HAMLET: Film Adaptations

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Do you have a favorite (or perhaps least favorite) film adaptation of HAMLET?  Tell us about it!

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Here's one of my favorites.  I think I like it because it's "clean." You have a simple set with a focus on the actors and the words. 

Hamlet 

[Melissa_W Moderator]

I have to admit that I absolutely love Kenneth Branagh's full-lenth adaptation:

Hamlet I know the setting is kind-of crazy but I love the casting (Richard Briers as Polonius, fantastic), the flashback scenes built in under the dialogue, and I have a soft spot for all Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations.  They always seem very personable to me.

Oh, and there's Kate Winslet.  Fantastic. 

Hamlet  Olivier gives such a memorable performance and the black and white film is such a stark contrast to a play with many gray areas.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead No discussion of Hamlet is complete without Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead because so much of the original play appears for R and G to comment on (plus the travelling players as framing story is genius).

Versions I don't like: 

Hamlet  I do not like this one because it seems chopped into very odd bits and out of order.  Plus, it looks a bit too much like Scotland.

Hamlet No one in this movie can speak the lines.  I lasted 30 minutes before I quit.

Version I really want to see: 

Hamlet  I really want to see this one because I've heard great things about Kevin Kline's performance - I tried streaming it on Netflix but something's really wrong with the feed so I'll have to work my way down to it (it's Oscar season so that might take a bit).

[Avid_Book_Read…]

Kenneth Branagh 100%.   I first saw it in senior year of high school and fell in love with it ever since!

[Peppermill]

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Melissa_W wrote:

I have to admit that I absolutely love Kenneth Branagh's full-lenth adaptation:

Hamlet I know the setting is kind-of crazy but I love the casting (Richard Briers as Polonius, fantastic), the flashback scenes built in under the dialogue, and I have a soft spot for all Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations.  They always seem very personable to me.

Oh, and there's Kate Winslet.  Fantastic. 

---

I quite agree with the quality of this one, despite the staging.  It had some scenes not in my text except as an appendix, but otherwise it was absolutely the easiest one to follow as I was brushing up before seeing the stage performance.  I was glad to have made the investment in purchasing it.  (I did have a discount coupon.)

 

Hamlet  Olivier gives such a memorable performance and the black and white film is such a stark contrast to a play with many gray areas.

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The person in front of us at the Jude Law Broadway production in November said he considered this his standard for a Hamlet performance.

Not all critics today agree, but it is certainly a worthwhile production to watch and to contrast with other portrayals.

 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead No discussion of Hamlet is complete without Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead because so much of the original play appears for R and G to comment on (plus the travelling players as framing story is genius).

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I have heard so much about Stoppard's play that I do want to catch up with this sometime.  Thx for adding your thumbs up.

Versions I don't like: 

Hamlet  I do not like this one because it seems chopped into very odd bits and out of order.  Plus, it looks a bit too much like Scotland.

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I didn't particularly like this Mel Gibson version either.  I gave it short shrift, even though I did add it to my collection, which I look back on as having been better spent elsewhere, in hindsight.  But, I wouldn't have been sorry to have rented it, just for the contrast. 

I haven't seen the rest of those Melissa mentions, so am editing them from this post.

[Peppermill]

Saw Alice in Wonderland tonight.

The previews said the Metropolitan Opera production of Hamlet will be simulcast Saturday, March 27.

I haven't checked what theatres will be showing it (we were in an AMC theatre) and whether it will be available across the country.  I will in the next couple of days and put up a link here unless someone beats me to it (please do!?).

Pepper

[Peppermill]

This site should tell you how to find where a Metropolitan Opera broadcast to theatres is playing:

http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/LiveEvents/series/MetLive09_10Series.aspx

Two links lead to PDFs showing the theatres providing either simulcasts or rebroadcasts in each state.

This one from the Met itself may also be of interest to determine what else is available:

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_current.aspx

[Peppermill]

We saw the simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Hamlet Saturday. It was a very enjoyable experience, even if I did get a slight headache from the volume of the sound.  We sat about midway up in a theatre seating ~300 (quite full, I was told there were only 65 seats remaining when I bought tickets two weeks ago); I think I would try to sit still further from the screen in the future.  The sensation was much more like a film than attending the theatre, since few shots showed the entire stage and many were close-ups.  We also enjoyed a number of the close-ups of the orchestra.  The singing and the music of this FRENCH version of Hamlet were delicious.  It was a bit uncanny to be listening to French and to see English subtitles for Hamlet, of all stories.  This opera had not been performed by the Met for a very, very long time.

The plot line itself is considerably changed from the play as we know it.  The director even said that it had once had an ending where Hamlet survived, but audiences wouldn't accept that finale.  I missed the Yorick sequence, although there was still a bit of graveyard humor.  Marlis Petersen came from Europe to star as Orphelia on extremely short notice, we were told, but not why or who was originally scheduled for the role.  I found all the major characters very fine, which was not my impression of the Broadway performance, which seemed uneven to me.  I especially noted the strength of Claudius here.

"The works of Shakespeare have inspired more operatic adaptations than any other writer’s. Simon Keenlyside and Marlis Petersen bring two of Shakespeare’s unforgettable characters to life in this new production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet. For the role of Ophelia, the French composer created an extended mad scene that is among the greatest in opera."

Cast

Conductor: Louis Langrée
Ophélie: Marlis Petersen
Gertrude: Jennifer Larmore
Laërte: Toby Spence
Hamlet: Simon Keenlyside
Claudius: James Morris

Apparently Met broadcasts of this type have now been seen by over 2M people in over 40 countries since the simulcast programs have begun.  As seniors, our tickets were only $20 each.

An encore of this program will be available.  Check the sites mentioned in my previous message if interested.

[JL_Garner]

Branagh's Hamlet gets my vote as well. An absolute masterpiece.

Yeah, he likes to play fast and loose with the setting, but it works. Even when what he's trying to do doesn't completely work (see Love's Labours Lost), you always have to give him points for a.) trying, and b.) trying really, really hard.

[JdiennoPSU]

There is a new Hamlet set to be released in 2011.  The IMDB link is here.  Emile Hirsch is in it which I don't know wether to be happy or not.  The only movie I ever thought he did a good job in was The Girl Next Door.

[ConnieAnnKirk]

Peppermill wrote:

We saw the simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Hamlet Saturday. It was a very enjoyable experience, even if I did get a slight headache from the volume of the sound.  We sat about midway up in a theatre seating ~300 (quite full, I was told there were only 65 seats remaining when I bought tickets two weeks ago); I think I would try to sit still further from the screen in the future.  The sensation was much more like a film than attending the theatre, since few shots showed the entire stage and many were close-ups.  We also enjoyed a number of the close-ups of the orchestra.  The singing and the music of this FRENCH version of Hamlet were delicious.  It was a bit uncanny to be listening to French and to see English subtitles for Hamlet, of all stories.  This opera had not been performed by the Met for a very, very long time.

The plot line itself is considerably changed from the play as we know it.  The director even said that it had once had an ending where Hamlet survived, but audiences wouldn't accept that finale.  I missed the Yorick sequence, although there was still a bit of graveyard humor.  Marlis Petersen came from Europe to star as Orphelia on extremely short notice, we were told, but not why or who was originally scheduled for the role.  I found all the major characters very fine, which was not my impression of the Broadway performance, which seemed uneven to me.  I especially noted the strength of Claudius here.

"The works of Shakespeare have inspired more operatic adaptations than any other writer’s. Simon Keenlyside and Marlis Petersen bring two of Shakespeare’s unforgettable characters to life in this new production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet. For the role of Ophelia, the French composer created an extended mad scene that is among the greatest in opera."

Cast

Conductor: Louis Langrée
Ophélie: Marlis Petersen
Gertrude: Jennifer Larmore
Laërte: Toby Spence
Hamlet: Simon Keenlyside
Claudius: James Morris

Apparently Met broadcasts of this type have now been seen by over 2M people in over 40 countries since the simulcast programs have begun.  As seniors, our tickets were only $20 each.

An encore of this program will be available.  Check the sites mentioned in my previous message if interested.

Thanks for sharing this, Pepper.  Would we call this a televised version of an opera, rather than a film adaptation?  You saw it in a movie theater, yes?

[ConnieAnnKirk]

JdiennoPSU wrote:

There is a new Hamlet set to be released in 2011.  The IMDB link is here.  Emile Hirsch is in it which I don't know wether to be happy or not.  The only movie I ever thought he did a good job in was The Girl Next Door.

Yes; it's directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who directed the first Twilight movie.  It's supposed to be "edgy" with a music-related bent. 

[Peppermill]

Thanks for sharing this, Pepper.  Would we call this a televised version of an opera, rather than a film adaptation?  You saw it in a movie theater, yes?

Those words, "televised version of an opera", are probably as accurate as one can get.  Although the cast was very aware (and it seemed to show a few places) that the opera was being simulcast to movie theatres around the world, it was also being played as an opera on the stage at the Met, so the "adaptation" for the big screen was very much the work of those who selected the shots that would be transmitted at any point in time, rather than of any re-working the opera itself.

We were seated in a large movie theatre, capable of serving an audience of about 300.

P.S.  I debated where to post these messages about the simulcast and the opera in the first place.  Somehow "film adaptation" seemed closest, with little point in creating a new thread.  Most of the creative or artistic adaptation was from play to opera -- however, I don't intend to belittle the creative adaptation across media forms.

ConnieK wrote:

Peppermill wrote [excerpts]:

We saw the simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Hamlet Saturday. It was a very enjoyable experience, even if I did get a slight headache from the volume of the sound.  We sat about midway up in a theatre seating ~300 (quite full, I was told there were only 65 seats remaining when I bought tickets two weeks ago); I think I would try to sit still further from the screen in the future.  The sensation was much more like a film than attending the theatre, since few shots showed the entire stage and many were close-ups.  We also enjoyed a number of the close-ups of the orchestra.  The singing and the music of this FRENCH version of Hamlet were delicious.  It was a bit uncanny to be listening to French and to see English subtitles for Hamlet, of all stories.  This opera had not been performed by the Met for a very, very long time.

Apparently Met broadcasts of this type have now been seen by over 2M people in over 40 countries since the simulcast programs have begun.  As seniors, our tickets were only $20 each.

An encore of this program will be available.  Check the sites mentioned in [an earlier] message if interested.

Thanks for sharing this, Pepper.  Would we call this a televised version of an opera, rather than a film adaptation?  You saw it in a movie theater, yes?