Vision statement???

In the following paragraphs I will focus on my interpretation of how each director might think when he or she was directing the movies of hamlet.

The Hamlet in 2000, by Micheal Almereyda, is an adaptation of Hamlet in modern world. In this movie, not only the setting is modern but the movie itself. Hamlet, a 4 hours play, has been cut into a 110 minutes movie. “Denmark”, which is supposed to be a country, becomes a film corporation in New York City. And Hamlet is a movie student who is supposed to take the CEO position of the corporation. Though everything happens in almost the same in the original plot( Hamlet gets mad and avenges his uncle), there are nuances of technical designs that create new concepts in the movie. In the scene that Polonius reveals to Claudius the letter that Hamlet gives Ophelia, the director used technology to achieve a image of Ophelia falls in water which foreshadows the later plot. And in the “to be or not to be” scene, Hamlet is in a video store, walking among the “action” disks, surrounded by symbols: disks symbolize the film company that should belong to him, “action” symbolizes his courage. Also the surrounding has a strong contrast in colors so the audience may feel more about Hamlet’s internal activity. In the scene “get thee to a nunnery”, the director used another modernized design: he lets the 2 characters in one relatively small room with modern design, and Ophelia was disclosed to Hamlet because of the detectaphone on her neck, which might implies some recent topics: commercial espionage, privacy and modern livings. Throughout the whole movie, the director kept using modern technologies to replace old ways in presenting Hamlet’s story. Hamlet no longer has a palace, he sits in front of the computer all the day, and his father’s ghost is in the screen. His actions are under supervision from some kind of camera all the time instead of various ways like stalking. The whole point of director in the production is to show that Hamlet’s story can be happen in our time, and though things change, people never change. 

Compared to the Hamlet 2000, the Hamlet 1996 by Kenneth Branagh was a relatively whole version of the “play”. In this production, the time is not the original time as well. The story of this version happens in 19th century. I believe the director in this vision wanted to achieve the story as an theatre-like movie, which should be completed as a theatre version but made in filmmaking methods. He probably wanted do make an epic film of Hamlet’s story. So most of the cast members have classical theatre background so they would be good on such a “staged movie”. To achieve the “epic” effects, the director used a lots of luxurious and strong designs. The most obvious example is the palace. He used designs in the palace which are rare in real life even in a real palace. The mirror hall and the way that the floor tiles of the palace are designed to excites the audience. The mirrors are to show the conflicts within Hamlet himself and the irony vision of Claudius and Polonius. Though many movements and actions of the characters are staged, the shots and the cameras take the staged movements into a modern movie production. Every scene in the movie can be a stage production if you sit in a fixed imaginary auditorium in front of the scene. However, that was the cameras helped the director to make the movie “move”. For example, the scene of Polonius trying to talk to Hamlet, if you film it in a fixed view, it doesn’t have any difference from a stage production. So the vision of the director of this production is to use cameras and luxurious designs to achieve an epic movie.