Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.
- Nominated for 4 Oscars
- 9 wins & 25 nominations total
Rizz Abbasi
- Attendant to Claudius
- (as Riz Abbasi)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRobin Williams and Billy Crystal were not allowed to be on the set at the same time during filming, for fear they would crack up the cast and crew, and cause major production delays.
- GoofsIn the very long shot along the length of the throne room, the cameras are visible in the mirrors.
- Alternate versionsTwo versions should have been theatrically released at the same time: a complete 242-minutes director's cut shown only in selected venues (large key cities) and a shorter, wide-release version that ran about two-and-a-half hours. After some critical backlash, Castle Rock decided to release the complete 4 hours everywhere in the US and use the shorter version for some overseas territories.
- SoundtracksIn Pace
Music by Patrick Doyle
Performed by Plácido Domingo
Text for The Book of Wisdom
Text researched and adapted by Russell Jackson
Recorded at Studio 33, Hamburg, Germany
Engineered by Ambrogio Crotte and Luis Rodriguez
Original soundtrack available on Sony Classical Records
Featured review
Two Palettes: Film and Mind
As a play, Hamlet is an anchor of civilization, and even moderately successful films are worth seeing. But in making the translation to film, the artist has two challenges.
The first concerns the work as drama. This is Shakespeare's most ambitious vision, one he tinkered with and enlarged both conceptually and literally. The purest choice, the only choice which can encompass the full weave of the work, is to include everything -- and that's what Branagh has done. Consequently, this work has extra dimensions of life. In doing so, he's included some nice touches:
--gone are superficial hints of mother-lust in the closet scene. These were never in the text.
--we are reminded that Hamlet's initial and sustaining anger is because his uncle jumped into the line of succession
--we see the hints that Hamlet was a student of Bruno in the book on witchcraft he consults after seeing the ghost. Also his book on `matters' (often thought to be Bruno's) is actually given to Ophelia. Nice. Shows deep research.
--Polonius is treated humanely, as more than a dottering fool. This makes Ophelia's loss (and earlier obedience) believable.
The second challenge is cinematic. The play was written for sparse settings; it translates naturally to audio tape and unnaturally to film. So the filmmaker has an open palette. Branagh makes some interesting choices. Many work extremely well, in particular the mirrors in the `to be' and Ophelia sequence. Others are strange:
--he introduces recognizable actors in secondary roles to jar us into the realization that this is a play. (One of these is really funny. How do you portray an actor among actors playing non-actors. Well, you get a noticeably BAD actor. I wonder if Heston knows he'll be goofed on for this for many decades as this film outlives his sandled perorations.)
--he introduces some almost satirical film reflections: a cheesy ghost, an Errol Flynn chandelier swing...
--he provides visual overlays for some of the images implied in the text: Hamlet's lovemaking, considerations in Norway, reflections of the players. This ruins a few of the important ambiguities but we do have a wealth to spend after all.
--in perhaps the worst loss of ambiguity, he makes Fortinbras an invader. This is done only to allow for some cinematic sweep at the end. Okay, I'll reluctantly buy it since the alternative is extended mugging in the death scenes.
I think Branagh and collaborators meet the first challenge nearly perfectly. As to the second challenge, this is our very best film version, in part because of extending the US tradition of playing the characters as real people (versus the UK tradition of characters as speechifiers). So far as the cinematic challenge, there are some great, really great visions here, but there are also some big cinematic misses which keeps this far from perfect. Until Greenaway attempts it, this is the best film Hamlet we have, and that simply makes it one of the best, most rewarding films ever. I'll bet Branagh tries again before he dies.
The first concerns the work as drama. This is Shakespeare's most ambitious vision, one he tinkered with and enlarged both conceptually and literally. The purest choice, the only choice which can encompass the full weave of the work, is to include everything -- and that's what Branagh has done. Consequently, this work has extra dimensions of life. In doing so, he's included some nice touches:
--gone are superficial hints of mother-lust in the closet scene. These were never in the text.
--we are reminded that Hamlet's initial and sustaining anger is because his uncle jumped into the line of succession
--we see the hints that Hamlet was a student of Bruno in the book on witchcraft he consults after seeing the ghost. Also his book on `matters' (often thought to be Bruno's) is actually given to Ophelia. Nice. Shows deep research.
--Polonius is treated humanely, as more than a dottering fool. This makes Ophelia's loss (and earlier obedience) believable.
The second challenge is cinematic. The play was written for sparse settings; it translates naturally to audio tape and unnaturally to film. So the filmmaker has an open palette. Branagh makes some interesting choices. Many work extremely well, in particular the mirrors in the `to be' and Ophelia sequence. Others are strange:
--he introduces recognizable actors in secondary roles to jar us into the realization that this is a play. (One of these is really funny. How do you portray an actor among actors playing non-actors. Well, you get a noticeably BAD actor. I wonder if Heston knows he'll be goofed on for this for many decades as this film outlives his sandled perorations.)
--he introduces some almost satirical film reflections: a cheesy ghost, an Errol Flynn chandelier swing...
--he provides visual overlays for some of the images implied in the text: Hamlet's lovemaking, considerations in Norway, reflections of the players. This ruins a few of the important ambiguities but we do have a wealth to spend after all.
--in perhaps the worst loss of ambiguity, he makes Fortinbras an invader. This is done only to allow for some cinematic sweep at the end. Okay, I'll reluctantly buy it since the alternative is extended mugging in the death scenes.
I think Branagh and collaborators meet the first challenge nearly perfectly. As to the second challenge, this is our very best film version, in part because of extending the US tradition of playing the characters as real people (versus the UK tradition of characters as speechifiers). So far as the cinematic challenge, there are some great, really great visions here, but there are also some big cinematic misses which keeps this far from perfect. Until Greenaway attempts it, this is the best film Hamlet we have, and that simply makes it one of the best, most rewarding films ever. I'll bet Branagh tries again before he dies.
helpful•6530
- tedg
- May 25, 2000
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- William Shakespeare's Hamlet
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $18,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $4,708,156
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $90,684
- Dec 29, 1996
- Gross worldwide
- $6,296,790
- Runtime4 hours 2 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.20 : 1
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