Shakespeare in the Box: Gregory Doran’s Hamlet (2009)
Shakespeare in the Box: Gregory Doran’s Hamlet (2009)

Summary/Abstract: A constant in the history of film since its inception, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark has been delivered to filmgoers throughout the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries in various adaptation schemata of the three versions of the text available for free interpretation and reprocessing. While Laurence Olivier’s, Franco Zeffirelli’s and Kenneth Branagh’s acclaimed ‘multimodal rewritings’ seem to have acquired critical consensus, tens of other Hamlet films are launched regularly, placing the young Dane’s tragedy in the most unexpected settings or periods of time. A telling example is Gregory Doran’s 2009 filmed theatrical performance, which places Elsinore in a modern-day British society under constant surveillance, probably with a view to transposing the old Elizabethan habits of espionage and control of the population in a manner both accessible and relatable to the contemporary viewer. This paper contends that, by using surveillance devices, such as CCTV or hand-held cameras, and by redesigning King Hamlet’s ghost as the ultimate embodiment of the watchful eye of the (divine?) authority, the film brings to the fore the timelessness of the Shakespearean themes.

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