Compare And Contrast Hamlet Play And Movie

The setting of the movie is the first obvious difference that can be seen. The movie was set in New York City, New York in 2000 while the play was set in Elsinore, Denmark in the late middle ages. This greatly affects the way the movie is viewed because it is essentially an entirely different world. In the movie there are video cameras, cars, phones and skyscrapers, all things that obviously weren’t around during Shakespeare’s time. Even if the movie and the play had been based in the same year, the story still would have been slightly different. The United States of America didn’t even exist during Hamlet 's lifetime. But if Hamlet had been alive in 2000 in Elsinore it would still be a different story. New York City is the second largest city

In the play, Hamlet had his uncle watch a play that he called Mousetrap and in the movie, Hamlet created a “movie” with the same name that showed how he interpreted his father’s death. The movie Hamlet made to represent his father’s death is very symbolic. It starts with an orange rose blooming and then cuts to a montage of a little boy with his caring father. After that it shows an image of the world turning but suddenly poison is being poured into a sleeping man’s ear. Once the poison has entered the man’s ear he starts staggering about until he eventually falls down and then the same rose that was once in full bloom has started to wither and die. Then some rather disturbing images are shown to represent the relationship that has grown between Hamlet’s mother and uncle, Claudius and Gertrude. Finally we see an old man place a crown upon his head (CITE). Many different ideas can be inferred from the images that were shown in the movie but one of the more powerful symbols seems to be how the rose symbolizes Hamlet’s father’s life, it starts off in full health but after he’s poisoned it

Ophelia’s character went through quite a large transformation. In the play her father tells her that she is to stay away from Hamlet and she readily agrees. In the movie Ophelia doesn’t disagree with her father but she also doesn’t agree just to please him. This shows that Ophelia isn’t easily persuaded, even by her own father. Despite her father’s warning about Hamlet, Ophelia met with him in secret at her apartment until her father found out. After their secret was discovered, Hamlet rushed out of Ophelia’s apartment and Polonius stopped Ophelia from going after him, causing her to drop the letter that Hamlet had given her. After reading the letter Polonius hurries to tell Claudius and Gertrude what he’s discovered. Polonius and Ophelia find them at their private pool, where Polonius proceeds to tell them that he thinks that Hamlet’s madness has been caused by his love for Ophelia. While her father is telling Claudius and Gertrude about his theory, Ophelia continuously tries to take the letter away from him. After finally giving up in her attempts to keep her letter private, Ophelia stands near the edge of the pool and imagines jumping in, which could point to suicidal tendencies. After Polonius finishes reading the letter Claudius, Gertrude and himself decide to use Ophelia as a spy. While her father was putting a wire on her, Ophelia had tears rolling down her face. Once the wire was in place