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Hamlet (Gibson)

David O. Selznick, the most successful producer of literature classics in the history of Hollywood (A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Captain’s Courageous, etc.), once said to the army of writers involved in the often brutal and fraught with emotion screen adaptation sessions of another classic, Gone With The Wind, that the audience would forgive them any cuts they had to make as long as they added nothing of their own invention at their expense. It is obvious Franco Zeffirelli never heard this advice or chose to ignore it during his filming of Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close. Another film, the Franco Zeffirelli film version of Romeo and Juliet, was criticized for its young stars whom were unable to speak Shakespearean verse. However, in that film, the casting of the fifteen-year-old Olivia Hussey and the seventeen-year-old Leonard Whiting in the title roles, embodied all of the youth, desire and impulsivity written into the roles by Shakespeare. This is why that film was the most financially successful Shakespeare play ever produced for the screen. The Zeffirelli screen version of Hamlet is not so fortunate. For this is a film starring Mel Gibson, whose speaking of Shakespearean verse is not much above that of teenagers, but more importantly this casting decision diminishes the interpretation and tone of the film. With Gibson in the title role, this Hamlet is pure and simple an action hero out for revenge (Gibson’s bread-and-butter screen persona in countless films). Gibson’s Hamlet is all visceral and there isn’t the least bit of literary tone involved when he reads lines like “Now could I drink hot blood.” It is more like Mad Max meets Elizabethan villains. Perhaps the one line Gibson reads which rings true in this screen version of the play is “Why, what an ass am I.”

Zeffirelli takes more of a liberal hand with Shakespeare’s text than any modern filmmaker should be allowed. He li...

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Hamlet (Gibson). (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:57, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1685605.html