Hamlet: Play and Film There Term Paper

The film may skip scenes like this, and others, to tell the story more quickly, and arguably more dramatically. This may also be because films are expensive to make, so every omitted scene saves money. Polonius has more scenes in the play than the film. In the play, he is a key character, second only to Hamlet, Gertrude, and Claudius. In the film, he almost seems like a minor character.

The relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is shown more in the film, possibly because the filmmaker wants to emphasize their romance. In the film, Ophelia and Hamlet are often alone together. In the play they are usually with others: In Act II, again, scenes from the play are shortened or omitted from the film. Scene I of Act II, has an exchange between Polonius and Reynaldo (1-72) then on- between Polonius and Ophelia (74-120). In the film we only see Polonius and Ophelia in this scene. In Act III, Scene 4, where Hamlet kills Polonius, the play scene is longer, with more buildup of tension between mother and son (1-215). In the film the dialogue between Hamlet and Gertrude, before Hamlet kills Claudius, escalates faster, and Claudius's murder is sooner.

One place the movie and play are very similar is the final scene (the duel between Hamlet and Laertes. In the movie, none of the original action or dialogue of this scene are omitted and the time sense is similar to the play.

Plays and movies are different mediums, even when they tell the same story, so when a play is translated into film, there will be inevitable differences.

This is mainly because there are such differences between viewing a play and reading one; in reading a play, one imagines how characters look and sound, how the settings look, etc. When the play is translated into film, we no longer use our imaginations entirely; instead we accept the filmmaker's vision of the original work. In this essay, I have compared and contrasted Shakespeare's original Hamlet with Zefferilli's film. Since the play and film versions represent such different mediums, it is impossible to judge which is better, only that each is excellent in its own way, and that for understanding and enjoying the story of…