Thursday, November 14, 2013

Hamlet goes Criminal Minds Style

I have chosen to translate Hamlet into the show Criminal Minds. If you haven't seen this tv show before it is about a FBI team of profilers who predict the killers mental state by how he or she  kills and acts. They get asked to take on several different cases all around the world. They receive extremely difficult serial killer cases, kid abductions, arsonists, ritualistic cases, etc. Since some scenes in Hamlet have turned to killing scenes of one another to either take their power and lives or by self defenses think ing it was someone else I have chosen to translate it into Criminal Minds.

The FBI team have received a call to fly to England for two different cases they think are related by either the same killer or two different people that have been recently become a family by marriage. The agents Derick, Hotch, Spencer Reed, Jennifer, and their computer geek Penelope Garcia are profiling the killers of why they were to kill these people and Garcia would look into there background and find anything fishy. They finally get there and study the two murders. The first murder is someone who killed the former king of Enlgand who had a family of a wife and son Hamlet and a brother Claudius. The people of England were devastated they lost there great king and soon then the late kings wife married his brother Claudius which made Cluadius now the new king, which made the profilers suspicious that maybe the brother had something to do with it. They then got notified that someone killed the old and new kings' advisor Polonius. They profiled that there was two murders in the same kings palace that either there was a serial killer or two different people are murders, but they were definitely two cases to look at together. They collected evidence and witnesses all in the royal home of the king which made the case stronger. They evidentially found a witness that saw Claudius with Hamlet which was last one to see the King in his garden minutes before he died and the found the poison that he used to kill the king in his room. They arrested the new king and the wife Gertrude was crushed and confused. They solved one case and one more to go. They profiled who the killer was and new it was Hamlet the son of the king. They thought it was father like son kind of thing. Derick Morgan went with Jennifer to speak to wife Gertrude because they thought she will be Hamlets next victim because she betrayed Hamlet and her former husband.

I chose Act 3 Scene 4 because it is the murder scene of Hamlet killing Polonius out of self defense thinking it was Claudius hiding and listening to him and his mothers' conversation. Derick and Jennifer about to walk in the room where they were told Gertrude was with Hamlet, so they are running with there guns out ready to go into the room. They here Gertrude say "What will you do. Murder me?" They break down the door and come upon Hamlet with a knife around Polonius' neck and kills him. Hamlet convinces them that it is out of self defense because Polonius was hiding and listening to there conversation then he attacked him. Derick and Jenniffer convince Hamlet to put the knife down and they arrest him. They solved both murders in a few days and heading home. Hamlet was interviewed and he told them everything, that he was to avenge his fathers wishes and kill Cladius from killing him but he never got the chance he was waiting for the right moment. This is just another case they solved, and I hope you liked my version of Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4 Criminal Minds Style.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

compare and contrast


I am comparing and contrasting these two videos of the same "To be or not to be" soliloquy by Hamlet.



First video: Hamlet to be or not to be- Kenneth Branagh



Second video: To be or not to be Hamlet movie clip


This first youtube video is definitely more formal than the second. He portrays himself very angry and out for revenge in the first one. The videos are showed in two different settings. The first setting is very fancy and looks like he is in a palace and towards the end you see Ophelia. You don't see Ophelia at all in the second video and it is showed in a basement of a castle or even a cemetery looking over his father's tomb. In the second video Hamlet looks like he either has self pity, remorse or sadden by what his uncle has become and now knowing what he needs to do to accomplish his fathers' commands. They both are citing the same soliloquy, but it is portrayed differently. The video I imagined the play to be portrayed would have to be the first one because I just read him as being angry in the scene and Ophelia was there towards the end which made more sense to me. But overall both videos  showed Hamlet in two different ways and two different ways to portray the soliloquy.