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Hamlet
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Hamlet (1996)

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User Rating: 7.6/10 (15,433 votes)
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Overview

Director:
Kenneth Branagh
Writers:
William Shakespeare (play)
Kenneth Branagh (screenplay)
Release Date:
25 December 1996 (USA) more view trailer
Plot:
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 11 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(2 articles)
Charlton Heston Dies at 84 (From IMDb News. 6 April 2008)
Branagh Awarded Shakespearean Honor (From WENN. 3 September 2001)
User Comments:
Its virtues outweigh its defects more

Cast

 (Cast overview, first billed only)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
William Shakespeare's Hamlet
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Runtime:
242 min | 150 min (cut version)
Country:
USA | UK
Language:
English
Colour:
Colour (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.20 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby Digital (35 mm prints) | SDDS (35 mm prints)
MOVIEmeter: ?
^ 3% since last week why?

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Julie Christie came out of retirement to play Gertrude. more
Goofs:
When Hamlet first appears, he puts his hands behind his back twice. more
Quotes:
Hamlet: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio - a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung these lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? more
Movie Connections:
Featured in "HBO First Look: Hamlet (#3.9)" (1996) more
Soundtrack:
In Pace more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
15 out of 27 people found the following comment useful:-
Its virtues outweigh its defects, 12 September 2005
8/10
Author: shrikeangel from United States

First, what I didn't like. The acting was not really up to the Hamlet standard. Branagh was really over-the-top, doing a lot of yelling mostly. In my opinion, those actors who were not big-name celebrities generally did a better job; though I would except Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. (And Charlton Heston, too, but I wasn't sure if he was playing at being a hack.) A lot of the ambiguities in the play were clearly resolved one way in the flashbacks.

What I think speaks very much in this play's favor is that it is accessible. Shakespeare is hard to understand for the vast majority of people nowadays; many people are not even inclined to try, because of its reputation as Serious Literature and its archaic English. If they see this film they will understand clearly at least one man's interpretation of the play. They will be seeing it more as Shakespeare's audiences saw it: a play with sword fights and battles, and mighty kings and nobles, murder and incest and evil schemes and ghosts--and great art, if one cares to look for it, but in Shakespeare's day most didn't, any more than most people do now. Branagh's overacting, and his forcing of his interpretation of the story on the viewer, may detract from Shakespeare's art somewhat, but it is better that modern audiences get a piece of it, rather than nothing.

I've got to say one more thing though. Some people are complaining that "it's set in the 19th century and that wasn't Shakespeare's time". Well, in Shakespeare's time their costume and scenery was that of their own day for all of their plays. Shakespeare may have SAID it's in the days of ancient Rome or medieval Denmark or whatever, but he didn't dress his characters up like they were, he used the costumes of his own time. For the same reason his plays are full of anachronisms. For example, in King John the English and French have cannons--in Robin Hood's day. In Julius Caesar they talk of chimneys, which wouldn't be invented for another thousand years, and in Henry IV they talk about Machiavelli, who wasn't even born yet then. So I think this objection is silly--you might as well complain that the play isn't in Danish (after all they live in Denmark don't they?).

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Message Boards

Discuss this title with other users on IMDb message board for Hamlet (1996)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Mel Gibson or Kenneth Branagh? starry-eyed_wanderer
Time for a new Hamlet? kenellenar
music in trailer walker_toldmeihaveaids
Hamlet's Age. Deekay723
'The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body' Edward_de_Vere
Kenneth Branagh stage production of Hamlet smbkirkpatrick
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