I think I read the first four pages before saying to my friend, “what does this mean? I have no idea what I’m reading.” To help me comprehend the dialogue, I bought a used copy of Kenneth Branagh’s filmed version, the first ever full-text film of Hamlet. I considered the words of Charles Lamb (mentioned on p1045), said to be one of the great analytics of Shakespeare, warning of the limitations of watching a performance of this great work, “When the novelty is past, we find to our cost that, instead of realizing an idea, we have only materialized and brought down a fine vision to the standard of flesh and blood. We have let go a dream in a quest of an unattainable substance.” But considering Lamb quoted that at the turn of the 19th century and this is my first (21st century) serious attempt to understand 16th century dialogue, I took the chance anyway.
I should consider myself lucky to have gotten my hands on the movie at all since it was filmed in 1996 but was not released to DVD until 2007, and even then only by the push a movement who made it a reality. If it is even possible for Hamlet to be a page-turner upon first read without the aid of the video, then I find it hard to describe the intensity of watching Branagh’s interpretation of it while reading my text at the same time. It is likely that not heeding Lamb’s 19th century warning at that time would have been detrimental to the experience, but as for me in today… following that advice would have left me clueless.
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Indeed, I felt the same way. Hamlet was incredibly hard for me to read, and unfortunently, I could not find any filmed versions to watch. Therefore, I would read some, and then do research on what I read actually meant. It was a long process, but I do not know how I could have done it any other way.
ReplyDeleteWatching the filmed version, I think, would have helped, as you could get a better idea of what is going on than trying to figure it all out yourself.
Hamlet is definitely a hard play to read. It is a good idea to use that version, because it doesn't skip over any parts like some films do.
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