Hamlet
Short description
Kenneth Branagh directed, wrote and stars in this adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy, set in the Danish court at Elsinore. Prince Hamlet returns home to learn that his father, the king, has died and that his mother Gertrude has married his uncle Claudius, who has taken the throne. The ghost of Hamlet's father tells him that Claudius murdered him, and the prince sets out to confirm the crime and prepare his revenge. He conceals his purpose behind an assumed madness, which drives a wedge between him and Ophelia, the young woman he has been courting. The production keeps Shakespeare's text largely intact, and at just over four hours it presents the play at unusual length, staging it on a grand scale with a cast of dozens. The principal roles are taken by Branagh as Hamlet, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, Kate Winslet as Ophelia, Julie Christie as Gertrude, Richard Briers as Polonius and Nicholas Farrell as Horatio. The film was made on a budget of roughly 18 million dollars and returned only about 5 million at the box office. It is the seventh of eighteen features Branagh has directed, following Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and preceding As You Like It. On IMDb it holds 7.7 from around 42,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3 from some 500 votes, while a critics' rating of 8.6 from 56 reviews places it noticeably higher than the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Scenes in the snowy landscapes were filmed using a mixture of real and artificial snow, created from a detergent solution. There were frequent disputes and arguments between production designer Tim Harvey and the groundskeeper of Blenheim Palace about whether the artificial snow would damage the shrubs and other greenery (it turned out by the end of filming that it did not).
- Robin Williams (1951-2014) and Billy Crystal were forbidden from being on set at the same time because they would invariably start joking around, which slowed down the filming process.
- Sir Kenneth Branagh spent over a year pitching the project to major Hollywood studios, but was constantly met with rejections; no one wanted to get involved with a four-hour project, believing that any attempt to adapt William Shakespeare (1564-1616) for the end of the 20th century was bound to fail. Furthermore, everyone was well aware of the negative press reviews for Branagh's previous project, 'Frankenstein' (1994), so some studios were willing to risk investing in the new project only if the script was rewritten and the budget halved. Only Castle Rock Entertainment agreed to provide funding and consider Branagh's requirements (shooting in 65mm format, no studio interference in the filming, etc.), but they set their own conditions: a star-studded cast, shooting in 35mm format, and a shortened 2.5-hour version for wide release.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
