HAMLET (2000)

Hamlet. Michael Almereyda, dir., script (from the play by William Shakespeare). USA: double A films (prod.) / Channel Four Films, Miramax Films (dist.), 2000. Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Sam Shepard, Diane Venora, featured players. 123 min.

The film gives us maybe half the material Shakespeare wrote for various productions of Hamlet (see the 1996 K. Branagh film for a production of the conflated school text), setting the film in contemporary New York. See for surveillance—including a "wired" Ophelia—for a movie within the movie replacing Shakespeare's play within the play, and the mediation of reality through various screens and lenses (see G. Stewart's "Videology"). (RDE, 20/08/00)