The Aesthetics of Violence in Four Cinematic "Hamlets"

Abstract

This paper discusses four cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare's ”Hamlet”, namely, Laurence Olivier's ”Hamlet” (1948), Franco Zeffirelli's ”Hamlet” (1990), Xiaogang Feng's ”The Banquet” (2006), and Sherwood Hu's ”Prince of the Himalayas” (2006), to explore how they deal with violence to create specific effects and interpretations. It focuses primarily on the different ways these movies dramatize sharp weapons piercing into human bodies and present colors in death images. The paper concludes with an apology for the aesthetics of violence.