Okay, I'm reasonably certain we haven't done anything except read and watch Hamlet. And the atmosphere exercises, but I'm going to skip over those, lest I start writing something that isn't appropriate for school like we do in class haha.
I liked the Jacobi Hamlet movie more, quite possibly because I saw it first. I thought the character of Hamlet in that movie was kind of eccentric, and I'm not sure what I imagined Hamlet to be like before seeing the movie but by the end my image of him matched Jacobi's Hamlet. The Branagh version of the film was uncomfortable. The character of Hamlet looks like he was disturbed even before his dad's death. Like a mid-2000s style emo kid. I don't like how he and Claudius look sort of albino or something. It's offputting. The cinematography of the Branagh film was kind of cheesy, in my opinion. They did a lot of closeups on eyes and mouths that I feel could have been done more tastefully, and while as a Star Wars fan I can appreciate low-quality special effects, the ones in this move just shouldn't have existed. They were low quality (the earth splitting one was hilarious) and also overused and didn't make much sense in my opinion. "Okay chasing ghost through forest let's throw some fire here, the earth splitting thing, some trees, now that same earth splitting thing again, and some more fire for good measure." It was like 7th grade video productions class all over again. And in the "To be or not to be" speech when he's talking at his reflection and he just happened to pick the mirror where Polonius and Claudius were hiding, that was cheesy. And then the end when Hamlet chucks his rapier across the room to impale Claudius, that was ridiculous. I had a lot of problems with the cinematography of the second film, and not just the characters. Oh, and also the interpretation. I didn't like Ophelia's straightjacket, and I didn't like Hamlet's emo-kid-style sensitivity. I wish I knew a less rude way to describe that. Maybe I'll come back later.
My annotations are mostly responses to the play because I don't quite recognize the significance of many DIDLS things in Hamlet. I'm beginning to get more comfortable with Elizabethan English but until I can actually understand the meaning of the sentences fully, I won't understand the importance of how they're presented. Like I said in the last course update, Ms. Holmes interjecting really made understanding the play a lot easier than trying to think myself.
I'll be honest too and say Holmes was a life-saver because the first time through I understood almost none of the things in the play. I also feel kind of bad because that means I liked being told the answer instead of thinking for myself, but I'm getting better at reading the old English too. And I will disagree about the spear throw because that was beautiful scene and cinematography was astounding.
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