Hamlet (1996 Film) Kenneth Branagh

Origins

Aspects of the film's staging were based on Adrian Noble's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play, in which Branagh played the title role.[9]

Text

The film uses a conflated text based on the 1623 First Folio, with additions from the Second Quarto and amendments from other sources. According to a note appended to the published screenplay:

The screenplay is based on the text of Hamlet as it appears in the First Folio – the edition of Shakespeare's plays collected by his theatrical associates Heminges and Condell and published in 1623 by a syndicate of booksellers. Nothing has been cut from this text, and some passages absent from it (including the soliloquy "How all occasions do inform against me ...") have been supplied from the Second Quarto (an edition of the play which exists in copies dated 1604 and 1605). We have also incorporated some readings of words and phrases from this source and from other early printed texts, and in a few cases emendations from modern editors of the play. Thus in I, 4, in the passage (from the Second Quarto) about the "dram of eale", we use an emendation from the Oxford edition of the Complete Works (edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, 1988): "doth all the noble substance over-daub" – rather than the original's "of a doubt".[10]

Style

Despite using a full text, Branagh's film is also very visual; it makes frequent use of flashbacks to depict scenes that are described but not performed in Shakespeare's text, such as Hamlet's childhood friendship with Yorick, or scenes merely implied by the play's text, such as Hamlet's sexual relationship with Ophelia.[11] The film also uses very long single takes for numerous scenes.

In a radical departure from previous Hamlet films, Branagh set the internal scenes in a vibrantly colourful setting, featuring a throne room dominated by mirrored doors. Film scholar Samuel Crowl called the setting "film noir with all the lights on".[12] Branagh chose Victorian era costuming and furnishings, using Blenheim Palace, built in the early 18th century, as Elsinore Castle for the external scenes. Harry Keyishan has suggested that the film is structured as an epic, courting comparison with Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments and Doctor Zhivago.[13] As J. Lawrence Guntner pointed out, comparisons with the latter are heightened by the presence of Julie Christie (Zhivago's Lara) as Gertrude.[14]

Filming

Hamlet was shot in Panavision Super 70 by Alex Thomson. It was the last feature film to be entirely shot in 70 mm until production of Samsara in 2011.[15] Branagh was among the few to use 65mm film cameras after that, on his 2017 film Murder on the Orient Express.[16] The filming was done from 25 January to 12 April 1996.

Music

The score of Hamlet was composed and co-produced by frequent-Kenneth-Branagh-collaborator Patrick Doyle, and conducted by Robert Ziegler. Doyle composed three primary themes for the film to accompany the characters of Ophelia, Claudius and Hamlet, which are varied throughout the score. The "simple, childlike" theme for Ophelia is mostly string-dominant, often performed by a string quartet yet occasionally accompanied by a full string ensemble or mixed chorus. For Claudius, Doyle composed a theme in the form of a demented canon, using more 20th-century harmonies. The theme for Hamlet was considered by Doyle to be "the most daunting and elusive" to conceive, before settling on a more "simple" motif to accompany the contemplative character.[17]

The soundtrack album was released on 10 December 1996 through Sony Classical Records and features 26 tracks, with a running time of more than 76 minutes.[18] For his work on the film, Doyle received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score.

1. In Pace (3:07) – performed by Plácido Domingo (heard in the film during the closing credits)
2. Fanfare (0:48)
3. "All that lives must die" (2:40)
4. "To thine own self be true" (3:04)
5. The Ghost (9:55)
6. "Give me up the truth" (1:05)
7. "What a piece of work is a man" (1:50)
8. "What players are they" (1:33)
9. "Out out thou strumpet fortune" (3:11)
10. "To be, or not to be" (1:53)
11. "I loved you once" (3:27)
12. "Oh, what a noble mind" (2:41)
13. "If once a widow" (3:36)
14. "Now could I drink hot blood" (6:57)
15. "A foolish prating nave" (1:05)
16. "Oh heavy deed" (0:56)
17. "Oh here they come" (4:39)
18. "My thoughts be bloody" (2:52)
19. "The doors are broke" (1:20)
20. "And will 'a not come again?" (1:59)
21. "Alas poor Yorick" (2:49)
22. "Sweets to the sweet – farewell" (4:39)
23. "Give me your pardon sir" (1:24)
24. "Part them they are incensed" (1:47)
25. "Goodnight, sweet prince" (3:36)
26. "Go bid the soldiers shoot" (2:52)