The Ghost Scenes

    In the first ghost scene, Gibson was chosen to portray the character Hamlet and the director was Ziffirelli. Gibson portrayed Hamlet as sarcastic and discouraged, for the fact that his mother married so quickly after his father's death. This movie was an older version that resembled the elegant and fancy lifestyle of the late 1500. The director used a huge, antique looking ballroom for the wedding of Hamlet's mother and uncle. Also, the costumes used for the actors gave the viewers the sense of style the director was going for, which was more of a classical look. Some of the special effects used in this film were smoke, little lighting, susepenseful music, darkness, etc . At the scene where Hamlet and his father's ghost talk to one another, the king was wearing a black armor. Also, his face was pale and his eyes were piercing blue, which added more affect to the whole scene. The director used visiual elements that showed how the uncle killed his brother. This helped myself and many other classmates to understand what the king meant. Overall, I liked how the characters acted, but the setting decor wasn't my favorite.
     Even though all these ghost scenes came from the same story line, the directors impressions of all of them have several differences. In Branagh's Hamlet, his vision for the film was completely different to Ziffirelli's. His style conformed to a rugged, olden style. For example, it was similar to the film Ever After. It had huge castles, the clothing were netural, darker pallets, and the movie in general more realistic. Not only was Branagh the director, but the character Hamlet as well. He acted this character fairly well. His emotions were portrayed really good, too. There weren't many special effects, nor visiual ones either. Another difference was that the ghost wasn't wearing a black armor.
     The third ghost scene was the most modern one out of all. Hamlet's character (Ethan) Hawke depicted him better than I thought he would. Acting in any movie that was written way back before an acot's time was and still is very difficult. Even though a portion of the actors and actresses in the film made it kind of akward to modernize the Shakespearen Language, Hawke did a pretty good job of making the words flow in a less forceful manner. From the short clip we saw, it didn't show much visiual scenes or much special effects. The setting was okay. In conclusion, the first and third scenes didn't capture my eyes as much as the second one.