Once Le Duel De Hamlet

17 Pages 4359 Words

is production is much easier to follow than others. Mel Gibson makes the Shakespearean language sound more like the language of the modern day better than any actor before him. Although this version is much easier to comprehend than any other, it is only a good version to watch to see what happens, meet the characters, figure out which are on the good guy team (Hamlet’s) and which are on the bad guy team (Claudius‘s) and also which others just mistakably get caught in the middle. If you were simply watching the film for pure enjoyment, I would not recommend it.
The beginning of Hamlet usually starts at the scene where the soldiers guarding the castle are discussing the recent sighting of a ghost thought to be old Hamlet. The Zeffirelli Hamlet starts out at old Hamlet’s funeral. All who is somebody is there. The widow, Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, is lying across the body weeping terribly. After this brief scene the play gets on track and goes to the guard scene.
Many times Zeffirelli chooses to eliminate lines from all sorts of scenes. During the long speech the new king Claudius gave about Gertrude the queen, somewhat in the beginning, was cut almost in half. Horatio in this edition seems to take away all the guards lines. He also leaves out the part when Hamlet states to Horatio that he is going to pretend to be crazy. Hamlets first siloque about suicide was too, shortened. He didn’t skip too much, just enough to notice. The whole section of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern speaking to the king and queen before seeing Hamlet was left out. When the players have a short speech after their arrival, was as well missing. In text, Hamlet asks one of the players to add some extra unique lines into the upcoming performance, Zeffirelli also settled on leaving this part out. When Hamlet leaves England, this version does not show him on boat causing a few lines to be forgotten. Right before the Queen tells all about Ophellia’s drowning,...