Depictions of Hamlet’s Father’s Ghost on Silver Screen

Abstract

Every adaptation for the screen, film adaptation or a play put on stage includes the elements of interpretation of a literary work and determines the particular way it is interpreted. To illustrate this notion, the article introduces film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Big-screen versions of Hamlet directed by Laurence Olivier, Alan Dent, Akira Kurosawa, John Gielgud, Bill Colleran, Grigori Kozincew and Franco Zeffirelli are referred to in the text. Particular attention is given to the character analysis of Hamlet’s father’s ghost, variously depicted in the following film adaptations of the Shakespearean drama.