Hamlet On Screen - Adaptations

Adaptations

Edgar G. Ulmer's Strange Illusion was the first post-war film to adapt the Hamlet story, and was one of the earliest films to focus its attentions on a young character's psychology.

Hamlet has been adapted into stories which deal with civil corruption by the West German director Helmut Käutner in Der Rest ist Schweigen (The Rest is Silence) and by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa in Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemeru (The Bad Sleep Well). In Claude Chabrol's Ophélia (France, 1962) the central character, Yvan, watches Olivier's Hamlet and convinces himself - wrongly, and with tragic results - that he is in Hamlet's situation. A spaghetti western version has been made: Johnny Hamlet directed by Enzo Castellari in 1968. Strange Brew (1983) is a movie featuring the comic fictional Canadians Bob and Doug MacKenzie (played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas). As standins for the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they investigate the manufacture of poisonous beer at the Elsinore Brewery where the prior owner has mysteriously died, and is now run by his brother Claude. Aki Kaurismäki's Hamlet Liikemaailmassa (Hamlet Goes Business) (Finland, 1987) piles on the irony: a sawmill owner is poisoned, and his brother plans to sell the mills to invest in rubber ducks. Tom Stoppard directed a 1990 film version of his own play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in the title roles, which incorporates scenes from Hamlet starring Iain Glen as the Dane; Douglas Brode regards it as less successful on screen than it had been on stage, due to the preponderance of talk over action.

The highest-grossing film adaptation of the Hamlet story (if one can really call it that) is Disney's 1994 Academy Award-winning animated feature The Lion King, in which the king's brother murders the king, taking his place as ruler of the Pride Lands. The exiled son of the late king (the main character, Simba) is exhorted by his father's ghost to challenge his wicked uncle. The screenplay's authors state they were influenced by both various traditional African myths as well as Shakespeare's story in creating this film. As it befits the genre, the tragic ending of Shakespeare's play is avoided.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a 2009 American independent film written and directed by Jordan Galland. The film's title refers to a fictitious play-within-the-movie, which is a comic reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its aftermath. The film stars Dustin Hoffman's son Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, The Sopranos' John Ventimiglia and Ralph Macchio from The Karate Kid.