Kenneth Branagh. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. Screenplay and Introduction. New York: W.W. Norton; London: Chatto & Windus, 1996. £12.99.
Kenneth Branagh started the recent Shakespeare revival in 1989 with his bold and inventive Henry V, which did for his career what the "classic" filmed Henry V did for Olivier forty-five years earlier. Branagh also published his screenplay (London: Chatto & Windus, 1989), along with his memoirs, titled Beginning (London: Chatto & Windus, 1989), which included a day-by-day journal he kept while making the film. Much Ado About Nothing (1993) was given a similar treatment, but this time the screenplay published by W.W. Norton included "Notes on the Making of the Movie," a "Synopsis," and a number of gorgeous color photographs by Clive Coote. Clearly, Branagh wanted interested viewers to see the verbal framework on which these films were mounted.
Given the complexity of the compounded text of his massive Hamlet (based on the Folio text augmented by the Second Quarto), Branagh has done a real service by publishing the screenplay for that film as well. The Chatto & Windus edition is illustrated with both black-and-white and color photographs. In his "Introduction," Branagh explains the process by which he, as an actor, grew into the role. In 1984 he played Laertes in the RSC production, then in 1988 he played the title role in a production directed by Derek Jacobi for the Renaissance Theatre Company; but in retrospect he described himself as "unready," producing "a hectic Hamlet, high on energy but low on subtlety and depth." When he played the lead in the RSC production in 1992 for Adrian Noble at the age of thirty-three, he felt "the part seemed at last to be 'playing me.'"
By the time Castle Rock Entertainment agreed to finance a full-length version in 1995, Branagh was ready. The style Branagh developed through his other films of Shakespeare involved a number of "principles": "a commitment to international casting; a speaking style that is as realistic as a proper adherence to the structure will allow; a period setting that attempts to set the story in a historical context that is resonant for a modern audience but allows a heightened language to sit comfortably"; and, "above all...a full emotional commitment to the characters, springing from [a] belief that they can be understood in direct, accessible relation to modern life."
The screenplay edition also includes a "Film Diary" written not by Branagh but by Russell Jackson. This runs for thirty-four
pages from 3 January when "Rehearsals Begin" to the final shoot on 13 April, replete with intimate details indicating, for example,
that Ophelia and Hamlet "have been having an affair (yes, they have been to bed together, because we want this relationship to
be as serious as possible) since the death of Hamlet senior." (In case you were wondering.) The "Film Diary" gives much
quotidian detail at Blenheim Palace and elsewhere, but it lacks the first-person dynamic of Branagh's own Henry V diary.
Reviewing the film for The Shakespeare Newsletter (46:3, No. 230, Fall 1996), John F. Andrews wrote that Branagh's
comments "turn out to be intriguingly incompatible with what one observes in the film." (Andrews also found Russell Jackson's
"Diary" both "witty" and "engaging," by the way. I was not terribly engaged, however.) Anyone interested in filmed Shakespeare
should have the illustrated screenplay of Hamlet at hand, even at the British price of £12.99.
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