Hamlet

Annotation for KRRR! 2014 by Matúš Slamka

The most famous and well-known film adaptation of Shakespeare's drama, directed by Kenneth Branagh, gains the status of the most "Shakespearean" film of all time, thanks to the monumental 70mm format and the unique complexity of the almost unedited text of the famous work. Before the magnificent, over four-hour Hamlet, this actor and director had already made two films (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing) based on Shakespeare's plays, and he also managed to star in Oliver Parker's equally Shakespearean Othello. Later, two more were added to these works (Love's Efforts Are Vain, The Magic Flute), making adaptations of Shakespearean models a kind of pillar of the director's work.

Like Sir Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli or Orson Welles, Kenneth Branagh also tried to transfer Shakespeare's works to the screen in a unique form. Branagh tries to suppress the theatricality of the original, which is also evident from the work with the camera, which often circles around the characters, or from the atypical portrayal of the finale in the form of Claudius's repeated murder. As in Henry V (1989), the director himself played the main character in Hamlet. Actress Kate Winslet earned the British Empire Award for the role of the mad Ophelia. The work gains in attractiveness also thanks to the sometimes demonically theatrical performances. The film is also presented in a shortened version, deprived of several characters, e.g. Reynaldo played by Gérard Depardieu or Hecuba played by Judi Dench. The magnificent set, costumes and music, for which the film was nominated for an Oscar in 1996, are complemented by 19th-century settings, which place the story in a more modern setting than in the original, as is customary in film or stage adaptations of Shakespeare's works. Branagh remains active as a director to this day, as evidenced by the 2011 comic book adaptation of Thor. He has also not given up on a similarly successful acting career, and fans of the Harry Potter stories may remember him as Professor Lockhart. Despite his rich filmography, however, Hamlet remains the pinnacle of the author's work.