| Hamlet, the canon of English literature and with play script as its prime media of cultural transmission, has enjoyed appropriation in cinema for almost a century. Page, stage and cinema, three main loci of disseminating Hamletian canonicity, have been rivaling not for cultural prominence, but cooperating for cultural multiplicity. However, Alvin Kernan in 1990 announced the death of literature and attributed this to the "emptying out" of literature in post-industrial era by structuralists, deconstructionists, cultural materialists, new historicists, Marxists and feminists, for social and political causes. The process of this "emptying out" for social and political causes can be equated to the process of literary appropriation which is omnipresent in almost all schools of criticism. By focusing on the issue of film appropriation, the thesis endeavors to charge two film appropriations of Hamlet by Laurence Olivier and Michael Almereyda with significance and dialogue, through the analysis of their appropriation strategies, thereby countering and amplifying Kernan's thesis.These appropriation strategies relates significantly to the idiosyncrasy of the media of stage and cinema. By studying the two filmic Hamlets, the thesis will also shed some light on the idiosyncrasy of stage and cinema by discussing topics such as intertextuality, mise-en-scene, filmic techniques, etc. Moreover, the thesis will explore the rationale of these strategies in the two films' corresponding juncture of criticism and explore how the Zeitgeist of each film is echoed and integrated. The case study could also help demonstrate that Hamletian film appropriation adds vitality and cultural resonance to the original play and thus propels the further and detailed study of the original one. |
