Where do you think Branagh stands with respect to the issue of Hamlet's madness. To my mind, he presents a fully controled Hamlet. Does anyone think otherwise?

-- Oren Morali (o_ben_i@hotmail.com), July 22, 2004

Answers

He doesn't portray Hamlet as mad certainly. But there are times when Branagh's Hamlet loses his self-control through anger, I think.

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), July 22, 2004.

I agree that Hamlet is not insane at all. He in fact tells Horatio and others that he will "put an antic disposition on". But I also agree that he loses it at times, not from insanity however.

This is why the play is so great, and why Branagh's the best version, because in its uncut form, we can see all the character movement. Hamlet's great soliloquy "How all occasions do inform against me" is often cut, much to the detrement of our understanding.

Here he sees an impending battle, where the numbered dead could not be buried in the land under dispute, and he berates himself for not being this way.

Of course he's not! He's a true modern hero, perhaps the first ever in literature (certainly the most famous). He's not a Medieval warlord, but instead a Renaissance person. We see this all the time in the play, as he's paralleled by Laertes.

-- Sam W (sam@waas.us), August 07, 2004.