Hamlet Blog Post 3

The famous 'To Be or Not to Be' speech is William Shakespeare's Hamlet deals heavily with two central questions: what is life's purpose, and is it worth living for? Hamlet uses various metaphors, harsh diction, and heavy reliance on logos in his soliloquy to give the reader or viewer insight to his thoughts. In the use of these metaphors, Hamlet compares life and death, relating life to labor and death to sleep. The comparison of life and labor is filled with violent and angry diction, which in turn reveals his frustrated tone. Statements such as, "who would fardles bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life," (3.1.79) show the defeated spirit Hamlet has taken on, as he wrestles with whether his life is worth living or not. A stark contrast in his comparison of death and slumber follow this description, showing his preference towards death, describing it simply as,"to die, to sleep- no more," (3.1.67). This description, along with the list of flaws he finds in humanity, "th' oppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely, pangs of despised love[...] and the spurs that patient merit of the unworthy takes,"(3.1.71-76) show his strong desire for death instead of life. While his internal struggle does arrive at this conclusion, he does concede that the unknowns of death, "give us pause," (3.1.69), and thinking too much about it will make him weak. This concession allows him to reason further that death is preferable, his logic and imagery supporting this opinion. In the first film adaptation of the soliloquy, the director places Hamlet alone in a room, with no other sound than that of his speech. This allows the viewer to focus on what is being said, and focus on Hamlets appearance. The camera looks right past his shoulder, into the reflection in the mirror he stands before, so that his speech may be aligned with his facial expressions and posture, which build on the intense mood. In the second film adaptation, the director uses rapidly changing camera angles and quick, high pitched music to create a bumbling, intense mood. The film itself is in black and white, as the camera alternates between Hamlet and the crashing ocean looming under him. The crashing waves add to the intensity, the quickening of the pace of the music and volume of Hamlet speech matching the size of the waves. In the third adaptation, the director uses a large, dark cave-like room as the setting, the dark of the room matching the black of Hamlets clothes. The only sound is Hamlet speaking, as he travels around the caverns, observing the dusty statues. The camera follows him around this room, nearly always trained on his face so the viewer can see the facial expressions and motions he makes. In the fourth adaptation, the setting is in a blockbuster video store. There is music in the background, as well as the sound of the videos playing. Although the camera follows hamlet, Hamlet never speaks; rather, the speech is non-diagetic, as his thoughts are presented as a voice over. The most effective film was the first film, due to the focus and setting of the film. Details were simple, there was not much movement, the focus was never off of Hamlet. There was no music competing with his voice, and the camera angle allowed the viewer to see Hamlet as a whole; his motions, posture, and expressions. The second film was too confused, all over the place and inconsistent. The focus was not always on Hamlet, and was distracting for this reason. The third was not so bad, though the first allowed the viewer to focus on Hamlet more. And the fourth film did not fit e essence of Hamlet in any way.