Critical Essay on Film Adaptation of Hamlet

Introduction

The film adaptation will refer to the act of transferring a story or a work of an author either partly or wholly to a film which is featured. The most adapted genre is the novel and plays even though with time nonfictions materials have fallen victim of the same. Hamlet has been versioned differently by different films. This paper will look at the strengths and weaknesses of film adaptation of Hamlet, the differences between the movie and the play, how the directors and actors of a movie choose to represent the characteristics and other issues of the script and finally what movies adaptation suggests about its audience and the culture at the time and place it was adapted.

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When a script is adapted, one or two things may change, and regarding this, the adaptation process seems to have strengths and weaknesses. The adaptation of Hamlet script too had some advantages and weak points. David Tennant's in his film, the introduction part of the film of Hamlet is always exciting, and that's a high strength the director never changed the storyline of the play because William Shakespeare in his book has a fascinating introduction (Eliot 103). Another advantage is that films produce real events and shows the reactions of characters in different utterances rather than imagining reactions at it is with the plays. For the people who do not love spending a lot of time in reading the film makes it easy for them because it is summarized and takes a shorter time as compared to the play.

Movie and books differ in some way or the other, for instance; there is a difference of presentation between the movie acted about the book hamlet and the book itself. For example, David Tennant in his film shows hamlets personality and insanity through clothing and performance of the actors in the film, David dresses his actors differently as it should have been in the book but with one aim of showing the character of Hamlet (Boose). Hamlet in David's film dresses differently from how a prince should dress .the difference in the dressing may be a show of indecency when it comes to the characters. In the play, Hamlet is most of the time shoeless which shows some madness and the movie portrays Hamlet shirtless or having a torn shirt to indicate madness also.

In reference to David Tennant act three, the play heaps the message of Hamlet towards the queen in terms of madness it is not clearly shown but when it comes to the film it is spiced in a such a way that he and the queen only see the ghost of the father to Hamlet and despite that Hamlet drags the hair of the queen, and this clearly shows that he is mad. The film spices incidences up and also quickly indicates the message. Films are also quite short compared to the play. For instance, the film by David can be watched within two hours, but this cannot apply to the play itself.

In the movie adaptation by David Tennants, there are some instances which show that the film has originality when it is compared with the play. The tone used by actors perfectly matches the one used in the book, for instance, the sarcastic tone that is used by Hamlet while speaking to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz in the book is well acted in the film when Hamlet uses a sarcastic tone to show the mocking act. Another incidence is the way the recitation of Hamlet's soliloquy is done in movies precisely like it is in the play (Murray). Tennant does the oration while facing the camera for him to give the audience better meaning of his utterances mostly by the actions on the face and this successfully brings out the personality of Hamlet as it is in the play.

Something else that is correctly adopted is the setting of the actions. Tennant, in his book tries all best way possible to make sure the environment of acting resembles the one described in the play although the grounds of the movie may not be the exact one but the action and movement of Hamlet from the time he was abandoned up to the time that he came back to marry the queen who is his biological mother are well captured giving them a suitable setting.

Conclusion

To conclude, the film adaptation is of great advantage and also disadvantage according to the essay. The strengths and originality issue of a film, especially the one directed by David Tennant, makes it vulnerable and suitable for watching. However, directors' cannot copy everything from the book directly to the film because of issues to do with time but try as much as possible to engulf everything in the book in on single film.

Works Cited

Boose, Lynda E., and Richard Burt, eds. Shakespeare, the Movie: Popularizing the plays on film, tv, and video. Routledge, 2005.

Eliot, Thomas Stearns. "Hamlet and his problems." The sacred wood: Essays on poetry and criticism 95 (1920): 103.

Murray, Janet Horowitz, and Janet H. Murray. Hamlet on the holodeck: The future of narrative in cyberspace. MIT Press, 2017.