Hamlet Soliloquy Speech - 1816 Words

Hamlet’s â€Å"To be, or not to be† speech is ubiquitous. From a Sesame Street lesson to a Charlie Chaplin movie to a Malcolm X speech, it is a soundbite, the epitome of acting, and a rallying cry for action. Like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Beethoven’s â€Å"Ode to Joy†, Shakespeare’s ponderous soliloquy seems to be more famous for its fame than for its merits, though it has many. How do directors and actors convince their audiences to engage with Hamlet’s words, when the audience is more inclined to be pulled into their own thoughts and ideas about the soliloquy as soon as they hear the signifier of â€Å"To be†? I will be examining approaches taken by directors and actors across the history of filmed Hamlets to create Hamlet’s famous speech, focusing on†¦show more content†¦In film, audiences are more naturally voyeurs than confidantes, so an audience for the soliloquy must be created inside of the context of the production. In Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film, the camera seems to zoom into the back of Hamlet’s head and enter his mind. A blurry focus shifting from Hamlet’s eyes’s point of view, looking at the water below, to a frame on Hamlet’s face, allows the possibility that the audience is experiencing Hamlet’s perspective, and Hamlet is having an out of body experience. This explains why the audience can still hear Hamlet’s thoughts when his lips stop moving. Then upon â€Å"perchance to dream†, the jarring musical cue, camera shift away from Hamlet’s head to a more normal frame of his entire body, and Hamletâ₠¬â„¢s opening of his eyes comprise moving outside of Hamlet’s head as he wakes from a trance. Hamlet speaks the rest of the monologue out loud, with no audience except himself and the cliffs. The shift from inside Hamlet’s mind to outside comes at the tone shift in the speech, the realization that the dreams of death are probably nightmares. Hamlet’s desire to express his thoughts about the horrors of life and death out loud is believable and natural. Since the audience has been inside of Hamlet’s mind, they are not likely to feel they are intruding upon Hamlet’s thoughts. The boundary between public and private life is erased many times in Hamlet. For example, Hamlet’s troubles and concerns come from his personalShow MoreRelatedThe Effects Of Soliloquy On Elizabethan Audience954 Words   |  4 PagesDecember 18, 2015 Impact of Soliloquy on Elizabethan Audience In William Shakespeare s revenge tragedy play Hamlet, the prevailing themes of revenge, madness, and morality were recognized by the Elizabethan audience and appealed to them. The play s central focus is on a young prince, Hamlet, who has gone through many challenges to avenge his father s death. Prince Hamlet got his revenge on his deceitful uncle, Claudius, the same man who murdered his father and married Hamlet s mother. 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