Hamlet - Una historia eterna

Is this Hamlet? Depends on who you ask I suppose.

There are some who would require the plot and drama: a son whose inheritance is interrupted, so who may be imagining the murder of his father; a vapid, doting, hedonistic mother; a loyal, by the book counselor, his earnest son and brilliant daughter, she smitten by the prince. A scheming king -- wheels turn and everyone dies.

Some would consider the language the essential element. This is the poet's most convoluted, and heavily annotated metaphoric fabric. Shakespeare is most often celebrated for his layering and interelating of mental images, and certainly this work is his most globally elaborate (sorry).

But just as the language rides on the drama, the ideas of the play ride on the metaphors. These ideas are life-altering in their starkness: Reality, thought, creation, intent, the cause and validity of unnatural action, relationships among cocreated internal worlds. Much of this is developed in frightening and challenging terms. To my tastes, the ideas are what is important. Too many Hamlets (notably Olivier's)faithfully include the first two and never touch the third. I'd buy a complete abandonment of the first, but cannot see how one could get to the third without most of the second.

Now. This film. They have preserved the plot well enough for a film, I suppose. And they have kept the language, about one third of it anyway.

The bad:

Bill Murray is lost in Polonius, utterly lost. The production quality is poor -- that fits the film school motif (see below), but there is no excuse for the many boom mikes sticking down. They repurposed so much to fit the new setting, so why stick with swords at the end?

The biggest complaint is that they missed all the ideas, the big ones. The central example is at the end of the first act, where Hamlet says: `there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Hamlet, and Horatio are students of Wittenburg philosophy, which audiences would have understood as that of the magi Giordano Bruno, martyred by the Pope. (His book is the one Hamlet quotes when asked `what is the matter?,' and Bruno is also quoted in the northnorthwest and hawk from a handsaw lines.) The play has much to do with understanding Bruno's questions of thought and action. When Hamlet differentiates himself from Horatio, the play really starts. In this film, though, the `your' becomes `our.' Why?

The Good:

This Ophelia is wonderful. I don't know her other work yet, but it includes two other Shakespeare adaptations. She certainly was helped by the woman director, who amplifies the female roles in emotion if not screentime. She even transforms Marcello into a Marcella, Horatio's girlfriend. Rather nice. Also well done is the staging of the Rosenkrantz and Guilderstern dialog.

The central device of the film is rather clever, if not original. The play is deeply self-referential. All the rich text about introspection is what is usually cut in the name of modern impatience, and that is the case here. Also gone here is the sharply self-referential scenes of Hamlet lecturing the players. What we have in its place is self-reference about film, and filming. Hamlet and Horatio, indeed R&G and Marcella are all film students. He thinks in film (actually video), and all his ruminations are cast in visual terms, often in the context of video, even a Blockbuster store. The final chorus is in video, and much of the action is seen through surveillance cameras. The play-within-the-play is a homemade video, with clear film-school effects.

This is not as clever as it could have been in the hands of a master. (Or when the goals are exceedingly simple as in `American Beauty.') But it is an honest attempt to cast the reflexive depth of the play in cinematic terms.

Sam Shepard is the best King Hamlet's ghost I have ever seen. He is a solid blessing.

This is a respectable effort, and deserves to be viewed if not celebrated.

Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Sam Shepard, Diane Venora, Bill Murray, Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Karl Geary; directed by Michael Almereyda, loosely based on the play by the Immortal William Shakespeare This is not your father's Hamlet, and really not your Hamlet either.

Set in modern day New York City, this adaptation by director Michael Almereyda attempts to blend the all time classic with a modern day lifestyle, while retaining the traditional speech and lines of the play. Unintentionally comical for those familiar with the piece, it actually is able to combine the two worlds of twentieth century New York and sixteenth century Denmark quite well.

However this is also the movies downfall, as only with a working knowledge of the classic are you able to understand the modern work, otherwise it is completely incoherent, with vital cogs of the plot missing.

Denmark is no longer a country but now a corporation, Cladius (MacLachlan) not a King, but now a CEO. Computers and video are now the norm, as this is how the movie begins. Polonius (Murray) is both the best character and also probably miscast, as he would have done much better in a cameo as the gravedigger, a scene that is deleted entirely! This gem and other scenes were deleted in order to pare down the length of the film, while attempting to preserve all major known lines. Yet, as earlier mentioned, for those who do not have a strong background in the classical work, you will be quickly lost. The so-called 'fluff' that the producers thought Shakespeare used actually made the tale so brilliant, relevant, and understandable. The modern work is none of these, only an ancillary piece for those with a vast Hamlet knowledge.

The major scenes are also greatly adapted to fit the environment, mostly to no effect. Most of the movie occurs in high-rise apartments or board rooms, giving it an awkward type of feel. With Hamlet (Hawke) and Ophelia (Stiles) being constantly watched in a city such as New York, i thought I was observing a Mafia film, as indeed that is what the Denmark corporation felt like, killing of Old Hamlet and all. Maybe that adaptation could've been a better fit, for the reduced length also makes the piece less-watchable, and much more bland with none of the intrigue. The murder of Polonius in the laundromat, Old Hamlet being seen on a security camera, and Ophelia committing suicide in a Guggenheim fountain just does not have the same feel, something is definitely missing.

In all this film likely misses both it's core audience and lacks the mass-market appeal that it was trying for. If a full four-hour version was released word-for-word of the original work, it would likely be a cult classic, as it has the makings of a strong work. In all honesty, how can such a great work like Hamlet be lacking if shown in its entirety? In the attempt for a higher box-office, the two hour version has no soul. If you find yourself in Blockbuster and face the same question as Hamlet, of whether this version is 'To be or not to be' showing on your TV that night, most likely it is not to be. However, if you are a teenage girl and enjoy looking at Ethan Hawke, or a Shakespeare aficionado who wishes to laugh at some unintentional humor, this could be the ticket. A shame that more did not come out of such a great cast, interesting premise, and mother of all base material in Shakespeare. Either Almereyda or the Miramax really missed the boat with this one.

This is easily the worst translation of Shakespeare's work to film that I have ever seen. In this pointlessly, ineffectively, and inconsistently updated re-imagination of Hamlet, determinedly, overly hip cardboard cutouts do battle within themselves and with one another, using the text of Hamlet as the basis for their acts in a literal sense, but without even a hint of the humanity and insight that the original work gave us or that a new one could attempt to give. I have no issue with resetting classic works, nor do I care if an adaptation is somewhat unfaithful to the text; what I do have an issue with is if a movie simply doesn't work. At least Romeo + Juliet had some kind of emotion behind it; this version is altogether too detached to care about its characters and too clueless to remember that the story just doesn't work if we don't care.

Good points: Bill Murray as Polonius, and Kyle Maclachlan's Claudius, apparently digitally superimposed from another, better movie.

I consider myself a bit of a Shakespeare purist and so put off seeing this film for quite a while. I really wish I'd seen it sooner. All the other comments here about the mangling of the language, cutting of the script to an almost incomprehensible extent, the kind of grungey contrivedness of the whole thing etc etc, are all true, but at the same time the film has little glimmers of something more. The film must be one of the shortest Hamlets ever, and moves along at real speed. The cinematography is beautiful and the juxtaposing of modern images with the text (eg Hamlet's soliloquy being performed whilst he watches James Dean, the rebel without a cause) throws up (almost in spite of itself) some interesting ideas of how the director considers Hamlet. The modern feel works surprisingly well (although it *does* occassionally jar), and throws up a lot of the themes in Hamlet as being particularly relevant today.

The acting is all okay, with a few amazing exceptions -- Liev Schrieber as Laertes really stands out, and Julia Stiles is good too. Kyle Maclachlan makes a very sinister Claudius, and Ethan Hawke is okay, although I couldn't work out whether his Hamlet was pretending to be mad or really was, but this film really belongs to the supporting cast who are all pretty sound.

Good, if you're in the mood for it. If you can't bear the thought of anything being cut or "reinterpreted" in a hit-and-miss way then avoid like the plague!

8 stars (if you like this kind of new Shakespeare) 2 stars (if you believe Hamlet should be done formally, lengthily and in tights)

any movie that attempts to bring the Shakespeare canon to a new audience has to be allowed fairly wide latitude...so in the age of "Clerks", only right and fitting that we get a taste of Hamlet as a Kevin Smith-type community college slacker...filming from a severely truncated version of the play, this "Hamlet" still manages to provide some clever moments of originality...the "to be or not to be" monologue set in the "action" section of Blockbuster; an Ophelia who betrays Hamlet; the use of speakerphones and faxes to deliver dialog, in lieu of actors on screen...yeah, it's gimmicky...but if this is what it takes to get the Bard to the x and y-genners, then so be it...Joseph Papp would have approved...

that said, there's some interesting takes by Julia Stiles (Ophelia), Diana Venora (the Queen) and Bill Murray (Polonius) on their respective characters...it ain't all style over substance...

so come on, folks...you gave Mel a shot at this, didn't ya? give it a go...