Streaming Video - Adult Upgrading English 012 - Hamlet

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Film Adaptions

	First ever full-text version of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. When Hamlet returns to his elaborate palace at Elsinore after his studies, he finds his uncle Claudius married to his mother Gertrude. Bernardo, Horatio, and Marcellus show him a ghost who looks like his father, so Hamlet pursues him into the woods, where he is told to avenge his father's murder by his own uncle. Hamlet debates with himself, and even visualizes himself skewering Claudius from a confession box, but wants not to send him to heaven. When the king and queen bring Hamlet's school friends to see what is wrong with him as he puts on an air of madness, he assembles a play similar to his father's murder, which has him chased throughout the palace, and sent to Norway and to England. When Hamlet kills his girlfriend Ophelia's father, Polonius, counsel to the king, her brother Laertes sets out to avenge his death. Meanwhile, the Prince Fortinbras of Denmark, whose father was killed by old Hamlet, sets out to take the area lost in battle with him, often shown in flashbacks, as are many scattered memories throughout the film.
Director	Kenneth Branagh
Cast	Kenneth Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie, Richard Briers, Brain Blessed
Writer	William Shakespeare (play), Kenneth Branagh
Subjects	Shakespearean Films / Films shakespériens; Drama / Drame social; Literary Adaptation / Drame poétique

Hamlet (2009)
UK's eminent Royal Shakespeare Company brought Hamlet - Shakespeare's most famous and perhaps most influential play - back to the stage, spoken in verse but with contemporary dress and David Tennant in the eponymous role. Tennant's interpretation garnered critical approval and Patrick Stewart - playing Claudius - was praised for a performance of great depth and complexity. In this specially-shot screen version of the stage play (filmed on location rather than in the theatre), Tennant and Stewart reprise their roles.

Hamlet
Written by William Shakespeare, Directed by Rodney Bennett, Performed by Sir Derek Jacobi, Claire Bloom, Sir Patrick Stewart, Eric Porter, Lalla Ward, David Robb, Patrick Allen, Robert Swann, Jonathan Hyde, Emrys James, Jason Kemp, Geoffrey Bateman, Geoffrey Beevers, Ian Charleson, Tim Wylton, Paul Humpoletz, Niall Padden, Christopher Baines, John Sterland, Peter Gale, Raymond Mason, Dan Meaden, Reginald Jessup, Michael Poole, David Henry, Iain Blair, John Humphry, Costumes by Barbara Kronig, Produced by Cedric Messina, British Broadcasting Corporation, Time-Life Films, New York, NY, In The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare (US), Season 2, Episode 6 (London, England: BBC Worldwide, 1980), 3 hours 34 minutes.

Hamlet
A ghostly visitor with a shocking secret, a daughter devastated by loss, a deadly duel and the most famous question in all of drama: Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy will hold you spellbound. Hamlet has been called the greatest play and this Stratford Festival production “the most complete, most fulfilling, most satisfying in decades.