Hamlet Literary Essay

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Hamlet Literary Essay The production of Hamlet by Gregory Doran is very modern. He uses many strategies to give the Elizabethan play a 21 century spin. The movie was made in 2009 (IMDb), and targets an audience that is very technologically inclined as well as impatient. The movie was made to look almost like a TV show. In IV.iv.2-69, Hamlet has a very dramatic soliloquy that is very effective for the impatient and technologically inclined audience. Gregory Doran directed his production in a way that is different than any other production; he took a risk and made it as modern as possible, without losing the essence of Shakespeare to target a younger audience. A younger audience tends to be more impatient with the content of their movies and TV shows; Doran uses this to his advantage, knowing that it is typically the younger audience that watches TV and videos. By having a strong and familiar cast, he draws the viewer into the video and keeps their attention by moving scenes around and subtracting unnecessary lines. In the rather dramatic soliloquy, Doran cuts out almost half of the lines. He does this to get his point across fast, and easy. He knows that the works of Shakespeare are already hard to understand, especially for a younger audience, so he takes the most important lines and uses those. He keeps the attention of the audience and still is able to keep the Shakespearian feel to the play. Although the Shakespearian feel was definitely effected by having a very modern twist. In the soliloquy, Hamlet films himself with a camera. The production itself was very technologically based, but by using the camera in the speech, it elevated the importance of the scene. Doran did this because he knew that the audience knows that if something is recorded, it implies that it is important or worthwhile to keep. By placing the camera in the speech it made the audience
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