Modernizing Hamlet: Michael Almereyda

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There have been numerous remarks of William Shakespeare’s most celebrated drama Hamlet. Almereyda managed to make Hamlet a theoretical play, into an intense, action-driven movie without losing much of the initial tragic atmosphere of the original play. The play Hamlet focuses strictly on the state of Denmark on the original Elsinore castle, however Michael Almereyda was able to modernize the movie to New York City. In many ways I think that the modernized version of Hamlet is easier to appreciate but in review that diminishes the play’s “greatness,” in my personal opinion. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet offers many interpretations throughout each of its my film depictions. By modernizing Hamlet, Michael Almereyda updated Shakespeare’s work to adjust it better to the modern age by making it more users friendly for today’s audience. Almereyda was able to keep Shakespeare’s dialogue in the film for the most part. Despite Almereyda’s interpretation, CEO and King do not really go together, and the official noble titles, used in the business setting of modern New York, sound simply weird. New York City is known for the city of majority action movies. To determine the matter of Denmark, Almereyda made the old Hamlet not the King, but the CEO of a business company named Denmark. This is fact, is quite clear that it is an action story and mystery. Instead of a grand tragedy of a royal house, the modern Hamlet is a detective story about a dead rich guy and his son the beginner detective. Yet, the acting of the actors and the special effects more or less manage to make up for the flaw. Bill Murray who plays Polonious is harsh and tight. Ethan Hawke is illustrated as a weak and normal prince. Julia Stiles does not do Ophelia any justice. Ther... ... middle of paper ... ...es the movie more tragic. Michael Almereyda uses Hamlet’s monologue in Act 2 scene 2 lines 297-314 by placing it in the beginning of the play but practically the prologue of the move. Almereyda altered the script of the play and removed acts and scenes that he thought was irrelevant. For example the two gravediggers and the actors who helped Hamlet with the “Mousetrap.” Although Shakespeare and Almereyda versions followed the central story of an “undeceive prince wavering between avenging his father’s death or moving on with his life”(C. University 1969), both met the requirements of Shakespeare’s infamous “greatness” story. To conclude with Almereyda interpreted the play as a strong tragedy of human nature, as the failing, greed and the indecisiveness to the better qualities of humanity. The modern world was intensified as Almereyda’s movie was shown to us.

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