Hamlet

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Buy This Item Hamlet by Warner Home Video  Available from Amazon  $9.99  on 11-3-2008     Treachery. Madness. Murder. The story of Hamlet has been told for 400 yearsbut it's never been told like this! Mel Gibson (the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon films) takes on his richest part to date, the title role in a dynamic new version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo and Juliet, Jesus of Nazareth), the location-shot production has a sumptuous look that won Academy Award nominations for Art Direction and Costume Design. Gibson plays the prince of medieval-era Denmark, who senses treachery behind his royal father's death. Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons) plays Hamlet's mother Gertrude, all too dangerously entangled in that treachery. A brilliant supporting cast, including Alan Bates as Claudius, Paul Scofield as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Ian Holm as Polonius and Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia, adds its powerful presence to this immortal tale of high adventure and evil deeds. Big, bold and heroic, this is a vivid and virile Hamlet for the modern age and all time. Reader Reviews Mel Gibson won me over. Hamlet was produced by Franco Zeffirelli, the guy behind Romeo and Juliet 22 years earlier. Great color, grays and browns from the Middle Ages. Shakespeare biographies are sketchy. William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-the-Avon in 1564. Stratford is 100 miles from London. Avon is the river. He married Anne Hathaway and had three children. He moved to London and established himself as a playwright. His plays were staged at the Globe. Hamlet is the best, written in 1601. It deals with revenge, procrastination and insanity. Hamlet puts on an "antic disposition" as he delays avenging his father's murder. The real issue is death. Why do we have to die? Why live at all if we must die? Shakespeare died in 1616 at age 52. His 36 plays divide into tragedies, comedies, histories and problem plays. Characters drop like flies in the tragedies.

Hamlet Available from Amazon Price: $9.99 Updated on 11-3-2008.

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