Abstract

Possibly the best known speech in the history of western theatre and literature, the third soliloquy of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark «To be or not to be» has been a compelling challenge for a number of film directors such as Laurence Olivier, Grigorij Kozincev, Tony Richardson, Kenneth Branagh and Peter Brook. In spite of this, film studies offer a surprisingly small amount of surveys about it. This paper aims at formulating a close analysis and comparison - strictly focused on the direction - of these sequences of cinematic Hamlets.