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Compare and Contrast David Tennant's Hamlet and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet

735 Words3 Pages

There are many productions of Hamlet, but the two most popular are the 2009 film featuring David Tennant and the 1996 film featuring Kenneth Branagh. Overall, I believe that Hamlet was portrayed better in the movie with Kenneth Branagh, rather than the movie featuring David Tennant. One of the most significant scenes of the play is Act V Scene 2, where Claudius dies. In the Kenneth Branagh film, the costumes in this scene are very fitting of the time period of when Hamlet was alive. The men were mostly wearing tight pants with trousers and patterned jackets, while the women were all wearing colorful, poofy dresses. I feel like the costumes made the movie seem more accurate and real. The costumes made the characters look as if they were actual …show more content…

It all starts out the same whenever Hamlet wins the duel against Laertes and his mother celebrates by taking a sip of the poisoned drink. When Hamlet figures out that Claudius was the one who spiked the drink and was responsible for now both of his parents’ deaths, he decides that it is time to seek revenge. He took his sword and backed Claudius into a corner and told him to drink the poisonous drink. He nodded his head, obeying Hamlet at once. I believe that this was partly because of built-up guilt he has had ever since he killed his own brother. Ultimately, I don’t think anyone would be that willing to drink poison if they weren’t absolutely forced to. I think that realistically he would’ve put up a fight against Hamlet and refused to drink the poison, like he did in Branagh’s interpretation of events. Although the Branagh film absurdly portrays the death scene with the literal stabbing of Claudius in the back, I still believe it is the better version. I highly doubt that Claudius would have ever willingly taken a sip of the poison if he did not absolutely have to, as he did in the Tennant

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