Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Hamlet: The Series

Hamlet: The Series
. Six episodes. Dir. Bob J. Koester. Perf. June Greyson, Kitty Mortland, Joe Page, Liz Kummer, Alex Molnar, Christopher Lysy, and John McDonnell. 2014, 2015. DVD. N.p., 2014-2015.

I purchased this at the end of a fiscal year—largely because it used up my budget nearly to the penny. I didn't expect much; I didn't get much. It's one of those things funded by Kickstarter that didn't entirely pan out as the creative minds behind it likely intended.

Hamlet: The Series is a set of six episodes that modernizes Hamlet. In a number of ways, it's repeating some of the schemes of the 2000 film directed by Michael Almereyda (for which, q.v.). There's a lot of technology worked in, including Hamlet texting Horatio parts of her soliloquies. Yes, her soliloquies. We have a female Hamlet (Hamlette?) here. It's an interesting decision, but the production doesn't do much with it.

What's mildly interesting is the use of a news program to introduce some of the plot devices. I'd like to show you a bit of that—and you'll also be able to gather the general quality of the production from it. You'll also see our ghost, and you'll be introduced to our Hamlet. Here you go:


I thought I'd give you their "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" to round things off:


There you have it. Some somewhat interesting ideas that are not carried out very well. I won't be trying to track down episodes four to six.

Links: The Film at IMDB.

Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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