In the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet is filmed standing in front of a mirror, in a brightly-lit hall of mirrors, the camera zooming closer and closer as the speech goes on.
These vary from close ups to wide angle shots, techniques possible solely with cinematography, that emphasize the darkly-lit setting. In contrast, the majority of Branagh’s Hamlet employs long single takes, very often with some sort of moving camerawork. Mel Gibson as Hamlet wanders an underground morgue, the camera steady and shots short. Zeffirelli’s Hamlet employs short takes, the average shot length is 6 seconds, reminiscent of action films. Setting of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet The way the two directors interpret Hamlet’s famous soliloquy on screen was what I was most interested in during my comparative analysis. “To be, or not to be: that is the question” This observation is further developed when I talk about the shots both directors favored. Branagh’s decision here renders the film more theatrical than cinematic, which lies in complete opposition to Ziffirelli’s decision to use a multitude of cinematic techniques, many action-film based. I recall it took 4 sittings to watch it in high school English class, and we followed along with our textual copies of Hamlet. In contrast, Hamlet (1996) was the first unabridged theatrical interpretation of the text. Long blocks of text were cut down and lines swapped, thus quickening the pace of the plot. Hamlet (1990) was cut to a length suitable for the cinema. The disparity in running times are apparent in the conversion from Hamlet the text from Hamlet the screenplay. Zeffirelli’s Hamlet runs at 134 (2 hours and 14 minutes) minutes and Branagh’s Hamlet at, nearly double that, 242 minutes (4 hours and 2 minutes). In this blog post, I look into how Zeffirelli and Branagh, two directors releasing their film adaptations during the same decade, with similar budgets, interpret Hamlet on screen-just how polarizing could their renditions be? Script and Running Time I know that I am not in the minority when I say that Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play. This blog post will compare and contrast Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990) and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996)-in particular the last half of Act III Scene I, encompassing Hamlet’s soliloquy up until Claudius exits with Polonius. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is arguably one of the most famous plays in English literature. Hamlet (1996 film) directed by Kenneth Branagh
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