second soliloquy, we face a determined Hamlet who is craving revenge for his father. “Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat/ In this distracted globe. Remember thee!” Hamlet feels sorry for his father who was unable to repent of his sins and is therefore condemned to a time in purgatory. He promises his father that in spite of his mental state (he is distracted, confused and shocked) he will avenge his death. He holds him in the highest regards because he sees his father as a role model. “Yea, from the table of my memory/ I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,”. He’ll erase all prior Knowledge and experience and leave only his father’s “commandment”. He will engrave it in the front of his mind to show his
In On the First Soliloquy Stanley Wells’ discusses how powerful Shakespeare wrote the play and character Hamlet. Wells’ starts out by discussing how every actor and even actresses enjoy performing the role of Hamlet. He states, “The performer has the opportunity to demonstrate a wide range of ability.” (Brinkley 985). The character Hamlet goes through many emotions throughout the play which is why there is such a “wide range of ability” and actor can show when playing the character. It is through the many soliloquies throughout the play that Hamlet releases his emotions. Wells’ claims that Shakespeare’s play’s use of soliloquies “is one of the most brilliant features”, but the challenge they propose is “How to let Hamlet reveal himself without
Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s tragic plays, portrays the story of a young man’s quest to avenge his murdered father and his quest to find his true identity. In his soliloquies, Prince Hamlet reveals to the readers his personal perceptions of the events that take place in his homeland, Denmark, and of which are either indirectly or directly tied to his father’s murder. Many critics and scholars agree that while Hamlet’s soliloquies reveal the search of his identity and true character, his soliloquies universally illustrate man’s search for his true identity.
Over the course of the past fifty years there have been many cinematic productions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, some of which remain true to the text while others take greater liberties with the original format. Director Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 production of Hamlet was true to Shakespeare’s work in that the film’s dialogue was delivered word or word as it is presented in the text. In contrast, Franco Zeffirelli conducted his 1990 production of Hamlet in a much more liberal direction in which lines, scenes and characters were omitted from the film. I argue that from the perspective of an individual with moderate knowledge in Shakespearian literature, that the best film versions of Hamlet are those that take the most liberties from the text. I
This following is Hamlet’s first soliloquy in the play and it helps the reader to understand his innermost thoughts and his character, gives a better understanding of the plot and helps create atmosphere in the play.
In the first soliloquy it is very obvious that Hamlet’s sanity is in question. This is apparent in the first four
When analyzing Shakespeare's Hamlet through the deconstructionist lens various elements of the play come into sharper focus. Hamlet's beliefs about himself and his crisis over indecision are expounded upon by the binary oppositions created in his soliloquies.
Hamlet’s first soliloquy in Act 1 Scene 2 reveals important key thoughts Hamlet holds for related characters. The purpose for this soliloquy is to inform the audience of Hamlet’s true feelings about his family and life, which provides the audience with a deeper understanding and meaning of the future choices chosen throughout the play. One of the more intriguing truths revealed by Hamlet is the disgust he holds for his mother’s new relationship and her little acknowledgment of her husband's death.
“To be or not to be— that is the question.” An exceptionally recognized phrase amid many centuries, cultures, places, and people. This short excerpt derives from the Shakespearean play, Hamlet: The Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. Originally, this passage was displayed in one of the soliloquies of the play. Defined as “an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play”, a soliloquy is crucial to furthering the plot and connecting the audience with the speaker. William Shakespeare reveals the true desires and intentions of Hamlet, the main character of Hamlet: The Tragedy of the Prince of Denmark, within the protagonist’s soliloquies. Even Hamlet, one of the most complex characters in literary history, can be simplified through the use of a soliloquy.
Hamlet, one of the most intricate and influential plays by Shakespeare, debatably of all time. It has inspired not only appreciative readers and writing critiques but continuous generations of people. The inspiration led to the fabrication of many great movies, which wasn’t achievable until the 20th century. Before cinema was the prevalent method of sharing appreciation and spilling emotion for a specific subject, art portrayed what would fly through our minds such as the many interpretations of Ophelia’s death. With the imagery put into motion we can try and pick apart how certain people might view the play being portrayed and choose what best suits our expectation of this tragedy. Other things that only film has been able to present to
William Shakespeare uses the literary technique of the soliloquy to allow the audience to see deeper into his characters’ thoughts in his play, Hamlet. This technique helps to reveal Hamlet’s true character, expressing emotions that the audience cannot see through his interactions with other characters. Through Hamlet’s soliloquies, one may notice that his reluctance to take actions that involve death can be attributed to his fear of the unknown and his uncertainty in regards to afterlife.