Branagh's Portrayal of Hamlet

  

The director Kenneth Branagh's take on Hamlet in act one scene five of William Shakespeare's Hamlet is very peculiar in how he explains he carries out Hamlet's emotions. When Branagh discusses the topic of Hamlet seeing his father again in spiritual form he claims that it is hard for an actor to capture all of Hamlets emotions because no actor really knows what it is like to have your uncle murder your father and then steal his throne and his queen. Branagh also claims that he and his actor playing Hamlet tried to incorporate all of the feelings and emotions that they could. When i finally watched the scene that Branagh was discussing i was mostly just surprised. The entire time the apparition is talking Hamlet just sits there with a seemingly blank face that had little to no emotion at all. I was expecting some dramatic scene were Hamlet completely freaks out when he finds out that his father was killed by his brother but all Hamlet has to say is "O, my prophetic soul! My uncle!". (1.5 48) Branagh however does do an amazing job with the portrayal of the ghost.He makes the ghost scary but most of all i think he did an outstanding job on the way that the ghost tells Hamlet the horrid facts. The actor is at first some what speaking very loudly but when he starts to describe the scene where he was murdered he uses a very soft whisper as if setting up for a sudden loud outburst from Hamlet which of course doesn't happen. I think that because the way the ghost was portrayed it made Hamlet seem that much less emotional and also made it a lot easier for the person viewing the scene to pick up this lack of emotion as well.