The Use of Music and the Lack Thereof

This will be my last post, in a series of 4, (the previous posts you can find here, here and here) speaking about the music used in movie adaptations of Hamlet.


The last film I would like to talk about is the 1996 Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet. This film is considered to be one of the best interpretations of Shakespeare's masterpiece. It is rather long, considering it lasts for more than four hours, but stays close to the original text in almost every aspect. In the scene that I am going to post below, the music is very subtle. At times, it is hard to even recognize its presence. By not letting the music become overpowering, Branagh shows that what is said is more important in our interpreting of the scene than the music. As I have previously mentioned, the music used in movies often helps determine our perception of the emotions in a specific scene. Here, the scene is more open to interpretation than others in which the music is extremely over powering.

Lastly, I would like to post a video from Olivier's film on Hamlet. Here, there is no music used.

As always, which one do you like better? Do you think having subtle music is better than having no music whatsoever? Why?

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