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The article talks about Almeredya’s clever use of imagery and technology. Contrary to the typical Hamlet, Almereyda’s Hamlet is set in the new millennium. Funny looking leotards are traded in for interesting toques. An example in the article of Almereyda’s clever imagery is the blockbuster scene. Hamlet’s great decision and soliloquy comes in the “Action” aisle at Blockbuster. The numerous posts of “Action”, the words “Go Home Happy”, and the movie Rebel Without a Cause playing in the background are a few examples of Almereyda’s witty imagery. Similar to his witty imagery, technology is used greatly by Almeredya. Whether is be death messages via laptops or Hamlet’s vision of himself through film, technology has been greatly played with in the movie. Technology highlighted the distance in Hamlet as well as other characters. In our analysis of the first scene in class, we saw numerous images and use of technology. The irony in Hamlet’s “What a piece of work is a man” speech is shown trough an image of a fighter jet. Knowledge and acknowledgement of Almeredya’s imagery is critical in the understanding of his film version of Hamlet.

Abele, Elizabeth. “Hamlet.” Images - Hamlet. 30 May 2000. <http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue09/reviews/hamlet/>.

As mentioned by Ashok and Shraddha, when watching a movie, background information about the director is vital. Background information of the director links to specific styles incorporated in the movie, and beliefs that are central to the play. This important background knowledge of the director, in this case Michael Almereyda, links to the movies they make through certain traits noticeable in both their personal lives and career while directing other movies. This resource identifies another movie directed by Michael Almereyda, announced to be newly released, called “HAPPY HERE AND NOW”. This resource gives a depiction of what Almereyda was aiming to accomplish in this movie, which was very similar to what he has done in “Hamlet”. They describe him to purposefully use diverse musical sounds and a grand city for the backdrop of “a richly layered story of connection and disconnection in the contemporary world”, as was noticed in Hamlet. It seems to be a personal unique style of his, which he is attempting to further portray in his movies and we can learn more of through this resource. As a director/ writer in this movie he is once again exploring a specific aspect of life, as it says “of the ways in which people use media and technology as an extension and expression of their own conflicted lives”. This was a key stylistic form in Hamlet and it is important to realize one of Almereyda’s purposes while directing a movie is to consider the masks emotional, physical, and digital that we wear, which subliminally reveal as much as they hide in our lives.

This resource information of Almereyda is important and very helpful to identify the purpose of movies he is responsible for as a director/writer. This digital resource is helpful to our study of Hamlet as it depicts the way Almereyda incorporates the original story of the Shakespearean play to a post-modern era that we will be able to connect with. We begin to identify well from this resource of the specific and unique approach he made to his film, in terms of setting, cast and atmosphere styles, to depict the overall message of the movie.

Citation:

“The Films of Michael Almereyda.” Fleeting Joy. 10 Dec. 2008. Fishbucket. 14 Dec. 2008 <http://fleetingjoy.fishbucket.com/>.

When we observe a film or a book, there are always spots that are left unnoticed. That’s the reason why I like to discuss the film or the book with a group of people, or read some reviews by people who have previously studied this film. It is also very post-modern to notice what others think of the film or the book. The link I’ve provided leads you to the blog website of a Film and Literature class (probably a university course). This post is by the professor of the class, and fortunately the professor didn’t know that the blog was publicly viewable. The professor talks about the very modern structure of Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet. The professor also talks about the changes that Almereyda made to the characters and the settings. But most importantly, he stresses the mixture of the pop and classic culture in music and most importantly in the cast. This review post, in my opinion, is worth reading.

Works Cited

Estevez, Professor. “English 251: Film and Literature.” Blogger.com. 04 April 2007. 14 Dec 2008 <http://eng251.blogspot.com/2007/04/lost-all-my-mirth-michael-almereydas.html>.

Like Shraddha has stated above knowing the background about the director gives us a better understanding of why a movie is made in a certain way. This website contains various movies he has taken a role in; it gives us basic background knowledge about the director Michael Almereyda. The site also has his filmography with synopsis on all the movies he has been apart of, his award nominations, and biography. I believe through the director’s personal experience we can decipher the reasons why he interpreted the movie the way he did. One example of this was Almereyda’s use of pixel vision, he used this technique in various other movies and he chose to use it in Hamlet for the “What a piece of work is a man”. By learning more about the director we learn more about his techniques and also how he implements them into Hamlet. By learning about these the techniques we can learn more about hamlet and understand his style of directing to understand more about the movie Hamlet.

Baseline Studio System, comp. “Michael Almeryreyda.” Variety. 2008. Reed Elsevier Inc. 14 Dec. 2008 <http://http://www.variety.com/profiles/people/main/119433/michael+almereyda.html?dataset=1#awards>.

When watching a movie, director’s background matters because we want to know “who” made it. The information I found is on Wikipedia about Michael Almereyda’s life and career. We know that Almereyda excluded scenes from Shakespeare’s original play and made us wonder why he eliminated the scenes. The information I found can be helpful in order to figure out why.  In my opinion, this is the material required for our study of Hamlet because it will give us an idea of Almereyda’s background, what he has done in his career and how he entered into the world of Hollywood. Through his background, we can create an understanding of why he would do that. Hamlet is his best film so far. That also tells us something about his achievements. In addition to that, Almereyda has directed many other movies. At the bottom of the page, there are the films he directed and maybe, we can read the previews and also collaborate on his film classifications. It will also help us interpret why he decided to tell a story in a post-modern narrative.

Works Cited

Kipp, Jeremiah. Michael Almereyda. 10 October. 2008<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Almereyda>