I would be seeing it right now, except I must at any moment be ready to change a stinky diaper. Alas! At least my reason for not seeing it has some thematic resonance (though hopefully not too much).
Was Shakespeare bad-bad, or just not Shakespeare-good?
The flood scene was filmed in Weobley, a truly wonderful medieval village just down the road from where I live. Well worth a visit.
As to Hamlet, there is the opportunity to see it as as spider-graph of every play he wrote before and after. I wont list them all, but Macbeth expands idea of time, opportunity, ‘rest is silence’. Lear expands ideas of love v duty. The play within a play echoes the opening of Henry V, and Macbeth and As You Like It, and The Dream. Hamlet opens a question Prospero replies to in ‘we are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little lives are rounded by a sleep’. Othello expands on ideas of jealously unreasonably held (and what is more unreasonable than the Oedipal Hamlet?). The Player King is exposed in the nature of ‘playing king’ without self-awareness in Richard II. And thus it continues. As if everything before poured through a black hole of Hamlet and spewed out into everything after.
Is Hamnet true. No; or at least we don’t know. But extraordinary art in grief is. Raymond Briggs lost his parents and his wife the year before he wrote The Snowman… and it shows, in the most beautiful poignant way.
I noticed in the credits that Hamnet and Hamlet were played by Jacobi and Noah Jupe. I was impressed that they cast brothers and no one seems to have made a big deal of it.
I love knowing that! I saw a resemblance and wondered how long it took the casting directors to match the two characters. Maybe it was as simple as the elder driving the younger to the audition!
“Hamnet” is a colossal failure. Only Shakespeare’s wife (Jessie Buckley) gives a superb performance amidst a jumbled, cherry-picked, incomprehensible script that plays havoc with the book’s narrative and purpose. How disappointing! If you read the book, you might like it a tiny bit more and fill in the holes left by the editor, director and scriptwriter. Or you might like it even less, and wonder how the author of the novel, a collaborator on the production, allowed this director to maul her novel and make a mockery of cinematic literacy. Good sets and Max Richter music, though.
I read the book and have seen the movie and agree with your take! The atmospherics of the movie are really what carry the day. Your point about the dialogue rings true for me, and it prompts a question I often find myself asking, ESPECIALLY when I'm watching some from Netflix. Why, when these companies spend so much money and time on scenery, costumes, crew, etc., do they not pay a couple of extra writers to take a second pass at these scripts? I understand not caring about the dialogue, but writers really don't cost that much. And, I mean, *while you're waiting* for the movie to start, you could give someone *three days* to tighten things up. I guess they just care so little that they don't bother. Harumph. But yes, pretty movie. :)
Yes, I thought the Globe scene made up for what felt like a very self-consciously “important so I must Act” movie. There was a lot of obvious portents of doom, and I felt you knew it was sad rather than felt genuinely sad, if that makes sense. But films are never as good as the books and I did think Jessie Buckley was excellent. There was too much of Shakespeare, which I suspected would be the case when I saw the casting. A good enough effort but rereading isa better experience.
It’s interesting because it takes largely the same view – that they must have cared for each other and losing Hamnet was catastrophic/a catalyst. I’d be interested what you think! Kenneth Branagh directed and Ben Elton wrote it. It feels like he had some things that bothered him when researching his Shakespeare comedy that he wanted to explore
It was splendid as an audiobook (https://libro.fm/player/9780593212141) and a perfect December listen for me a couple years ago, during a difficult time. Highly recommend. Eager now to see the movie, thanks for the prompt.
A fabulous novel! I surprised myself with how much i enjoyed it, as i promptly told my daughter, who gave it to me, ‘but it’s in present tense!’
Rather sad, tho, that novels are somehow deemed more noteworthy if they get transformed into film….
Hamnet is one of the few books I wish I could read again for the first time. And I can't wait to see the movie.
Having enjoyed the book so much, I don't know if I want to see the movie...
Loved the book, which I read during lockdown.
I would be seeing it right now, except I must at any moment be ready to change a stinky diaper. Alas! At least my reason for not seeing it has some thematic resonance (though hopefully not too much).
Was Shakespeare bad-bad, or just not Shakespeare-good?
bad bad!
bummer-bummer
I think I'm the only person in the world who didn't enjoy this book. Sigh.
The flood scene was filmed in Weobley, a truly wonderful medieval village just down the road from where I live. Well worth a visit.
As to Hamlet, there is the opportunity to see it as as spider-graph of every play he wrote before and after. I wont list them all, but Macbeth expands idea of time, opportunity, ‘rest is silence’. Lear expands ideas of love v duty. The play within a play echoes the opening of Henry V, and Macbeth and As You Like It, and The Dream. Hamlet opens a question Prospero replies to in ‘we are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little lives are rounded by a sleep’. Othello expands on ideas of jealously unreasonably held (and what is more unreasonable than the Oedipal Hamlet?). The Player King is exposed in the nature of ‘playing king’ without self-awareness in Richard II. And thus it continues. As if everything before poured through a black hole of Hamlet and spewed out into everything after.
Is Hamnet true. No; or at least we don’t know. But extraordinary art in grief is. Raymond Briggs lost his parents and his wife the year before he wrote The Snowman… and it shows, in the most beautiful poignant way.
I noticed in the credits that Hamnet and Hamlet were played by Jacobi and Noah Jupe. I was impressed that they cast brothers and no one seems to have made a big deal of it.
I love knowing that! I saw a resemblance and wondered how long it took the casting directors to match the two characters. Maybe it was as simple as the elder driving the younger to the audition!
“Hamnet” is a colossal failure. Only Shakespeare’s wife (Jessie Buckley) gives a superb performance amidst a jumbled, cherry-picked, incomprehensible script that plays havoc with the book’s narrative and purpose. How disappointing! If you read the book, you might like it a tiny bit more and fill in the holes left by the editor, director and scriptwriter. Or you might like it even less, and wonder how the author of the novel, a collaborator on the production, allowed this director to maul her novel and make a mockery of cinematic literacy. Good sets and Max Richter music, though.
I read the book and have seen the movie and agree with your take! The atmospherics of the movie are really what carry the day. Your point about the dialogue rings true for me, and it prompts a question I often find myself asking, ESPECIALLY when I'm watching some from Netflix. Why, when these companies spend so much money and time on scenery, costumes, crew, etc., do they not pay a couple of extra writers to take a second pass at these scripts? I understand not caring about the dialogue, but writers really don't cost that much. And, I mean, *while you're waiting* for the movie to start, you could give someone *three days* to tighten things up. I guess they just care so little that they don't bother. Harumph. But yes, pretty movie. :)
Yes, I thought the Globe scene made up for what felt like a very self-consciously “important so I must Act” movie. There was a lot of obvious portents of doom, and I felt you knew it was sad rather than felt genuinely sad, if that makes sense. But films are never as good as the books and I did think Jessie Buckley was excellent. There was too much of Shakespeare, which I suspected would be the case when I saw the casting. A good enough effort but rereading isa better experience.
Loved the book, disappointed by the RSC stage adaptation. Will be interested to see if I prefer the film.
Have you seen All Is True, which is about Shakespeare and Anne’s later life?
no…
It’s interesting because it takes largely the same view – that they must have cared for each other and losing Hamnet was catastrophic/a catalyst. I’d be interested what you think! Kenneth Branagh directed and Ben Elton wrote it. It feels like he had some things that bothered him when researching his Shakespeare comedy that he wanted to explore
It was splendid as an audiobook (https://libro.fm/player/9780593212141) and a perfect December listen for me a couple years ago, during a difficult time. Highly recommend. Eager now to see the movie, thanks for the prompt.
Am looking forward to the movie and the novel which I have yet to read. Will also use this as an opportunity to reread Hamlet …