The Ghost Scene

In Branagh’s version of Hamlet the director chose to set his film in the 19th century. His sets are vibrant and his depiction of past events gives the audience a better understanding of life before the King's death. In my opinion this film is acted the best. The sets are how I envisioned them to be and the actors, especially Branagh, play their parts well. The film is dramatic and the acting is over the top when necessary. The first ghost scene is a pivotal part in Hamlet and should be played with as much emotion as possible. The foggy forest setting and loud music creates a dark and ominous atmosphere that is essential to the story. Overall, I felt this movie was the most successful in reenacting this particular scene.

Zeffirelli version of Hamlet is Medieval based. For this reason the sets were much darker compared to Branagh's. This immediately threw me off. I was not as drawn or interested as I had been for the first film. Moreover, the acting for me fell flat. Gibson as Hamlet was not convincing and I often found myself bored. The ghost scene was anticlimactic and unappealing. There was little emotion shared between the two characters and I was not as enchanted during this scene as I had been for Branagh's. In my opinion, this subtle approach to Hamlet's first ghost scene was unsuccessful.

       There were some special effects in Branagh's version. Some examples are the fog and how the ghost of Old Hamlet disappeared. The other 2 versions didn't really have any special effects. When Branagh used flashbacks it helped create visual to the death scene. The choices were pretty good and overall the movie came out nice.