Hamlet's Renaissance Journey

Hamlet, a talented painter, lives in the heart of Venice during its prime, the Renaissance. Hamlet is a young artist whose apprentices, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, have betrayed him and have sided with Hamlet’s new patron, Claudius. But before Claudius had entered Hamlet’s life, his mother, Gertrude, was only a lowly potter years ago with a brave warrior husband. Then everything changed when Hamlet’s father was killed in combat and Claudius, who attends many of the fallen soldiers’ funerals, noticed a beautiful potter who was now a widow. At that moment, Claudius decided to ease her pain with wealth and love by marrying her and giving the poor young artist, Hamlet, a real career. At least, this is what Hamlet believed. He soon realized, due to his father’s ghost, that Claudius had killed Hamlet’s father and threw him into a battlefield to make it see as if Hamlet’s father died in combat. He murdered Hamlet’s father because a couple of days before the murder, Claudius had passed by the bread lines where free bread was handed out to the poor who could not afford food and saw the most beautiful and attractive women he had ever seen. Once Hamlet learns of his father’s murder, his life changes radically.

After Hamlet’s encounter with his father’s ghost, he decides to act insane so no one suspects him on any future actions and so people would leave him alone to plan the revenge and murder of his patron Claudius. To keep people away from him and to fool his patron into thinking he has gone crazy, Hamlet meets up with the daughter to the treasurer of Claudius, Ophelia. Ophelia’s father, the treasurer, Polonius, has recently forbidden her to speak to her love, Hamlet, in fear she might fall to deeply in love. Ophelia defies her father to meet with Hamlet, but he is not what she expects. Before she can say a word of how much she loves him, Hamlet whips out a paintbrush and begins to paint her on the wall. He doesn’t respond to any of her questions and has a crazed look in his eyes. As Hamlet paints, Ophelia notices his colors don’t match and his portrait looks amateurish, and she looks deformed. Hamlet, as she knew him, was a perfectionist and wanted everything to match. Ophelia knew something was wrong with him and fled as he breathed heavly and continued to scratch the wall with his dry, colorless paintbrush.

The Struggle

In Oliver’s Hamlet film (1948), the “To be or not to be” soliloquy portrays Hamlet contemplating his own fate at the ocean’s edge. Hamlet speaks slowly, carefully to show how he is making one of the greatest decisions of his life and to make sure every word is with purpose and strong meaning. His voice makes every word thump in your mind like a heart, beating. Hamlet’s distant glare expresses himself deep in thought, deciding whether to sin, commit suicide, or to continue living his miserable life. Oliver mainly focused on the auditory portrayal of the speech while Kenneth Branagh focuses on the visual portrayal of the speech.

Kenneth Branagh portrays Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy in King Claudius’ home. Hamlet, like Oliver’s Hamlet, speaks slowly to emphasize the importance of each word but also uses visual means to depict the soliloquy. The mirror Hamlet stares into during the speech shows his indecisiveness in deciding his own fate because he uses his reflection to watch himself and judge if he deserves to live or die. He later pulls out his dagger and taps the mirror as if wanting to strike himself down yet knowing he cannot. While Hamlet emphasizes his words with a slow, carefull tone, he still uses visuals to get his main interpretation across.

In my opinion, Branagh’s display of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy truly encapsulated Hamlet’s struggle to either kill himself or continue living his tortuous life. Branagh’s Hamlet not only convinced me Hamlet was making one of the biggest decisions of his life but also showed me the reasonability of Hamlet and his powerful words.