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  • 5/30/2025
Hamlet (Mel Gibson) contemplates whether it is better to fight through the troubles of this life or drift into eternal sleep.

FILM DESCRIPTION:
Franco Zeffirelli directs his third Shakespeare adaptation (after Romeo and Juliet and Otello) with this film version of the tragedy Hamlet. The titular prince of Denmark (Mel Gibson), returns home to his family's castle of Elsinore after years of attending school in Germany to find out his father has died and his uncle Claudius (Alan Bates) is the new king. To make matters worse, Claudius has married Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude (Glenn Close), whom he has unusually strong feelings for. Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost (Paul Scofield), who asks him to seek revenge for his murder. In order to find out who the real killer is, Hamlet stages a theatrical scene resembling his father's death. Claudius is upset by the production and leaves to arrange for Hamlet's murder. In the ensuing confusion, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonious (Ian Holm) instead of Claudius; Hamlet's lover, Ophelia (Helena Bonham Carter), goes mad and commits suicide; and eventually Hamlet and Claudius both meet their fate.

CREDITS:
TM & © Warner Bros. (1990)
Cast: Mel Gibson
Director: Franco Zeffirelli
Producers: Dyson Lovell, Bruce Davey
Screenwriters: Christopher De Vore, William Shakespeare, Franco Zeffirelli

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Transcript
00:01To be or not to be, that is the question.
00:08Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
00:18or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
00:21and by opposing end them, to die, to sleep no more.
00:40And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,
00:49it is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
01:01To die.
01:04To sleep.
01:12To sleep perchance to dream.
01:15Ay, is the rub.
01:20For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
01:25when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause.
01:30There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.
01:36For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
01:48the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and the spurns,
01:57that patient merit of the unworthy takes.
02:00When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin.
02:12Who would fartles bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life?
02:25To grunt and sweat under a weary life.
02:30But that the dread of something after death,
02:34the undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns, puzzles the will,
02:44and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.
02:54Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all,
03:04and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
03:12and enterprises of great pitch and moment.
03:18With this regard, their currents turn awry,
03:25and lose the name of action.
03:42And a lot of it call to the sea.
03:44So, you know how about the sea.
03:45And this is so important,
03:46so it really is
03:47you know it was the only time that we were using the sea.
03:51This is a good area that we found a lot of contribute in than your life,
03:53and it just has and sisters,
03:55and memory in the sea.
03:56But even though,
03:57I can tell you,
03:58I think you can't believe you.
04:00Let the sea.
04:02I think you can't believe it.
04:03I think you can't believe the sea.
04:04I think it's beyond the sea.
04:05So, you know what the sea.
04:06You can believe the sea.
04:08I think you can actually believe it.
04:09I think that there are a few minutes.

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