A Modern Representation of Classics

------the film Hamlet 2000

For long Shakespeare’s plays are important sources of the adaption of films, among which the famous Hamlet, as one of the Four Great Tragedies, is a most popular one. As a successful adaption of Shakespeare’s classics Hamlet, the film Hamlet 2000 is a good example of putting classics into a modern environment and allows audience to more easily perceive classics in a relatively familiar setting and different perspective.

This film widely obtains critics’ praise not only for its adaption the original work in a new angle of view but also for the good grasp of the principle and theme of the original, displaying a new as well as original piece of work.

First Hamlet 2000 inherits some of the basic principles of Shakespeare’s play. The theme is revenge in a horrible and depressive atmosphere which is what Shakespeare wanted to show in his play and also revenge was a popular and common theme of that time in England. At the same time the director added in his own understanding of the play, that is to promote violence and horror to better demonstrate the whole mass of all the people and all the other things. Perhaps in his point of view the violence and anger of the people in the play is a true and natural reflection of their inner conflict. The scene Polonius is shoot by Hamlet is really bloody and horrible with the disgusting very close look at the blood and flesh of his hindbrain. Also other actors tends to use violence to show their anger and struggle such as Claudius, when exasperated by Hamlet, he looses his temper, tending to beat Hamlet using his fists.

While instead in the original work the king still keeps his dignity, condemning Hamlet in a way full of pride and majesty.

Also in Shakespeare’s plays tragedies are not always pathetic and depressive because this would cause a feeling of dislike and boring in audience. Instead he was more used to add some comedic elements in tragedies------a unique writing skill of Shakespeare, which he thought could avoid seriousness and rigidity and serve as a foil to the tragic atmosphere. In film Hamlet 2000, the director followed this important feature, a mixture of tragedy and comedy, meanwhile he focus more on tragedy but only a little use of comedy. Throughout the film we can see that the director tried to emphasize more on a tragic and depressive atmosphere to represent the inner emotions of the roles. Yet only a very small part of comedic elements using in the whole film plays an important role of conditioning atmosphere and changing audience’s mood. When all the members go to watch the playlet rattrap directed by Hamlet, Hamlet says to Ophelia if he can lie between her legs. These skittish and crazy words immediately drag audience from a dreary and strained feeling.

On the other hand, Hamlet 2000 has its own features different from the original play. This is what the author perceived from his reading of the play and wanted to demonstrate to audience his own thinking. The most important adaption is surely carrying on this medieval story in a modern society, especially the applying of post-modernist.

Speaking of post-modernist, this edition of film tends to topple down and clear up the whole society to a disordered one. It poses a reflection of the value of the

modern society, doubtful of all orders, rules, traditions and classics. Hamlet is a huge fan of DV making and Ophelia is a photographer, both of them do not like to reveal their inner feelings yet they have ways of expressing themselves, that is the images the love. In a world full of modern equipment people communicate more to tools than to human, this is what demonstrate in the film.

When in the twenties century the kingdom turns into a big corporation of Denmark and the characters become CEO of the modern corporation. Also various modern tools, such as Video, portable computer, electrograph, dictagraph and monitor are used in the film to help with the development of the plot. Some famous scenes, the safe guarders discover Hamlet’s father’s ghost in a monitor, Claudius use a dictagraph to make her daughter sound out Hamlet, Hamlet is shot dead by a gun, all adopt modern instruments. Thus gives audience a feeling of familiar and more close to life. Especially the famous monologue “to be or not to be” is put totally in a modern environment------a Video shop, all around Hamlet are the chaos of TV, the explosion on TV serving an aberrant and vague atmosphere.

Another aspect of modernism in the film is the revealing of the modern young people’s psychology and lifestyle. Ophelia always wears loose and fat pants with a slightly tying to her waist, Hamlet though with a suit but never buttered on, wearing a strange hat and a depressing impression, which is not at all the same as the dignified and gentle nobility image in the play. The are the representatives of the modern youth, a generation of casualty, selfhood, uneasiness, fickleness, having a feeling of wilder for their lack of a good understanding of the value of life. They even look for fun in

the bar where flooded with pornography and homosexuality, seeking for what they so call a true life of one’s own. This catharsis of a generation’s way of life and thinking is not displayed in the original work but it is what the editor wants to influence our audience.

For most modern people, classics may not be familiar to them. Yet the film edition gives them a chance to understand classics in an environment close to their own life. Though putting the old dialogues in new situation, they do not appear abruptly. On the contrary it seems we get to have a face to face communication with Shakespeare from the old age in our modern time passing all these years. The film, bringing in old things with new life, is really a good style of displaying classics.

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