I was personally impressed with both versions of Hamlet, the Zeffirelli directed and the PBS movie. They were both very interesting interpretations of the play written by William Shakespeare. It was fascinating because both were the same play but were clearly very different. In the Zeffirelli version, Mel Gibson played a very good Hamlet. The scene where he confronts Ophelia and tells her that he does not love her particularly moved me. I think that it showed one very good interpretation of Hamlet, that Hamlet really did love Ophelia but was really hiding it because he knew that King Claudius and Polonius were listening in on their conversation. You can tell from parts of this scene that Mel Gibson tells Ophelia that he once loved her in a very quiet voice, but then he thinks of his uncle and the advisor eaves dropping, and he speaks in a very loud voice that he never did love her and then starts completely bashing Ophelia. It also provoked this sadness in me when he storms out of the room, Ophelia crying and holding the pendant that Hamlet gave to her in the past. In the PBS movie version, we did not see the same scene of Hamlet and Ophelia, but the fishmonger scene with Hamlet and Polonius was very amusing. I think that in this version Hamlet is really acting insane, to a point where it is extremely funny. The play is set in a more modern time, so it might have been easier to relate to. Hamlet is teasing Polonius profusely and he has a lot much energy as he does it, making it very comedic. One difference other than the energy between the two Hamlets, was that in the Zeffirelli version it was harder to tell if Hamlet was not only pretending to be mad, but actually going insane. While Hamlet was in a room where all the tombs were, his eyes would be wide open as he proclaimed his soliloquy on death, making him look quite mad. In the PBS movie, I found that Hamlet once alone did not seem to be nearly as crazy as he was around others.
