Hamlet (1996 film)

Did You Know?

• The score was composed by Patrick Doyle and conducted by Robert Ziegler.
• The soundtrack album was released on 10 December 1996 through Sony Classical Records.
• A shorter edit of the film, at approximately two and a half hours in length, was shown in some markets.

Plot

Prince Hamlet of Denmark is the son of the late King Hamlet and the nephew of the new king, Claudius, who is also his father's brother. Claudius married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, soon after the king's death and claimed the throne. Denmark has a long conflict with Norway. Years earlier, King Hamlet killed King Fortinbras of Norway in battle.

Though Denmark won that war and the Norwegian crown passed to King Fortinbras's sickly brother, the Danes worry that Prince Fortinbras, the dead king's son, will lead an invasion. One cold night, guards Bernardo and Marcellus spot a ghost that looks like the old king on the castle walls at Elsinore. They bring Hamlet's friend Horatio to see it. When the ghost appears again, the three men promise to tell Hamlet.

The next day, the court meets. King Claudius and Queen Gertrude talk with their old advisor, Polonius, while Hamlet looks on miserably. Claudius lets Polonius's son Laertes go back to school in France and sends messengers to Norway about Fortinbras. He also tells Hamlet to stop mourning his father and refuses to let him return to his studies in Wittenberg.

Alone after the court leaves, Hamlet laments his father's death and his mother's quick remarriage. When Horatio tells him about the ghost, Hamlet decides to see it for himself. Before Laertes leaves for France, Polonius gives him advice, ending with the saying "to thine own self be true." Polonius's daughter Ophelia says she likes Hamlet, but Laertes warns her to stay away from him, and Polonius orders her to reject his attention.

That night, the ghost appears to Hamlet on the rampart. It says Claudius murdered him and demands that Hamlet take revenge. Hamlet agrees, and the ghost disappears. Hamlet tells Horatio and the guards that he plans to pretend to be mad, calling it an "antic disposition," and makes them swear to keep his revenge plans secret. Still, he doubts whether the ghost is telling the truth.

Production

Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film adaptation of Hamlet drew on his experience playing the title role in Adrian Noble's Royal Shakespeare Company production, which influenced the staging. Branagh, Derek Jacobi, and Richard Briers had previously voiced the same characters in a 1992 BBC Radio version. The script combines the 1623 First Folio with additions from the Second Quarto and other sources, resulting in a full-text version. Despite this complete text, the film is highly visual, using flashbacks to show events only described or implied in the play, such as Hamlet's childhood with Yorick and his sexual relationship with Ophelia.

Many scenes are filmed in very long single takes. Breaking from earlier film versions, Branagh set interior scenes in a brightly colored throne room with mirrored doors; scholar Samuel Crowl described the look as "film noir with all the lights on." The costumes and furnishings are Victorian-era, and Blenheim Palace, an early 18th-century country house, served as Elsinore Castle for exterior shots. Harry Keyishan noted the film's epic structure, inviting comparisons to Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, and Doctor Zhivago.

Shot in Panavision Super 70 by Alex Thomson, it was the last feature film entirely in 70mm until Samsara in 2011. Filming ran from January 25 to April 12, 1996, at Shepperton Studios and on location at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

Reception

Hamlet flopped at the box office, mostly due to its limited release. The film earned more than $90,000 in its opening weekend playing on three screens. It made more than $30,000 in the Czech Republic, and more than $545,000 in Spain. It ultimately had a maximum release of 93 theaters in the United States, grossing a total of only $4,710,000 domestically on a budget of $18 million.

Hamlet received positive reviews. It currently holds a 95% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 57 reviews. The consensus reads: 'Kenneth Branagh's sprawling, finely textured adaptation of Shakespeare's masterpiece lives up to its source material, using strong performances and a sharp cinematic focus to create a powerfully resonant film that wastes none of its 246 minutes.' Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, awarded the film four stars out of four, comparing it to Laurence Olivier's lauded 1948 version, stating, 'Branagh's Hamlet lacks the narcissistic intensity of Laurence Olivier's (in the 1948 Academy Award winner), but the film as a whole is better, placing Hamlet in the larger context of royal politics, and making him less a subject for pity.'

Janet Maslin of The New York Times also praised both Branagh's direction and performance. The New York Review of Books praised the attention given to Shakespeare's language, 'giving the meter of the verse a musician's respect'; Branagh said that his aim was 'telling the story with utmost clarity and simplicity'. Some critics, notably Stanley Kauffmann, declared the film to be the finest motion picture version of Hamlet. Online film critic James Berardinelli gave the film a four-star review and declared that the Branagh Hamlet is the finest Shakespeare adaptation, rating it as the best film of 1996, the fourth best film of the 1990s, and one of his top 101 favourite films of all time.