Hamlet
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Hamlet

Year:
Duration:
242 min | 150 min (cut version)
Genres:
Drama
IMDB rate:
7.8
Director:
Kenneth Branagh
Awards:
Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 13 nominations
Details
Country: UK
Release Date: 1996-12-25
Filming Locations: Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Earnings
Budget: $18,000,000
Opening Weekend: $148,321 (USA) (29 December 1996)
Gross: $4,414,535 (USA) (13 April 1997)
Cast
Actor
Character
Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal
Hamlet
Riz Abbasi
Attendant to Claudius
Richard Attenborough
English Ambassador
David Blair
Attendant to Claudius
Brian Blessed
Ghost of Hamlet's Father
Kenneth Branagh
Hamlet
Richard Briers
Polonius
Michael Bryant
Priest
Peter Bygott
Attendant to Claudius
Julie Christie
Gertrude
Charles Daish
Stage Manager
Judi Dench
Hecuba
Gérard Depardieu
Reynaldo
Reece Dinsdale
Guildenstern
Ken Dodd
Yorick
Angela Douglas
Attendant to Gertrude
Rob Edwards
Lucianus
Nicholas Farrell
Horatio
Ray Fearon
Francisco
Yvonne Gidden
Doctor
John Gielgud
Priam
Rosemary Harris
Player Queen
Charlton Heston
Player King
Ravil Isyanov
Cornelius
Derek Jacobi
Claudius
Rowena King
Attendant to Gertrude
Jeffery Kissoon
Fortinbras's Captain
Sarah Lam
Attendant to Gertrude
Jack Lemmon
Marcellus
Ian McElhinney
Barnardo
Michael Maloney
Laertes
John Spencer-Churchill
Fortinbras's Captain
John Mills
Old Norway
Jimi Mistry
Sailor Two
Sian Radinger
Prologue
Melanie Ramsey
Prostitute
Simon Russell Beale
Second Gravedigger
Andrew Schofield
Young Lord
Rufus Sewell
Fortinbras
Timothy Spall
Rosencrantz
Thomas Szekeres
Young Hamlet (as Tom Szekeres)
Ben Thom
First Player
Don Warrington
Voltimand
Perdita Weeks
Second Player
Robin Williams
Osric
Kate Winslet
Ophelia
David Yip
Sailor One
Christopher Bowles
Cadet in Play (uncredited)
Kenneth W Caravan
Laertes Mob (uncredited)
Anthony Maddalena
Elsinore Courtier (uncredited)
Frank Morgan
Pyrrhus (uncredited)
Melanie Ramsay
Prostitute (uncredited)
Orlando Seale
Boatman (uncredited)
Jimmy Yuill
Alexander (uncredited)
Did you know?
Trivia
Julie Christie came out of retirement to play Gertrude.
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Many of the actors in the film have worked with director/lead actor Kenneth Branagh before this production. Examples include Richard Briers (Much Ado About Nothing (1993)), Derek Jacobi (Dead Again (1991)), Robin Williams (Dead Again (1991)), and Brian Blessed (Henry V (1989)).
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One of Shakespeare's lines is actually changed with no acknowledgment. The sorrows come line "O Gertrude, Gertrude, when sorrows come they come not as single spies, but in battalions" becomes simply "When sorrows come they come not as single spies, but in battalions", probably because Claudius delivers them in voiceover and we do not know to whom he is speaking. It is the only line in the film that is changed because of the way the scene is filmed.
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Goofs
In the very long shot along the length of the throne room, the cameras are visible in the mirrors.
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Light stand visible in the mirror just before and during a soliloquy.
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When the King and Queen are hugging after Polonius' death and the camera moves away, on the ground, you can see wheel tracks in the dust clearly.
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Quotes
Hamlet: If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.
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Hamlet: Now mother, what's the matter?
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Hamlet: I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.
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Faq
Q
Is it true that Hamlet faked his madness?
A
Hamlet's state of mind is somewhere between sanity and insanity. His language is erratic and wild, but beneath his mad-sounding words often lie acute observations that show the sane mind working bitterly beneath the surface. Hamlet's decision to fake his madness is a sane one, taken to confuse his enemies and hide his intentions. Unfortunately, he mentally tortures those around him, causing chaos in their lives as well as his own.Sometimes the role of Hamlet is played as if the character were really mad, but more often it is played (as Branagh, Olivier, and Richard Burton do) as if Hamlet were only pretending to be insane, as Shakespeare himself seems to indicate at the end of the Ghost Scene , where Hamlet asks his friend Horatio and the sentries Barnardo and Marcellus not to give him away if he decides to fake insanity.
Q
Why did Hamlet treat his mother and Ophelia badly?
A
1. Hamlet is angry with his mother's decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husband's death. Hamlet feels his mother has shamelessly betrayed her loyalty to his father. One of the less obvious themes of the play is that Hamlet harbors feelings of misogyny towards the women in his life, including his lover, Ophelia. Tormented, Hamlet's anger over his father's death manifests itself in his ill treatment of Ophelia & his mother. Hamlet's words to Ophelia, "get thee to a nunnery!" are his way of telling her to enter a house of prostitution (which is what a "nunnery", in 17th century slang, really was. It was not a convent, as many assume.)
Q
Does Branagh really include all of Shakespeare's play in his film script?
A
Yes, he does. Every word. It may seem to casual viewers, though, that some lines are omitted, because Branagh transposes them to a different moment in the play. For instance, Hamlet's first words to the Ghost - "Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from Heaven or blasts from Hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee", etc. , meant to be spoken just before the Ghost beckons him to follow, are switched to a few moments after that, during which he is shown running through the forest after the Ghost. As he runs, we hear Hamlet's words in voiceover, then he stops and says "Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I'll go no further", and the Ghost speaks for the first time. And at the very beginning of the film's second half, we hear Claudius (Derek Jacobi) in voiceover saying "O Gertrude, Gertrude, when sorrows come they come not single spies but in batallions" -lines that he normally says after we have seen Ophelia insane, not before. Claudius's prayer scene is also transposed to just after Hamlet's soliloquy " 'Tis now the very witching time of night", when in the play it occurs several lines before that.
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Photos from cast
Billy Crystal
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