Cinematography In Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet

Hamlet is a play written by William Shakespeare in 1601. This tragedy is about Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, morning over the death of his father and extracting revenge on his uncle who murdered his father. This essay is evaluating the iconic scene where Hamlet meets his dead father and his father tells him of his uncle's betrayal. These 2 scenes will be evaluated on the quality of cinematography: music, acting, and camera work.
In Kenneth Branagh's version of the meeting, the music stands out as the piece de résistance, it’s flush with what is happening in the scene and furthers the atmosphere. When seeing the ghost for the first time there is a loud bang to announce his presence, just before the ghost speaks there is a break in the otherwise lively soundtrack to build suspense, when the ghost is flashing back to when he was alive the music goes from one of undying tension to a more sympathetic tone with softer and longer notes versus short and sharp one and then single sad violin on the memory of his wife. The music helps tell the story and shows emotions of the scene. The acting of the characters was less impressive.
Hamlet, who was played by Kenneth Braggs, could performing lines and look scared but never showed any other emotions, even when the pivotal plot twist is revealed. …show more content…
The ghost is shot from an upwards angle giving him the illusion of dominance that towers over hamlet, which is a nice moment in the narrative. When the directors try to throw in interesting shots like, zooming in on the ghost's lips or shooting, just the actors eyes its distracting because the audience is so accustomed to shot-reverse-shot. It seemed like they tried to fix this with throwing in flashbacks but those fit bulkily into the scene. Overall Kenneth Bragg's version of Hamlet had basic camera work, okay acting, and fantastic music concluding in an okay level of