Hamlet

2007
2h 11m

IMDb RATING

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James Frail and Tallulah Sheffield in Hamlet (2007)

Set in a surrealistic, nightmarish, Kafkaesque no man's land, this version of the famous Shakespeare play centres on the ghostly, supernatural aspects of the play. The text is the original S... Read allSet in a surrealistic, nightmarish, Kafkaesque no man's land, this version of the famous Shakespeare play centres on the ghostly, supernatural aspects of the play. The text is the original Shakepearean, but the characters' personalities are changed, so for example, Polonius (orig... Read allSet in a surrealistic, nightmarish, Kafkaesque no man's land, this version of the famous Shakespeare play centres on the ghostly, supernatural aspects of the play. The text is the original Shakepearean, but the characters' personalities are changed, so for example, Polonius (originally a doddering old man) becomes Polonia a scheming femme fatale, who is plotting to ge... Read all

Director
- Alexander Fodor
Writers
- Alexander Fodor
- William Shakespeare
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.9/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Alexander Fodor
Writers
- Alexander Fodor
- William Shakespeare
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos

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Storyline

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Trivia
The whole production was shot in just 15 days in July 2006, giving a minutes per day ratio of 10 minutes every day. No shooting day overshot by more than one hour even though each day was scheduled for only eight hours. On the final day of the shoot (on Southend beach) 3 and a half hours were lost due to the tide being in. Alexander Fodor totally revised the shots, heavily pre-prepped the actors and charged ahead giving them only one take per shot. The end result being that the day finished 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

Goofs
On the first day of shooting James Frail, playing the ghost, insisted on keeping his blue-eye contact lenses in all the time, even though they had picked up dirt. This resulted in a scratched cornea, with a massive bruising effect looking like a black eye. To get round this you'll notice some scenes where the Ghost has suddenly become "Joe Cool" and is now wearing sunglasses (the director's).

Quotes
The Ghost: If thou didst ever thy dear father love, revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Connections
Version of Hamlet, Duel Scene with Laertes (1900)

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Review

Featured review

1/10

Taking too much trouble to be too original and not enough of the original.

The version I watched was 210 minutes so I cannot tell you what they cut out. With Fodor's Hamlet (2007) it probably does not matter anyway.

Call it contemporary (everyone is airing out their dirty underwear), verging on minimalist. Evidently, it is a shot in the arm to the old Hamlet. But they cannot hold a candle to the original. They throw in everything but the kitchen sink including a few gender changes, and everyone is related to a chess piece. The story is not consistent and wonders around periodically we get some iambi pentameter but maybe not Shakespeare in the most inappropriate moments. Hamlet (Wilson Belchambers) sniffs Polonia (Lydia Piechowiak) and tells her she smells like fish. Will this ever end?

One final kiss and Horatio (Katie Reddin-Clancy) goodbye.

Some versions cut out every other sentence. One cut out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern leaving out a major part of the plot against Hamlet. Here we cut out the whole political purpose of the play by removing Fortinbras and Norway from the play and turning it into a cheap revenge plot.