This past month has been all about Hamlet. When we were reading it in class, I hated it, because I only understood the basic plot, which was pretty boring. But now, after annotating, I actually like Hamlet. The characters are all very complex and I love how we can interpret their motives. Hamlet himself seems to be the hardest character to understand, because of the war going on inside of him over whether he should sink down to Claudius's level in order to seek revenge, or if he should be rational and be above that sort of behavior.
The first movie we watched was boring a lot of the time, but I'm not sure exactly what made it so different from the second one. Maybe it was because I still needed to read deeper into Hamlet more when we watched it. The only scene I liked better in the old version was the Ophelia scene. She physically hands flowers to each of the people in the room in that version, but in the new one, she stares at Laertes and doesn't even have real flowers. The whole symbolism is lost there; instead they just flash a picture of her and Hamlet in bed. Also, why do they have a completely cushioned room in the castle specifically for crazy people? Anyway, I hope we watch more Hamlet movies.
Julia,
ReplyDeleteYour post is one of the reasons why we have to read literature so many times! After seeing each characters' motives and natures, we are allowed to formulate our own opinions on what Shakespeare intended for us to take away from his play. For me, the more modern the movie, the more I enjoyed it. I think by making Shakespeare's work more relatable to me and modern life makes it more interesting!
Julia, :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Hamlet is the most complicated character in the whole story. His actions cause consequences that would alter the whole plot line. I wonder why Shakespeare did what he did to a certain scenes, but I like the ending of it. The tragedy ending makes the story more memorable.
I love how we have the chance to watch several movie versions of Hamlet. Some are really boring and some are good, the one we watched today was just scary and unrelated to the book. However, all versions of it help me understand the characters better. This would definitely help me in the AP test.