Acting is not Always Easy

After reading Act 1 Scene 5 in the book and developing my own thoughts and ideas of how Hamlet would react to seeing his dead father as a ghost, it was time to watch some clips of this scene in recent movies. After watching Kenneth Branagh’s discussion of this scene and watching the clip from the movie itself, I found several things to be odd in the way the actor portrayed Hamlet.

I imaged Hamlet to be scared and overcome with emotions when first seeing his late father. I had expected a great deal of emotions to overcome Hamlet. I thought that he would begin to cry and be overwhelmed with emotions after being told the truth of his father death. But, the movie does not display this well, at all. I feel that in the movie, the actor that plays Hamlet does not properly depict the character in the way, I think, Shakespeare intended.  The actor does not really have much screen time to properly show all of the emotions, I believe, the character would have. I feel that the only time the actor truly shows Hamlet’s emotions is when he says, “My uncle!” (1.5.48) in response to finding who is responsible for the king’s death. Hamlet and the scene as an entirety seemed almost fake to me.

Branagh’s discussion and opinion on the scene provides yet another perspective. I agree with many of his views and find them to be incredibly helpful in forming my own opinions on how Hamlet was portrayed. One point Branagh makes that I did not take into consideration was how difficult it would be to portray Hamlet and all the emotions that would overcome him, without the actor have gone though a similar experience. With that in mind, the character’s actions still did not convince me of Hamlet’s shock and fear, but do cause me to sympathize with the actor and acknowledge that this is a difficult role to play. Later in the discussion, Branagh does agree with me, saying that the actor does portray Hamlet well when finding that his uncle is responsible for his father’s death. Overall, Branagh does provide many helpful points and opinions on this scene. Had his thoughts been incorporated into the movie they may have possibly helped in portraying Shakespeare’s intentions more clearly.

Branagh's discussion
Movie Clip