Hamlet - Shakespeare's a pretty smart guy.

[canikickit]

I like this play. I studied it for my leaving, and it was super duper. I watched a bit of the Brannagh version last night. I've seen it before, its super duper also.

Life is superduper, see yis tomorrow.

[anti machine]

Hamlet is my all-time favorite play. I am an actor, its my major (i know im in high school but i go to a selective arts academy), and i fuckin love Hamlet. I dont even care for sheakespeare. I just got done doing 12th night as Sir Toby Belch, but MAN what i would give to land Hamlet. WHew! A masterpiece indeed canikickit!

BTW Mel Gibson's Hamlet kicks more ass than Brannagh

[Menshevik]

Brannagh's adds too much and Gibson's leaves out too much. See the play live, thats best.

[mujer revolucionaria]

How could Brannagh add too much? As far as I was aware he did the entire play as written? Or am I mistaken?

[mentalbunny]

the RSC did a really good production of hamlet a couple of years back, directed by Adrian Noble I think, with Alex Jennings in the title role.

I aslo love hamlet. At my old school we had this poetry competition where you chose a poem and recited it. I chose hamlet's soliloquy, the famous "to be or not to be" speech and won!!! I was damn pleased with myself, apparently i looked like I was gonna cry!

What really sucks is that for GCSE we're doing macbeth, and I would so love to do hamlet, but at least macbeth is better than Romeo and Juliet (our other choice), which has less to sink your teeth into, in my opinion.

[canikickit]

I read Henry the 4th, Part One (for my Junior Cert.)
I saw the Romeo and Juliet with Leo di Cap
I saw Othello with Larry Fishbourne
I saw Much Ado about Nothing.

hold on: Larry's in Much Ado...isn't he? and Denzel Washington is in Othello(?)

I can't recall anyway, Shakespear is deadly. All that shit is great and superduper.

There are even good moments in 10 Things I hate about You, which I believe Shakespear was responsible for(the good bits, I know its based on the Taming of the Shrew)

and that other shitty film with Sisquo...

anyway I'm in a rush.

[Menshevik]

denzel was in Much Ado and Lawrence was in Othello.

mujer revolucionaria, you are mistaken. Brannagh adds in all these extra scenes with Fortenbras and stuff like that and he makes the movie longer by adding in these long melodramatic shots with no dialogue. But, brannagh's recreation is closer to the original text than any other film out there.

Although this one was a completely different interpretation , I really liked Ethan Hawkes version of Hamlet.

[canikickit]

I've only seen the Kenneth Brannagh version, but I heard that the whole Oedipus spin on things is given a large part in Gibson's interpretation.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite quotes/bits from the play:


Polonius {to Laertes} : Beware of entrance to a quarrel, being in, bare it that the opposed beware of thee


Gertrude {to Polonius}: More matter with less art.

Polonius is such an idiot. But he gives some good advice.


Hamlet: To be honest in this world goes, is to be one man pipped out of 10,000.

I don't really think its true. 50,000 is probably more accurate.


Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

I love it when Hamlet minds up Polonius and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
This reminds me of Lee 'Scratch' Perry aswell. He went kind of crazy but he also put some of it on to avoid hassle from journalists and from musicians. A lot of musicians/singers wanted him to produce them when they realised what a genius he was.


Hamlet {to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern}: There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Your state of mind determines a lot. If only we had more control over it.


Hamlet: the play's the thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

I love it when they rhyme. Who can think of more rhyming quotes?


King: Madness, in great ones, must not unwatched go.


Player: Our wills and faiths do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown, our thoughts are ours, their ends; none of our own.

I love this. More rhyming. Its also very true. The whole 'play within the play' is great. I love all the contemporary criticism Shakespeare throws in there as well.


Hamlet {to Guildenstern}: though you can fret me, you cannot play me.

ha!


Hamlet {to Polonius' corpse}: Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool; farewell.

I love the way he just dismisses him. Polonius is a dope.


Hamlet {to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about Polonius}: He will stay 'til you come.

This whole scene is great.

I also love the bit where Polonius says "that's good, 'mobbled (sp.?) queen, is good" everyone goes quiet, what an idiot...

Anyway that's way longer than it was meant to be and people probably won't read this far.

What are your favourite moments?

Could someone explain to me why this won't 'quote' properly. What is the story with this ikoncode crap?

(Edited by canikickit at 1:28 am on Sep. 4, 2002)

[suffianr]

Hamlet is just one big loser in the play. Everything gets from bad to worse. I mean, his uncle gets topped, his girlfriend drowns herself, his best friends are wankers, his mom drinks poison and he dies in the end. Fuck. And you have a nice day too, will ya?

[canikickit]

Hamlet's a fucking idiot.

[Menshevik]

What makes him an idiot?

[canikickit]

Cos' he procrastinates too much.
He should have killed the King while he was confessing.
He's not really an idiot, he has good qualities, but the only time he takes any real action is at the end.
(when he kills Polonius aswell, but that was more a spontaneous reaction, not his planning).

He's cool really.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king"
- worked like a dream to.

[peaccenicked]

Hamlet is superb.
derrida goes into interesting territtory.
http://www.hydra.umn.edu/derrida/2eng.html

[bluerev002]

i saw this play on saturday, and it was really great. it was performed by high school students, and they did ok considering their skills. but i dont think that hamlet was an idiot, and well, its not entirely his fault that guilt took him. but i like it, he snaps at the sight of his father. he makes those two plays that are briliant.

[canikickit]

Well, like I said above, I don't really think he was an idiot. I just think he spent too much time procrastinating.

The worst was when he had a chance to kill Claudius but the king was praying so he decided not to.

[TheUnknown]

Hamlet's a good play, one of Shakespeare's finest. The "To be or not to be" has to be (lol) one of the finest pieces ever written on contemplation of suicide. I love it.

[canikickit]

I'm not dead.

[captain anarchy]

i liked the play all 25 times i read it and i agree gibson left alot out i never saw the other version or the play live. i first read the play when i was five i understood it some what but now i understand the whole thing as well as all shakespeare i read i now understand it all.

[canikickit]

You should rent out the Kenneth Brannagh version.

[Santa Clara]

Have any of you read Hamlet with Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead? They are so interesting, we did them for HSC this year. Stoppard's play is such a great existentialist work.
Try reading them, it makes life so much more interesting when someone tries to tell you what goes on behind the scenes like Stoppard. Pity the pollies don't try to let us in on their backstage, we have to fight for that right.

[canikickit]

Yeah, I heard of that before but I really got around to reading it (them? why did you call them "them", is there more than one?).

Sounds quite interesting.