Hamlet is going crazy. His father has died suddenly of a strange disease, and his mother has married her deceased husband’s brother, of all people, after just one month. Hamlet has nighttime visions of his father, who claims his brother poisoned him, and exhorts Hamlet to take revenge and kill his new stepfather. Hamlet acts the part of the crazy man in order to hide his plans, and loses his grip on reality in the process. The whole world becomes a stagnant swamp to him. Desire and sexuality become a threatening abyss. The friends surrounding him turn out to be spies deployed by his stepfather to keep an eye on him. Even Ophelia, his beloved, is a part of the scheme. The avenger becomes the prey, with an informer listening behind every curtain, as Hamlet’s paranoia proves to be not unfounded. The insane act turns to actual insanity, and Hamlet kills the wrong man: Polonius, Ophelia’s father. His mother and stepfather cover up the murder and keep Hamlet out of the public eye, and Hamlet’s plans for revenge seem to evaporate. He loses control of himself, his goals, and his life. Ophelia falls apart in the face of this and kills herself. When his stepfather decides finally to silence Hamlet, Hamlet seizes the opportunity at hand and with one final rampage forces his world to its knees.

Shakespeare represents the Danish royal court as a corrupt political system which becomes a paranoid maze for Hamlet. Murder, betrayal, manipulation and sexuality are the weapons used in the war to preserve power. Not able to take on and fight the cynical rules of the game at the court, Hamlet stagnates and turns his aggressions against himself. His gift of distinguishing pros and cons becomes an insurmountable hindrance in accomplishing his goals, and as the last person with scruples in a system without any, he is finally doomed. With its central paradox of the incapacitated protagonist, Hamlet remains today a valid analysis of the intellectual dilemma between complex thinking and political action. Shakespeare serves up over twenty characters, allowing a political biosphere to arise out of differing interests and intrigue. In Ostermeier’s production, just six actors will play all these characters, constantly changing roles. Hamlet’s progressive loss of touch with reality, his disorientation, the manipulation of reality and identity are mirrored in the acting style, which takes pretence and disguise as its basic principle.

1.71GB | 2h 30mn | 1024×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/CF22971C9983CC0/Hamlet-Ostermeier-2008-Avignon.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/CBC07E665459DE2/hamlet.srt

Language:German
Subtitles:English,French (hard)

The post Thomas Ostermeier – Hamlet (2008) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Richard III
by William Shakespeare
Direction: Thomas Ostermeier
Translation and version by Marius von Mayenburg

Richard is hideous. Born prematurely, he is a deformed, hobbling, hunchbacked cripple who, on the battlefields of the Wars of the Roses – which flared up after the death of Henry V – served his family and above all his brother, Edward, well. Now Edward is king, thanks to a number of murders carried out on his crippled brother’s own initiative. But the end of war brings Richard no peace. His hatred for the rest of the world, to which he will never belong, lies too deep. And so he does what he does best and kills some more, clearing away every obstacle that lies in his path to becoming king. If fate prevents him from being part of a society of those blessed by good fortune, he will at least lord over them. He plays off his rivals against each other with political cunning, unscrupulously exploits the ambitions of others for his own ends and strides spotless through an immense bloodbath until there is no one left above him and the crown is his.But even this triumph, purchased with the death of enemies, allies and relatives alike, still fails to heal the great insult nature has visited upon him. Alone at the apex of the English kingdom, deprived of all his adversaries, he now turns his rage on his true nemesis – himself.

»Richard III« is one of Shakespeare’s earliest works, first performed around 1593. But until this day the title character has lost none of his fascination. His allure lies first and foremost in his unbridled, single-minded, gleefully exhibited amorality. Richard is the first in a line of Shakespearean villains whose moral autonomy and virtuoso art of manipulation appear to be schooled by Machiavelli’s »The Prince«: Iago in »Othello«, Edmund in »King Lear« and the Lady in »Macbeth«. But the play does not just restrict itself to the demonization of a psychopathic spree-killer. It is also the portrait of a power elite torn asunder by internal strife, out of whose midst a perverse dictator emerges.

Direction: Thomas Ostermeier
Stage Design: Jan Pappelbaum
Costume Design: Florence von Gerkan
Collaboration Costumes: Ralf Tristan Scezsny
Music: Nils Ostendorf
Video: Sébastien Dupouey
Dramaturgy: Florian Borchmeyer
Light Design: Erich Schneider
Puppenbau: Ingo Mewes, Karin Tiefensee
Puppentraining: Susanne Claus, Dorothee Metz
Fight Choreography: René Lay

Richard III: Lars Eidinger
Buckingham: Moritz Gottwald
Elizabeth: Eva Meckbach
Lady Anne: Jenny König
Hastings, Brakenbury, Ratcliff: Sebastian Schwarz
Catesby, Margaret, Erster Mörder: Robert Beyer
Edward, Bürgermeister, Zweiter Mörder: Thomas Bading
Clarence, Dorset, Stanley, Prinz v. Wales (als Puppe): Christoph Gawenda
Rivers, York (als Puppe): Laurenz Laufenberg
Schlagzeuger: Thomas Witte

http://nitroflare.com/view/FE1C23280CD17C9/Richard-III-Avignon-2015-Ostermeier.mkv

Language(s):German
Subtitles:French (hardcoded)

The post Thomas Ostermeier – Richard III (2015) first appeared on Cinema of the World.