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Oct. 22nd, 2009 03:12 amKenneth Branagh's Hamlet.
My gods.
Two discs worth and worth every precious second.
Casting Brian Blessed and having him play his entire part in a whisper.
Richard Briers playing Polonius as a sly, dynamic and dangerous statesman, not the dotty old man of cliché.
Casting Sir John Gielgud and Dame Judi Dench as, basically, dumb-show actors in a vignette to accompany another actor's speech.
Ken Dodd as Yorick--was that a joke, or did I miss him in another vignette?
Charlton Heston. Jack Lemmon. Robin Williams.
The little look Rosencrantz and Guildenstern give each other, that somehow artfully encompasses the quintessence of Stoppard's famous play and gives it its proper perspective within this one.
The gorgeous look of the thing. And all of Shakespeare's words, every single one.
There can be no one definitive Hamlet, but if there could be, I think this one would be it.
My gods.
Two discs worth and worth every precious second.
Casting Brian Blessed and having him play his entire part in a whisper.
Richard Briers playing Polonius as a sly, dynamic and dangerous statesman, not the dotty old man of cliché.
Casting Sir John Gielgud and Dame Judi Dench as, basically, dumb-show actors in a vignette to accompany another actor's speech.
Ken Dodd as Yorick--was that a joke, or did I miss him in another vignette?
Charlton Heston. Jack Lemmon. Robin Williams.
The little look Rosencrantz and Guildenstern give each other, that somehow artfully encompasses the quintessence of Stoppard's famous play and gives it its proper perspective within this one.
The gorgeous look of the thing. And all of Shakespeare's words, every single one.
There can be no one definitive Hamlet, but if there could be, I think this one would be it.