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Don’t understand Hamlet? Well Adam McNaughton will sing it for you in three minutes. And he’ll make it more interesting by using celebrities as characters as well as his people. While the song is not humorous for the most part, it does a great job at pin pointing the main subplots in the story. The visuals are very amateurish, yet it is quite appealing. Their techniques are mostly low budgeted, but we get the point of the whole thing is to show the story of Hamlet, the song is just a narrative to guide us. This team’s choices are quite strange, from ‘casting’ (Tony Soprano as the king of England and the BK King as Claudius) to music (in comparison to Hamlet and the music type it is supposed to be associated with it). And yet, we have a contagious starting, transitioned sub plots to an understanding ending. In three minutes, you could know the whole story with sufficient detail. It’s not just the characters and their parts in the story; it’s the objects and even a few settings. While this is made for humor reasons (not quite there yet), it is very beneficial for comparison to other works of Hamlet to see if they follow and highlights the most important things well.

Works cited:

McNaughton, Adam. Three minute Hamlet. April 10 2007. December 14 2008. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1xtcNxmbKU.>

Hamlet Online is a website that has a thorough amount of information on anything, and everything Hamlet. This site has information starting from texts to translations to overall summaries. This site links overall information to other sites that are more detailed. The information includes what the referred site is about and why these sites are the most valuable on information such as translations of Hamlet, the origination and history of Hamlet, the movie versions of Hamlet and its comparisons. Because our main objective is to find information to help us in our film study, the most important part will obviously be the Movie section. Although, this only has two links, one being the ever helpful IMDB.com and the other being a thoroughly detailed yahoo board on everything about Kenneth Branagh’s version of Hamlet. While The Internet Movie Database is very helpful, it usually gives basic but important facts. Whereas, the yahoo link can give us more detailed helpful information. Anything from original interviews with Kenneth Branaugh to the soundtrack of the film, this can tell us a lot about the movies worldviews. Also, this will give us a sense of similarities and difference from Almereyda’s version, which we will be analyzing ourselves, but through this information, we figure out how the same thing can be translated very differently, especially depending on what era the films storyline will be in.

References:

• Movies. Hamlet Online. December 11^th 2008. http://www.tk421.net/hamlet/hamlet.html#movies
• Leong, Virginia. Movie Links. Hamlet (Kenneth Branaugh). May 3^rd 1997. December 11^th 2008. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6261/hamlet.html
• Almereyda, Michael. Dir/writer. Hamlet. 2000. Miramax Films, 2000. Recorded movies.
• Hamlet (2000). The internet Movie Database. December 11^th 2008. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171359/

Through time stories change and the way they are told also change. This websites focus on the various Hamlets through time and gives us a brief description on the movies. From this website we see the different perspectives of Hamlet over time. The website gives us the Cast members of the different adaptations, a synopsis of the story, and other general information about the film. We can learn various ideas from this website about Almereyda’s Hamlet. Through time stories change and Almereyda chose to make his hamlet in a way such that it would appeal for the people of the present. He most probably watched all the Hamlets of the past and found what was successful about each of them and tried to put it into his film. Almereyda would have used the idea of a business empire as his hierarchy by watching over “Hamlet goes Business”. Since this is the 21^st century and a lot of hierarchy is based on businesses it would suit the movie if it would be a company. After viewing various parts which were useless in the previous Hamlets Alemereyda cut them off for his. By find out more about the Hamlets before we can learn why Almereyda made his the way he did and how he made it appealing to the people of today.

“Film adaptations of Hamlet.” Free Base. Metaweb. 14 Dec. 2008

<http://www.freebase.com/view/user/tadhg/default_domain/views/film_adaptations_of_hamlet>

The online source that I found was a couple of youtube videos focusing on the different interpretations of Hamlet. In the videos, we see perspectives of Hamlet from different directors performed by different actors. Each character portrays a different view of Hamlet. In the second video alone we see 5 different interpretations of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. This shows that there are many ways of interpreting any literature. In each video we see different versions of Hamlet released, filmed, and set in different eras. This can show how the telling of stories has changed over the decades. Each movie focuses on a different but crucial theme in the play. As we learned in class, Branagh’s version of Hamlet contains most of the line from the play while Almereyda’s doesn’t. He cut lines, focusing on his true image of the play. Looking at the different focus and themes each director and character brings in their interpretation of Hamlet is one way we can deepen our knowledge of Almereyda’s movie.

Perspectives on Hamlet. Prod. Joseph Frenna. 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLwa9phiRnQ

Multiple Interpretations of Hamlet. Prod. Duca. 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHLd4_T-N4g&feature=related

In my online sources I have included links which show us the meaning and etymology of word Hamlet. It shows how the name Hamlet was derived. These meanings helps us understand the character of Hamlet better and what the character of Hamlet really is. These would also be the form and features that the directors would want to see in the actors performing the character. The meaning of name is expressed in the film through the actors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hamlet#Etymology_of_Hamlet

Ethan Hawke was chosen for the role of Hamlet because of  his past work as a sensitive actor. He is known for the sensitive roles that he has played in movies. Moreover the natural feel to his acting made him a well suited actor for the role of Hamlet.

Movies starring Ethan Hawke

http://www.westlord.com/ethanhawke/filmography.html

Biography and the roles played by Ethan Hawke

http://www.westlord.com/ethanhawke/filmography.html