A group of theater actors plays "Hamlet" in a provincial village, faced with their own temptations, disappointments, and joys. Prince Hamlet struggles over whether or not he should kill his uncle, whom he suspects has murdered his father, the former King. Hamlet, son of the king of Denmark, is summoned home for his father's funeral and his mother's wedding to his uncle. In a supernatural episode, he discovers that his uncle, whom he hates anyway, murdered his father. In an incredibly convoluted plot, the most complicated and most interesting in all literature, he manages to impossible to put this in exact order feign or perhaps not to feign madness, murder the "prime minister", love and then unlove an innocent whom he drives to madness, plot and then unplot against the uncle, direct a play within a play, successfully conspire against the lives of two well-meaning friends, and finally take his revenge on the uncle, but only at the cost of almost every life on-stage, including his own and his mother's.
Still being of school age, and having to learn Shakespeare almost constantly for the last four years which is very off-putting of any writer, no matter how good , I didn't really expect to enjoy this film when my English teacher put it on; I thought it'd be the typical English lesson movie: However, I watched and, much to my disturbance, found myself not only paying attention, but actually enjoying the movie too.
This production of Hamlet is possibly one of the best drama movies I have seen in a long time- and it really brings to life what I expect Shakespeare wanted his plays to be like well, with the difference that this is cinema much better than my English teacher harking over the text ever possibly could. The story is good, the dialog seems to flow with an unexpected grace that is far from boring though a little hard to keep up with if you aren't used to Shakespeare's language and even the smallest parts are performed with a skill you wouldn't expect; mainly, perhaps, due to the staggering number of cameos this movie has.
Brian Blessed and Charlton Heston are as great as you'd expect these two veterans to be, even in such small parts, but it is Robin Williams as Osric and Billy Crystal as the Gravedigger who really stand out, giving such minor parts an unexpected zest, as well as offering some comic relief amidst the tragedy. The main stars, of course, are also wonderful.
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Kenneth Branagh excels as Hamlet, bringing not only the confusion and pain required to the roll, but also a sort of sardonic air which plays beautifully in the comic scenes, making the movie as a whole much more watchable. The other major players are also good, but it is Kenneth Branagh who stands head and shoulders above the rest in the title role. The set pieces, too, are often quite stunning, giving a refreshing change to the danky old castle corridors we're used to seeing in Shakespeare productions, as well as a real sense of the country around them.
Of course, the movie, taken as a movie in its own right, is not without faults, but no major ones the pacing is the only real problem I can think of offhand, as well as the prose for anyone not used to, as I said, Shakesperean language and, especially when compared to the sort of Shakespeare productions I'm used to seeing in class, it really is quite brilliant. It's even made me rethink my previous typical teenager stance on Shakespeare, that his plays are boring I came to the conclusion it's not the plays that are boring, merely the teachers who recite them in class.
If only they made all of his plays into movies such as this one, English students in schools everywhere might have a higher opinion of the Bard.
Enjoy a night in with these popular movies available to stream now with Prime Video. Start your free trial. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.
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ADDITIONAL MEDIA
Nominated for 4 Oscars. Learn more More Like This. Much Ado About Nothing Love's Labour's Lost Hamlet TV Movie You have me, have you not? Moreover that we much did long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it, Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father's death, that thus hath put him So much from the understanding of himself, I cannot dream of: I entreat you both, That, being of so young days brought up with him, And sith so neighbour'd to his youth and havior, That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court Some little time: If it will please you To show us so much gentry and good will As to expend your time with us awhile, For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits a king's remembrance.
And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changed son. Go, some of you, And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is. A room in the castle.
ArtsEmerson: Hamlet
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties To hear and see the matter. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: First Player I warrant your honour.
Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
First Player I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: Go, make you ready. Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit.
The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: Therefore prepare you; I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you: The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies.
Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your majesty. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw What's near it with it: Never alone Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. Look you lay home to him: Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. Pray you, be round with him. Where is your son? O, here they come.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him: He's loved of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; And where tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd, But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending him away must seem Deliberate pause: You know the rendezvous. If that his majesty would aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye; And let him know so.
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Captain I will do't, my lord. Gentleman She is importunate, indeed distract: Her mood will needs be pitied. Gentleman She speaks much of her father; says she hears There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: The queen his mother Lives almost by his looks; and for myself-- My virtue or my plague, be it either which-- She's so conjunctive to my life and soul, That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her.
The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him; Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows, Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind, Would have reverted to my bow again, And not where I had aim'd them. You shortly shall hear more: I loved your father, and we love ourself; And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-- Enter a Messenger. Second Clown I tell thee she is: First Clown How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
Marco Prestini
Second Clown Why, 'tis found so. First Clown It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else.
For here lies the point: Here lies the water; good: Second Clown But is this law? First Clown Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law. Second Clown Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial. First Clown Why, there thou say'st: There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: Second Clown Was he a gentleman? First Clown He was the first that ever bore arms.
Second Clown Why, he had none. First Clown What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?