Hamlet and the Prince of Denmark: A review of the movie Hamlet

Hamlet the play and Hamlet the movie are two representations of the same corrupted world that we live in, whether it’s politics or business. They have the same themes and characters, but different settings and circumstances when it comes to presenting a story that has outlived its original creator, and been told numerous times throughout the centuries.  In this tragic drama, most of the participants are “fishmongers” (Shakespeare, 43) who will use any means to get what they want, either through manipulation or cold-blooded murder.  Then there are those who seek revenge, and those who do nothing but watch and obey.

To start things off, we will look at the distinct times these two similar stories take place.  For instance, the play is set in Denmark during the late Middle Ages, where a kings’ status affects an entire country of people, and the court was where “that monster, Custom…that to the use of actions fair and good/he likewise gives a frock or livery/that aptly is put on” (Shakespeare, 83) away from the prying eyes of the public.  This is similar to the way business works in the movie, which takes place in New York City in the year 2000, but with the media always watching the key players, and reporting any scandal they can dig up to the masses, whose opinions are more important than ever to keep a company running, whose effect on everyone isn't as severe as the ruler of a country.

It is due to this difference in times that affects how we perceive the characters through the way they speak.  In the play, the Elizabethan English is hardly unusual for that was common speech in those times.  But when you take that dialogue and apply it to modern times, where no one speaks like that in real life, it becomes hard to take the movie seriously.  Then there are the monologues, which are typically spoken out loud by the characters to a hidden audience that lies beyond the stage.  In the movie, the monologues are either spoken out loud, spoken in the character’s heads, or in the videos that Hamlet makes in order to create the illusion of realism despite an overly unrealistic script. 

As for the characters themselves, their importance still matters to the situations at hand, though their actions slightly differ between the play and the movie.  Take Hamlet for example: in the play, he’s a melancholic, suicidal, and impulsively passionate prince who always questions his actions due to the conflict of truth.  He acts mostly the same in the movie, only a little more dramatic and has a minor hobby of film-making, which gives him some character, much like Ophelia’s liking for photography.  Ophelia also openly expresses her inner emotions more in the movie through the way she behaves instead of words, like the tears she shed upon being equipped with a listening device while in the play, she just rigidly does what she’s told.  Then there is Queen Gertrude, whose love for her brother-in-law/second husband is questionable.  Her behavior around Claudius is more passionate in the movie than in the play where none of it is visible, which leads us to assume that Gertrude’s love is out of duty, and not romantic interest.

Then lastly, there are the circumstances that cause the story to move forward.  Such a circumstance is best exemplified in the play that Hamlet directs, using the traveling theater troupe, to see his uncle’s reaction upon the scene that reenacts the murder of his brother.  But in the movie, it is a film that Hamlet created himself without any outside help that is slightly surrealist in its use of different clips and illustrations to suit its theme, whereas the play was based on an existing story that happened to have similar aspects to what was actually going on.  There is also the minor change of the vessel that Hamlet heads to England in, which in the play is a boat and in the movie a plane.  But how he got off the plane isn’t explained at all in the movie whereas in the play it is explained through dialogue that he never got on the boat in the first place.

So therefore, the differences between these two mediums are attributed to their settings.  The culture and political structures are vastly different, so it makes connecting an old story to the present day difficult.  But it was neatly pulled off in the fitting circumstances and adaptable characters, which shows the timelessness of the classic tale at hand.  However, the speech and importance of the situations didn’t fit, for they were dated and seemed over-dramatic from a modern perspective.