Olivia’s Blog

Dear Mr. Branagh,

Although I did not get to watch much of your performance in Hamlet (because I was absent the days we watched in class) I thought what I did see was ok. I started watching it right before the big death scene in the end and so I did not get to see how your character acted throughout the movie. From what I saw you were a decent actor but could tone it down a little bit. You got a little cheesy when it came time for the fight scene. In the book this was a time where it was extremely serious and captivating, but when I watched you play it out you seemed to be all over the place having way too many emotions at once.

And I did not see hamlet as being that blonde! I know it is stereotypical or what not but you just do not look like that Hamlet I had imagined while reading it. I imagined a tall guy with dark hair and pretty build. And you seemed sort of small, with white/ blonde hair and kind of too skinny! The death scene you played in also seemed way too fake. I mean come on it is Shakespeare! This is supposed to be one of the most gruesome deaths of all plays and you some how made it mediocre and childish. I mean come on swinging from the banister right after you threw your sword off the balcony and happened to hit the king directly through the back pinning him to the thrown. You took it wayyyyyyyy too far. And you didn’t seem to really care when your own mother died. You maybe had a sad emotion for about a minute then soon forgot about that and went back to fighting. If that had happened in real life you would have done a lot more then just look sad for a minute then what you portrayed in this movie. Sorry I kind of bashed you, but maybe if you had been a brunette or a little more built I would have thought differently of you.

Dear Mr. Beale,

            I actually enjoyed listening along to your voice while reading the play. It made it so much easier to understand hamlet that way! I tried reading ahead at home but I completely got really confused and had no idea what the characters were saying. Well it also did make it easier because we would pause it and talk about the parts that confused us but still your reading of it was perfect! I liked the different voices you did for each character. Especially because I got use to your voice so I would know which character was which just by the sound of your voice.

            One thing I didn’t like about you reading along with us was that you didn’t have enough emotion. I think when it came to times where it was supposed to feel sad or extremely anxious you didn’t portray it enough so I would get lost and think I was on the wrong part. Or else sometimes you wouldn’t have emotion at all and it would just put me to sleep… literally one day I actually fell asleep because your voice bored me so much. But overall I really enjoyed doing this with our Shakespeare reading and you really did help me a lot with understanding what was going in the book! THANK YOU!!!