Discovering Hamlet

Jan 7, 1990

0h 52m

★ 5.9

Overview

IN 1988, rising star Kenneth Branagh tackled the role of Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark for the first time in his professional career under the guidance of celebrated actor Derek Jacobi. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this hour-long film documents how Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi, two intelligent and passionate men, found new depths in Shakespeare’s classic drama, Hamlet. Filmmakers Mark Olshaker and Larry Klein follow the company through four weeks of rehearsals, from the first read-throughs to opening night.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Unicorn Projects

Discovering Hamlet Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Himself

Derek Jacobi

Himself / Hamlet

Kenneth Branagh

Himself / Claudius

Richard Easton

Narrator

Patrick Stewart

Himself / Horatio

Richard Clifford

Himself / Polonius

Edward Jewesbury

Himself / Rosencrantz

David Parfitt

Herself / Ophelia

Sophie Thompson

Himself / Laertes

Jay Villiers

Himself / Guildenstern

Jimmy Yuill

Art dealer Salvatore Viviano and director Angela Christlieb embark on a search for the lost artist collective Gelitin, which since the 1990s has shattered the borders of "good taste" again and again with extravagant actions and installations. Interviews with old companions and artist friends in the U.S., Europe, and Asia are linked with anarchically montaged Gelitin archive material: intense, transgressive, experimental, gaudily colorful, funny, and virulent.

0.0

Glittering Misfits

Sep 22, 2019

Dirty Martini and Tigger!, stars of the New York underground scene, reveal some of the secrets of their provocative and remonstrative forms of artistic expression in New York’s Off-Off-Broadway. Meanwhile, they will help us to understand from their everyday intimacy the reasons, the struggles and the keys that keep them in their place as the figures and references of the burlesque revival, more than 20 years after the phenomenon exploded in the New York of the 90s.

0.0

Pretend Not to See Me

Sep 15, 2009

Life and art intersect on a spectacular Newfoundland farm where visual artist Colette Urban mounts thirteen art performances in the fields and barns of her property. Resilient, determined, self aware and funny, Colette embraces the transformative power of art as she restages the significant art performances of her thirty-year career. With the camera as her audience she transforms the quotidian into a playful world of the imagination with elaborate costumes and idiosyncratic self invented rituals.

3.7

Balkan Erotic Epic - Single Channel Version

Jan 1, 2005

The film explores the sexual aspects of Serbian folklore. Ancient myths that have trickled into everyday household remedies or explanations are juxtaposed with the joys of the female and male sexual forms from which all human life originates. Functioning as both sexual liberation and reinvented modern myth, Balkan Erotic Epic is a display of the need for a cultural change in viewpoint around sex.

6.7

Meat Joy

May 29, 1964

"Meat Joy is an erotic rite — excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic — shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the 'sacred erotic.' This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City."

0.0

Moving Together

Feb 11, 2023

Moving Together is a celebratory love letter to music and dance that brims with kinetic life and energy. This documentary explores the intricate collaboration between dancers and musicians, moving seamlessly between Flamenco, Modern, and New Orleans Second Line.

5.5

Pussy Versus Putin

Aug 30, 2013

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.

6.0

I'm Too Sad to Tell You

Mar 17, 1971

This short film is part of a mixed media artwork of the same name, which also included postcards of Ader crying, sent to friends of his, with the title of the work as a caption. The film was initially ten minutes long, and included Ader rubbing his eyes to produce the tears, but was cut down to three and a half minutes. This shorter version captures Ader at his most anguished. His face is framed closely. There is no introduction or conclusion, no reason given and no relief from the anguish that is presented.

5.5

Broken Fall (Geometric)

Feb 2, 1971

One of a series of ‘falls’ by Bas Jan Ader that he recorded on film, this work was filmed in West Kapelle, Holland in 1970.

6.0

Broken Fall (Organic)

Feb 23, 1971

Bas Jan Ader hangs from the branch of a tall tree, until he loses his grip and falls into a river below.

3.5

Nightfall

Mar 24, 1971

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his shoulder. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He drops the brick, crushing one strand of lights. He again lifts the brick, allowing tension to accrue. The climax inevitable—the brick falls and crushes the second set of lights. Here the film abruptly ends, all illumination extinguished.

5.0

Salvador Dalí at Work

Apr 18, 1964

Filmmaker Jonas Mekas follows the surrealist artist around the streets of New York documenting staged public art events.

7.1

Blue Man Group: The Complex Rock Tour Live

Nov 25, 2003

Offbeat performance artists The Blue Man Group have finally been captured live on this disc that features concert footage, three full-length music videos and three songs from Blue Man Group's album, "The Complex." The live footage was filmed during Blue Man Group's successful and widely acclaimed August 2003 rock tour, where they wowed 9,000 fans in two sold-out concerts.

No Image

0.0

This Is Not a Dream

Oct 20, 2012

The video revolution of the 1970s offered unprecedented access to the moving image for artists and performers. This Is Not a Dream explores the legacies of this revolution and its continued impact on contemporary art and performance. Charting a path across four decades of avant-garde experiment and radical escapism, This Is Not a Dream traces the influences of Andy Warhol, John Waters and Jack Smith to the perverted frontiers of YouTube and Chatroulette, taking in subverted talk shows and soap operas, streetwalker fashions and glittery magic penises along the way.

6.0

Fall 1

Feb 1, 1970

Bas Jan Ader's first fall film shows him seated on a chair, tumbling from the roof of his two-storey house in the Inland Empire.

6.0

Fall 2

Mar 10, 1970

Bas Jan Ader rides his bike into a canal in Amsterdam.

0.0

Mi arma

Nov 10, 2019

A young drag queen from Andalusia exposes the difficulties of adding aspects of her homeland culture to her artistic expression.

4.9

Mondo New York

Apr 22, 1988

A young woman wanders around New York City and stumbles across a number of strange characters and settings that represent the "underground" areas of the city. She sees stand up comedy in Central Park, a prostitution auction, a voodoo ceremony, an S&M club, and a number of very interesting performance artists. These are just a few of the sights and sounds of New York that she encounters.

6.8

Looking for Richard

Oct 11, 1996

Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."