Hamlet (1996 Branagh) NTSC Complete ISO Disk 1.iso

Video Codec..........: MPEG-2 
Video Bitrate........: 4131kbps 
Duration.............: 2:25:47
Resolution...........: 720*480 
Framerate............: 29.970 
Filesize.............: 4,510,154,752 

Hamlet (1996 Branagh) NTSC Complete ISO Disk 2.iso 


Video Codec..........: MPEG-2 
Video Bitrate........: 3677kbps 
Duration.............: 2:43:46
Resolution...........: 720*480 
Framerate............: 29.970 


***NOTE*** - There are already multiple various rips of this film about, but I could not find one of DVD5 NTSC DVD-R, which is the basic American standard. If you prefer PAL or Blu-Ray, there are other torrents available. Each ISO is complete, minus FBI warnings and such. Ripped and tested with DVDFab.

 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/
 
http://image.bayimg.com/babicaadb.jpg
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_%281996_film%29


The film features a large number of celebrity cameos. The servant Reynaldo, who appears only briefly in a single scene and is often left out of abridged versions of the play, is played by French star Gerard Depardieu, and other appearances by well-known actors include Charlton Heston as the First Player, Robin Williams as the courtier Osric, Richard Attenborough as the English Ambassador, Brian Blessed as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Jack Lemmon as Marcellus, the palace guard, Billy Crystal as the gravedigger, and Rufus Sewell plays Fortinbras. The flashbacks and dream sequences even allow for celebrities appearing in non-speaking roles as characters who are only mentioned in the play: Sir John Gielgud and Dame Judi Dench play Priam and Hecuba (mentioned in the monologue performed by the First Player on his arrival at Elsinore), John Mills plays "Old Norway", uncle of Fortinbras (mentioned by Claudius and Voltemand), and British comedian Ken Dodd plays Yorick.

In addition to the film stars, the motion picture also features British theatre stars in tiny roles: for example; Simon Russell Beale plays the second gravedigger, Ray Fearon plays the guard Francisco, Ian McElhinney is Barnardo, and Jeffrey Kissoon plays Fortinbras's captain.

Interpretation

Aspects of the film's staging are based on Adrian Noble's recent Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play, in which Branagh had played the title role.[3]

In a radical departure from previous Hamlet films, Branagh set the internal scenes in a vibrantly colourful setting, featuring a throne room dominated by mirrored doors; film scholar Samuel Crowl calls the setting "film noir with all the lights on."[4] Branagh chose Victorian era costuming and furnishings, using Blenheim Palace, built in the early 18th century, as Elsinore Castle for the external scenes. Harry Keyishan has suggested that the film is structured as an epic, courting comparison with Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments and Doctor Zhivago.[5] As J. Lawrence Guntner points out, comparisons with the latter film are heightened by the presence of Julie Christie (Zhivago's Lara) as Gertrude.[6]

Despite using a full text, Branagh's film is also very visual; it makes frequent use of flashbacks to depict scenes that are either only described but not performed in Shakespeare's text, such as Hamlet's childhood friendship with Yorick, or scenes only implied by the play's text, such as Hamlet's sexual relationship with Kate Winslet's Ophelia.[7] The film also uses very long single takes for numerous scenes.

Branagh's own interpretation of the title role, by his own admission, was considerably less "neurotic" than others; gone completely was the Oedipal fixation so prominently featured in Olivier's 1948 film. However, some critics, such as Leonard Maltin, felt that Branagh's performance was at times too "over-the top" (in the scenes in which Hamlet pretends to be insane, Branagh portrayed the Prince as manic; other members of the court are visibly exasperated by his behavior).

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete

Riz Abbasi	... 	Attendant to Claudius
Richard Attenborough	... 	English Ambassador
David Blair	... 	Attendant to Claudius
Brian Blessed	... 	Ghost of Hamlet's Father
Kenneth Branagh	... 	Hamlet
Richard Briers	... 	Polonius
Michael Bryant	... 	Priest
Peter Bygott	... 	Attendant to Claudius
Julie Christie	... 	Gertrude
Billy Crystal	... 	First Gravedigger
Charles Daish	... 	Stage Manager
Judi Dench	... 	Hecuba
Gérard Depardieu	... 	Reynaldo
Reece Dinsdale	... 	Guildenstern
Ken Dodd	... 	Yorick
Angela Douglas	... 	Attendant to Gertrude
Rob Edwards	... 	Lucianus
Nicholas Farrell	... 	Horatio
Ray Fearon	... 	Francisco
Yvonne Gidden	... 	Doctor
John Gielgud	... 	Priam
Rosemary Harris	... 	Player Queen
Charlton Heston	... 	Player King
Ravil Isyanov	... 	Cornelius
Derek Jacobi	... 	Claudius
Rowena King	... 	Attendant to Gertrude
Jeffery Kissoon	... 	Fortinbras's Captain
Sarah Lam	... 	Attendant to Gertrude
Jack Lemmon	... 	Marcellus
Ian McElhinney	... 	Barnardo
Michael Maloney	... 	Laertes
John Spencer-Churchill	... 	Fortinbras's Captain (as Duke of Marlborough)
John Mills	... 	Old Norway
Jimi Mistry	... 	Sailor Two
Sian Radinger	... 	Prologue
Melanie Ramsey	... 	Prostitute
Simon Russell Beale	... 	Second Gravedigger
Andrew Schofield	... 	Young Lord
Rufus Sewell	... 	Fortinbras
Timothy Spall	... 	Rosencrantz
Thomas Szekeres	... 	Young Hamlet (as Tom Szekeres)
Ben Thom	... 	First Player
Don Warrington	... 	Voltimand
Perdita Weeks	... 	Second Player
Robin Williams	... 	Osric
Kate Winslet	... 	Ophelia
David Yip	... 	Sailor One


Plot Overview

On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. Discovered first by a pair of watchmen, then by the scholar Horatio, the ghost resembles the recently deceased King Hamlet, whose brother Claudius has inherited the throne and married the king’s widow, Queen Gertrude. When Horatio and the watchmen bring Prince Hamlet, the son of Gertrude and the dead king, to see the ghost, it speaks to him, declaring ominously that it is indeed his father’s spirit, and that he was murdered by none other than Claudius. Ordering Hamlet to seek revenge on the man who usurped his throne and married his wife, the ghost disappears with the dawn.

Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is contemplative and thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deep melancholy and even apparent madness. Claudius and Gertrude worry about the prince’s erratic behavior and attempt to discover its cause. They employ a pair of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to watch him. When Polonius, the pompous Lord Chamberlain, suggests that Hamlet may be mad with love for his daughter, Ophelia, Claudius agrees to spy on Hamlet in conversation with the girl. But though Hamlet certainly seems mad, he does not seem to love Ophelia: he orders her to enter a nunnery and declares that he wishes to ban marriages.

A group of traveling actors comes to Elsinore, and Hamlet seizes upon an idea to test his uncle’s guilt. He will have the players perform a scene closely resembling the sequence by which Hamlet imagines his uncle to have murdered his father, so that if Claudius is guilty, he will surely react. When the moment of the murder arrives in the theater, Claudius leaps up and leaves the room. Hamlet and Horatio agree that this proves his guilt. Hamlet goes to kill Claudius but finds him praying. Since he believes that killing Claudius while in prayer would send Claudius’s soul to heaven, Hamlet considers that it would be an inadequate revenge and decides to wait. Claudius, now frightened of Hamlet’s madness and fearing for his own safety, orders that Hamlet be sent to England at once.

Hamlet goes to confront his mother, in whose bedchamber Polonius has hidden behind a tapestry. Hearing a noise from behind the tapestry, Hamlet believes the king is hiding there. He draws his sword and stabs through the fabric, killing Polonius. For this crime, he is immediately dispatched to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, Claudius’s plan for Hamlet includes more than banishment, as he has given Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sealed orders for the King of England demanding that Hamlet be put to death.

In the aftermath of her father’s death, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowns in the river. Polonius’s son, Laertes, who has been staying in France, returns to Denmark in a rage. Claudius convinces him that Hamlet is to blame for his father’s and sister’s deaths. When Horatio and the king receive letters from Hamlet indicating that the prince has returned to Denmark after pirates attacked his ship en route to England, Claudius concocts a plan to use Laertes’ desire for revenge to secure Hamlet’s death. Laertes will fence with Hamlet in innocent sport, but Claudius will poison Laertes’ blade so that if he draws blood, Hamlet will die. As a backup plan, the king decides to poison a goblet, which he will give Hamlet to drink should Hamlet score the first or second hits of the match. Hamlet returns to the vicinity of Elsinore just as Ophelia’s funeral is taking place. Stricken with grief, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had in fact always loved Ophelia. Back at the castle, he tells Horatio that he believes one must be prepared to die, since death can come at any moment. A foolish courtier named Osric arrives on Claudius’s orders to arrange the fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes.

The sword-fighting begins. Hamlet scores the first hit, but declines to drink from the king’s proffered goblet. Instead, Gertrude takes a drink from it and is swiftly killed by the poison. Laertes succeeds in wounding Hamlet, though Hamlet does not die of the poison immediately. First, Laertes is cut by his own sword’s blade, and, after revealing to Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for the queen’s death, he dies from the blade’s poison. Hamlet then stabs Claudius through with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink down the rest of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies, and Hamlet dies immediately after achieving his revenge.

At this moment, a Norwegian prince named Fortinbras, who has led an army to Denmark and attacked Poland earlier in the play, enters with ambassadors from England, who report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Fortinbras is stunned by the gruesome sight of the entire royal family lying sprawled on the floor dead. He moves to take power of the kingdom. Horatio, fulfilling Hamlet’s last request, tells him Hamlet’s tragic story. Fortinbras orders that Hamlet be carried away in a manner befitting a fallen soldier.