We can all feel the separation between the actual experience of being an audience member in a house to the artificiality of the whole thing. It's got so much love for the text that the movie is as close to a stage production as one could get while keeping the whole thing cinematic and grounded. I can say the same thing about A Raisin in the Sun with Sidney Poitier. Watching it as a high schooler, I appreciated and adored how much attention was being paid to the original script. I think that it gives them absolutely fabulous information into the nuances of the show, but it is just like listening to a commentary track. It was almost an element that was meant to be for the co-collaborators in the process of making this text come alive. That stage direction, although vital and interesting, wasn't for the audience. I tell parents and students that they should watch staged productions of the plays we read because plays really weren't made to be read. When I was the student experiencing Hamlet for the first time, this movie helped me understand something that I was intimidated by. But the thing is, I never came back to it until I actually had to teach Hamlet.

It was Shakespeare's longest (I'm pretty sure) play and all of it was included. But Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet was the full production. Remember, when I was in high school, the go-to version of this movie was the Mel Gibson one. I think I was just blown away at the majesty of such a thing.

Twin VHSes because the movie was so darned long. But because Julius Caesar was so overwhelming, I wanted to watch a production of it while following along in the text. I remember that Julius Caesar never really grabbed my attention, despite the fact that I teach it now. It was my second or third real Shakespeare.

My senior year teacher called me Hamlet-boy due to my obsession with Hamlet. I mean, you've had time to read it by this point. The violence is pretty tame, despite the fact that Hamlet has people dying by knife and poisoning. I don't know if the attitude was 'This isn't your dad's Hamlet.' But there it was. In fact, I'm going to say that it makes it way worse. The kinda / sorta nudity is tied to flashes of sex. PG-13 for kinda / sorta nudity and Shakespearean violence.

Hamlet full movie 1996