Hamlet.

[Skummy]

Patrick Stewart is Shakespeareing like a motherfucker, while David Tennant minces about like Doctor Who in a cheap crown.

Discuss.

[Hobo]

Tennant has been quite good I think. The only thing I don't like is the cutting to CCTV and other camera style footage that doesn't really look very good. Also the grave digger scene looked like it was from Last of the Summer Wine.

I don't like how the final scene was done. Claudius just grabs the sword and then takes the cup shrugs and drinks it and they end on Hamlet's death when the play ends with Fortinbras coming in and asking what happened and Horatio getting the crown of Denmark iirc.

Overall though, I did enjoy it.

[Skummy]

I enjoyed it - like you said, really didn't enjoy the use of other filming techniques, I felt it took you out of your engagement with the story - and there's something inherently wrong about using Brechtian techniques in Shakespeare. I can kind of see the sense in Hamlet's handheld camera as a way to explain his soliloquies - but surely "he's MAD" would be enough for that, or if not that, at least just the knowledge that this is a stylised Shakespeare adaptation would have sufficed.

I didn't have a problem with the gravedigger scene, it's intended to be largely low-brow comedy, so the execution of it worked well enough.

My only real problem was that, as I said, Tennant occasionally became Doctor Who a little too much, in his lighter moments, especially early on. But I suppose that's just an overfamiliarity with his work talking, and really it's just nitpicking, he was incredible. It was an interesting contrast between Patrick Stewart and David Tennant, as I felt Stewart's performance was more inherently theatrical and "Shakespearean", while Tennant's was much better suited to a television adaptation, with his style of delivery making the language seem a lot more modern and accessible, while watching Stewart it was always incredibly apparent that this is Shakespeare. Obviously that's no bad thing, but I found it an interesting dichotomy.

[Hobo]

I got it that they shot to look like that on purpose and it was still a great scene. It was just another one of the other filming techniques they employed which like you I didn't totally like. The ending didn't have much energy to it either I felt. It was all rather subdued.

I do much approve of Ophelia running about in her knickers though.

[Skummy]

Yeah, the ending really lacked drama, it just kind of petered out.