Films and books that people connect to Hamlet..

Films

1. The Lion King 
2. The Graduate
3. The Godfather
4. Gladiator (Somewhat parallels the plot of Hamlet) 

Books

(ON GOING)

SHAKESPEARE AND THE CHARACTERS

OPHELIA actresses...

Emilie Sannom - 1910
Gertrude Elliot - 1913
Muriel Pavlow - 1947 (TV)
Jean Simmons - 1948
Sarah Churchill - 1953 (TV)
Anita Bjork - 1955 (TV Swedish)
Barbara Jefford - 1959 (TV)
Dunja Mover - 1960 (TV w. German)
Jo Maxwell Muller - 1964 (TV)
Julie Harris - 1964
Linda Marsh - 1964
Marianne Faithfull - 1969 (TV)
Ciaran Madden - 1970 (TV)
Susan Fleetwood - 1972
Linda Certain - 1973 (Canadian)
Pernilla August - 1984 (TV Swedish)
Trisha Hitchcock - 1987
Mariana Denicourt - 1988 (TV French)
Helena Bonham Carter - 1990
Diane Venora - 1990
Antonia Mohr - 1994 (TV)
Kate Winslet - 1996
LindaGay Hamilton - 2000 (TV)
Julia Stiles - 2000

HAMLET actors...

Alwin NeuB - 1910
Johnston Forbes-Robertson - 1913
Jon Byron - 1947 (TV)
Sir Lawrence Oliver - 1948
Maurice Evans - 1953 (TV)
Bengt Ekerot - 1955 (TV Swedish)
HAMLET UNKNOWN- 1959 (TV)
Maximiliam Schell - 1960 (TV w. German)
Christopher Plummer - 1964 (TV)
Alfred Ryder - 1964
Richard Burton - 1964
Nicol Williamson - 1969 (TV)
Richard Chamerlain - 1970 (TV)
Ian Mckellen - 1972
Rick Mckenna - 1973 (Canadian)
Stellan Skarsgard - 1984 (TV Swedish)
HAMLET UNKNOWN - 1987
Gerard Desarthe - 1988 (TV French)
Kevin Klein - 1990
Mel Gibson - 1990
Michael Schenk - 1994 (TV)
Kennth Branaugh - 1996
Campbell Scott - 2000 (TV)
Ethan Hawke - 2000

CLAUDIUS actors...

Alfred Drake - 1964
John Woodvine - 1970 (TV)
Richard Spaul - 1987
Alan Bates - 1990
Willy Metzeler - 1994 (TV)
Derek Jacobi - 1996
Jamey Sheridan - 2000 (TV)
Kyle MacLachlan - 2000

GERTRUDE actresses...

Eileen Herlie - 1964
Faith Brook - 1970 (TV)
Melaine Revell - 1987
Glenn Close - 1990
Ingrid Birkholz- 1994 (TV)
Julie Christie - 1996
Blair Brown - 2000 (TV)
Diane Verona - 2000

Visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon

Hamlet - Trailer - The Royal Shakespeare Company

Above is the trailer of the Hamlet production we will be going to watch later today.

Themes that arose from thinking about Hamlet

• Kingship
• Murder/ revenge
• Manipulation
• Spies / secrecy / information gatehring / closed doors
• Love
• Loyalty
• Madness
• Death
• Decay
• Ambiguity / Truth / 'Seeming'
• Mistrust
• Cowardice
• Conscience ('guilt'  = 'awareness')
• Action / Inaction

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner - Nottingham Playhouse Theatre

Last night we went to watch the Kite Runner, adapted by Matthew Spangler, based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini.

'The Kite Runner is a first novel of unusual generosity, honesty and compassion'

                                                                                                - The Independent

'A devastating, masterful and painfully honest story'

                                                           - The Daily Telegraphy

'Provocative'

             - Platform Magazine 

Suitcase to Briefcase. The final installation.

 Our final piece for Claudius involved a lot of letters of emotions and guilt. Through writing our letters there was a mixture of those two feelings as well as a few soliloquies from the play We felt that the letter represent the feelings and emotions of Claudius and that there should be masses of letters which were able to have been read by the viewing audience.

At first the letters were collected together and stuck onto a piece of paper. I personally felt that this was too contained and manageable and neat to show a guilty conscience and so we then wrote more letters and bulked the shape out, having scrunched up pieces of paper and lose letters. I felt that having them glued down just wasn't realistic enough for me and that with a bigger mass of letters and paper they should look like they have mounted over time and accumulated over time.

We struggled with the suitcase, we felt that it was too old and out of place in the office enviroment. We changed over to a brief case which went with the whole office feel and brought everything together.

By having letters in the case it brought the theme together across the table and down onto the floor.

Our projections worked well. We did have to re-film the movements, Laura's black trousers did not show up in the projection because we had first used a black screen and they were not visible. We then changed the colour of the trousers which enabled us to see the whole image.

We added a desk lamp to highlight the letters, we did this to show the guilt ridden and emotion filled letters, they were visible to the audience and able to be read.

The final finished installation looked like this... 
The purple lighting added to the feeling and made the scene look a little nauseous and like somewhere that is private. 
The miniature human projections in the jars worked well, we decided to the change the black paper to brown and found that this connected nicely to the letters and paper on the desk and floor. 

Feedback: 

• People enjoyed looking at the jars and the miniature image visible. 
• They liked the idea of the letters and how they appeared and were displayed saying that it give a powerful visual impact.
• The OCD of the desk and the contrast of the out of control letters was a clear visual message.
• The audio, which we recorded, played in the room whilst it was silent, was quite strong and gave a big impact on the control and destruction.
• The lighting was enough to highlight the piece but not deform or fade the projection.
• Although we did not want the laptop in the installation we managed to make it so that the laptop and the projector integrated into the scene as office material and in use.
• Hand written letters are effective and give it stronger feeling of guilt.

Things to improve on:

• Some tutors felt that a performance piece would have improved the overall feel of the installation. (however as a group we thought that having a performance part in it, the attention of the audience would not be focused on the audio or the projection.) Although we had previously thought about the idea of our piece being a performance and didn't carry through with it, to have a better understanding of how it would work, we should have experimented by using other members of the class to get their opinion on the matter.
• We could have made more of the OCD aspect of the piece by using a bigger desk to display the desk and its arrangement.
• In hindsight we would have liked to have continued on our original idea which after many different directions we ended back at. This would have saved time, stress and confusion.
• For the presentation of the groups installations pieces, our piece was place third in the running order. Unfortunately that meant that the two pieces before ours gave an expectation to our pieces which it just didn't need. In hindsight again it should have been first as to not lead the audience on to expect something similar to the two group before.
• I personally would have liked to have more letters, on a large quantity and have them flowing out from beneath the desk, down the table, out from the briefcase and fill a large amount of room. To have such a quantity so that the audience have to walk through the piece, on the paper, kicking it as they walk through to get to the table and have a closer look at the main piece.

Technical Issues:

• Blind spot - Laptop blocked a direct view of the piece. 
• Spot light on desk did not make too much of a difference.
• Laptop was in the way, we would have preferred that the Laptop had been hidden from view.

Mark Leckey, The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things

The Nottingham Contemporary...

The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things

Today me and a flatmate went to the Nottingham Contemporary, safe to say, we defiantly had NO idea what was going to be there.

One we arrived we didn't quite understand what we were looking at. Which is when we noticed the name of the exhibition...

 

 Although I didn't really relate to the exhibition i felt it was useful to develop my understanding of culture and whats around right now.