To judge the full influence of director Kenneth Branagh on his version of Hamlet, one must look instead at another contribution he made to the film which resulted in what is easily one of the ten oddest Academy Award nominations of all time. Branagh was not nominated for Best Director, but was nominated (against an especially tough field) for Best Adapted Screenplay. The overwhelming bulk of the screenplay (and almost all of its dialogue) is taken directly from Shakespeare. And yet Branagh was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside the screenwriters of Trainspotting and The English Patient as well as Billy Bob Thornton and Arthur Miller.
While it is odd to have a Shakespearean movie receive a nomination for this award, that is not to say it wasn’t earned. Branagh set out to do something that literally had never been done before: making a film version of the unabridged, uncut, unedited Hamlet. Not only that, but he also incorporated original text inspired by or alluding to scenes which Shakespeare describes, but does not portray. This includes flashbacks as well a more expansive rendition of the romance between Hamlet and Ophelia.
Branagh also made other significance changes to the text, beginning with the most obvious: its update to the 19th century. In connection with that alteration is another revolutionary approach to shooting the play about the melancholy Dane. He’s still melancholy, to be sure, but his melancholia for one of the first times ever takes place not amid the morose atmosphere of a darkly lit Elsinore Castle, but within great flourishes of color and décor. This effect is intensified by Branagh’s unusual decision to shoot not in 35mm but 65mm. The result is a sharp crispness that almost verges on 4K well before such a thing began regularly appearing in the homes of the average American. With a running time in excess of four hours, the grandeur of the sets and colors makes this truly deserving of the honor of being the first “epic” adaptation of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. Heck, of most famous tragedy ever written.
Because Branagh was so intensely in adapting the screenplay, his directorial influence can be seen in literally every scene. For instance, the decision to film a flashback not found in the original text of a young Yorick without dialogue. Perhaps the most brilliant manifestation of Branagh’s directorial hand guiding the production are the many long, unbroken takes which follows the camera through the castle that recalls Kubrick's long takes in The Shining, except that Branagh's were not done using a Steadicam. Especially by the 1990’s such long takes had become quite rare in Hollywood movies as the age of the sublime quick edit ushered in the age of the ridiculous quick edit with movie upon movie including individual shots lasting as short as a second or two. (Check out Oliver Stone’s JFK to see this method at its most effective and Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers to see this method as its most excessive.) The consequence of Branagh choosing to break from MTV-style editing to Orson Welles-style composition and camera movement is effective on many levels including standing out from the crowd, but mostly because these long camera movements ultimately have the sense of being like the stage play Hamlet is.
Remarkably, Branagh’s directorial influence is not only one of the most breathtaking cinematic events in the history of adapting Shakespeare, but it is also succeeds in seeming like a filmed-play without all the downsides of actually trying to film a live performance.
