Drama

Hamlet

Castle Rock Entertainment

United States of America

English

Kenneth Branagh

Derek Jacobi

Kate Winslet

Julie Christie

Richard Briers

Nicholas Farrell

Rufus Sewell

Reece Dinsdale

Timothy Spall

Michael Maloney

Robin Williams

Gérard Depardieu

Jack Lemmon

Ian McElhinney

Ray Fearon

Brian Blessed

Billy Crystal

Simon Russell Beale

Don Warrington

Ravil Isyanov

Charlton Heston

Rosemary Harris

Richard Attenborough

John Gielgud

Judi Dench

John Mills

Ken Dodd

Andrew Schofield

Perdita Weeks

Tom Szekeres

Angela Douglas

Rowena King

Jimi Mistry

Ben Thom

David Yip

Sarah Lam

Rizz Abbasi

David Blair

Michael Bryant

Peter Bygott

Charles Daish

Rob Edwards

Yvonne Gidden

Jeffery Kissoon

john Spencer-churchill

Sian Radinger

Melanie Ramsay

Mark Chapman

Neil Farrell

David Barron

Patrick Doyle

William Shakespeare

Alex Thomson

Peter Montagna

Richard Glass

Sian Grigg

Kerrie R. Plant

Simone Pereira Hind

Tim Harvey

Desmond Crowe

Alexandra Byrne

Iona Price

Vanessa Pereira

George Richmond

Leonard Green

Sara Desmond

Nic Milner

Dan Grace

Chris Allies

Without a doubt, Branagh's film of **HAMLET** is the most ambitious Shakespeare film to date.  He goes all in on.. well, everything.
  
He brings aboard a stellar all-star cast, too many to highlight all, but includes Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and Jack Lemmon - none of which are known for their Shakespearian pedigree. Branagh takes on Hamlet, the largest role in all of Shakespeare - and most English language literature.  His interpretation is - not surprisingly - brilliant and worthy of study.  Kate Winslet plays his challenged love Ophelia, and Derek Jacobi is the fraudulent King.  Rounding out the largest roles, Julie Christie is the doomed queen and Richard Briers is the fussy Polonius. All excellent in their handle of the language and expression of humanity.

Much of the film takes place inside the castle of Elsinore, a gorgeous and regal stage set lined with mirrors to challenge each individual's intentions and a chess-board floor to accentuate the challenge in the royal battle for checkmate.  The Elsinore grounds are widespread and scenes in the snow covered Danish mountains all shown in glorious 65mm film... an extremely detailed film stock that was rarely used because of the extreme expense and cumbersome camera size.

With **HENRY V** and **MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING**, Branagh has proven he is a master of adapting Shakespeare's long form story into much more manageable American movie length.  Well, here he goes all in and captures the 4 hour play in its uncut full length.  The film was shown with a 15 minute intermission.

**HAMLET** itself is doubtlessly one of the most intelligent character studies ever written by any author, and Branagh does a great job recording that. Even many other productions of the show do as good a job or even better job in relaying that story.

Either way Branagh's film work is filled with many treasures and to this point, his Shakespeare films are close to flawless. For now...

Hamlet - Kenneth Branagh -  Kate Winslet - Julie Christie - Derek Jacobi - 1996 - Trailer - 4K

Kenneth Branagh interview on "Hamlet" (1996)

making of  Branaghs' HAMLET

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