Hamlet Becomes Modern Through Technology

Hamlet by William Shakespeare is one play that has intrigued people for over four hundred years. There have been as many productions as there have been days since the original play 1596-1603. Each production has been different from the next one, no matter where performed or by whom. One film reproduction of Hamlet released in the year 2000, was directed by and stared Etahan Hawke as Hamlet and Julia Styles as Ophelia. This essay will refer to this film as Hamlet 2000 and the original play as Hamlet or text. To compare the text to the film Hamlet 2000 will be divided into three groups, language, setting / plot line and lastly the characters. All though the speech is taken only from the text, the film Hamlet 2000 is vastly different, because the change of the setting, brings the characters into the modern day, allows todays technology to help interpret Hamlet and bring to a new generation.

Text is what the original author wanted the reader to get from the story, but how it is presented is up to the reader. Where and when the story takes place, sets the imagery for the reader or audience and, the rest is up to the individual. What they obtain when reading the text is what they pull from their imagination. This is not the same in the film adaptations, because we see what the screenwriter and director want us to see and leave out what they do not want to be seen. As Almereyda director of Hamlet 2000 points out, “watching the movie requires a certain suspension of disbelief, people don't really talk like that. But the language has a tone, and its own life and its own logic” and it does. Almereyda is correct, people do not talk like that anymore. That is why it seems a little unnatural to place the language of Shakespeare into mod...

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...truggle and Laertes is shot fatally as well. After Laertes and Gertrude are both dead Halmet shots and sills Claudius as if the director was in a hurry to wrap the film up.

Overall Hamnlet 2000 is an enjoyable adaptation of the original text that has been modernized by technology. Being able to take the language of over four hundred years ago and make it adaptable to the youth of today is not something that everyone would be able to do. If you had never read Hamlet the film might be more entertaining as there would not be anything to compare it to.

Works Cited

Goldberg, Matt. 'Ethan Hawke And HAMLET Writer-Director Michael Almereyda To Adapt Shakespeare's CYMBELINE'. N. p., 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

Hamlet. Michael Almereyda, 2000. video.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark. 1st ed. Champaign, Ill.: Project Gutenberg. Print.