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The link which I found is a short summary of why Michael Almereyda uses a younger version of hamlet, while many other directors used an older version of hamlet for example Laurence Oliver whom was forty one years old by Laurence Oliver. One of the reasons he did this was because he wanted a larger audience to relate to hamlet’s character and the dilemmas he goes through because they are very similar. He wanted to relate the problems of everyday life to the problems of hamlet, which he thought to, target the broader view of people. Michael Almereyda allows the audience to experience in a new way and treat it not as some old dusty thing that is very precious but to break down those walls and let the character’s emotional life live in a new way. This information will be helpful for our film study because it shows how Shakespeare wrote about problems which are still affecting the world now, with greed.

“Interviews With Actor Ethan Hawke And Director Michael Almereyda of Hamlet” Interviews With. 4 Mar. 2004

http://www.rossanthony.com/interviews/hawke.shtml

One of the best ways to understand the meaning of Sheakspeare’s work is to look at all the different ways people interpret the play. The video I found gives you a small sample of some different movies. Each movie has a different director who interprets the play differently. By looking at the differences and simmilarites as depicted by the directors we can get a deeper understanding of Almereyda’s version of Hamlet.
Click here to watch the video.

Frenna, Joseph. “Perspectives on Hamlet.” YouTube. 02 Apr. 2008. 14 Dec. 2008 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flwa9phirnq>.

a)  This link  is of an Article(created in the Fall of 2004 by authors Fedderson Kim and J Michael Richardson) on BNET called, Hamlet 9/11: Sound, Noise, and Fury in Almereyda’s Hamlet.  A most helpful passage is the second paragraph on page seven of the article.  It explains that even though our Modern ages have shifted well beyond the Renaissance ideology, Almereyda still incorporates the beliefs that are central to the play. This resource identifies one such character that has been devised from the Renaissance ideology-Ophelia.  It later goes on to distinguish how Almereyda, as a modernizer, finds other ways in Ophelia`s character to account for the shift in ideologies.  

b) This digital resource is helpful to our study of Hamlet as it depicts the way Ophelia was formed as a character in Almereyda`s film. It briefs on how the Shakespearean era saw women like Ophelia— delicate, domestic, and dependant beings.  Although his film portrays Ophelia as an independant woman and a photographer often in the accompaniment of men, this resource explains how Almereyda, the director of a modern Hamlet, still incorporates the old ideology so central to her character.  He substitutes the modernizing issue with a psychological one by keeping Ophelia suppressed as an individual, and infantilized by her father and brother. 

This particular passage of the article reflects an issue faced by directors, like Almereyda, when filming modern remakes.  Ideologies from a different period of time (ie-Renaissance era) have to be substituted correctly as they were central to the development of characters in that time.  This digital resource will broaden our knowledge and understanding of why a character, like Ophelia, was portrayed and given certain characteristics in Almereyda’s modern version of Hamlet.