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Hamlet By Brook / Brook By Brook [DVD]

Brook, Peter (Director) Rated:

Unrated

Format: DVD

6 ratings

DVD
from $63.89

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May 10, 2005

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$63.89

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$94.95

Genre	Documentary
Format	Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Contributor	Brook, Peter
Language	French
Runtime	3 hours and 24 minutes

Product Description

Theater director Peter Brook, renowned for his innovative and controversial stage plays (Marat/Sade; The Mahabharata), interprets Hamlet in a gripping, stripped-down production that highlights the tragic heart of the play. In the title role, Adrian Lester heads a stellar cast of the world's best actors; the international flavor to the cast adds a modern touch to this most famous of Shakespeare's plays. The documentary BROOK BY BROOK accompanies THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET. Directed by Brook's son, Simon, this video portrait offers an intimate look of the theater legend as only someone close to him could produce. Brook reveals many insights into life and work, including his unique techniques with ac

Product details

MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches; 4 Ounces
Director ‏ : ‎ Brook, Peter
Media Format ‏ : ‎ Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Run time ‏ : ‎ 3 hours and 24 minutes
Release date ‏ : ‎ May 10, 2005
Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, French, Spanish
Studio ‏ : ‎ Arte
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0007TKHSO
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2

Best Sellers Rank: #272,590 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #6,782 in Foreign Films (Movies & TV)
- #16,814 in Documentary (Movies & TV)
- #47,530 in Drama DVDs

Customer Reviews:
6 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		48%
4 star		20%
3 star		16%
2 star		16%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Kindle Customer

Stunning. Still a little breathless.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 4, 2022

Verified Purchase

It's like seeing Hamlet for the first time. First of all, Adrian Lester (Hamlet) and Scott Handy (Horatio) are brilliant beyond words. Could have watched the two of them go on and on all night. Peter Brook's cuts and edits to the original text are perfect, totally in tune with the thrust and movement of the play. Just stunning. Can't think of anything else to day. Except to express my sadness that Peter Brook has so recently passed. My God, what a genius. If just on this alone.

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Ms. Bease

An accessible Hamlet for students

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2018

Verified Purchase

I've been looking for a version of Hamlet to show to my college students. Branagh is just too long, Gibson is ok but Helena Bonham-Carter is unacceptable, and David Tennant is bombastic (though I love Patrick Stewart's Claudius). Adrian Lester's Guardian reading of "to be or not to be" is amazing so I found this. While I am not particularly fond of the stylized set, it provides two key access points for students: a black Hamlet and a shorter, more focused texts. It is very much about Hamlet and the other characters are flattened. It is not the fullest reading of the play, but it is digestible for students and that is what I am looking for. And Adrian Lester is engrossing.

3 people found this helpful

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Dikran Utidjian

dull

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 20, 2009

Verified Purchase

Very slow and I suppose clear. Hamlet may be depressed and indecisive but this seems just hollow. I know the participants are all terrific. Actors and director. But it seems rigid and correct. Dull.

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Theatre & Teaching

Hamlet and Brook: A meaning insightful into theatre

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2007

Attempting to capture any theatrical production on film is always a difficult process. Of course, we are not viewing the film in a commercial context but as an audio visual recording of theatre. Even if recorded as television with a multiple camera set up, with multiple takes, and minimum audience participation, we need to understand it as a theatrical recording in this different light. As a theatre lover and Drama teacher, I really appreciate and respect any new resource that attempts to offer an insight into this unique theatrical process.

This companion package of Brook's "Hamlet" and the "Brook on Brook" documentary is no different. It actually presents an excellent and successful opportunity to study both a significant theatre production and an important theatre practitioner in Peter Brook.

I particular found Brook's Hamlet a moving and emotional performance that encouraged me to discover addition layers of meaning of this familiar play through Brook's interpretation. This Hamlet offers us a pared back view of the play, exploring what is the essence of the tale. There are numerous cuts to the full text that help to facilitate this retelling of the Hamlet fable. More importantly, this Hamlet offers us a practical chance to study how some of Brook's theories and ideas practically manifest within this theatrical/filmic production.

Personally, I loved this chance to get an insight into Brook's theatre brain. If you are a student of theatre rather than just a shakespeare lover, this DVD package is worth a go!

7 people found this helpful

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Fritz Zimmerman

Handsome, but Missing Much

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 7, 2006

This may be a very good example of a Peter Brook production, but I don't think it's a good interpretation of 'Hamlet'. Too much is cut, and while some sequences have been merely transplanted from their original places, they're too often replaced in contexts where they simply don't make sense.

More distressingly, all of Shakespeare's humor has been stripped from the performance. The changes of tone in the original provide texture and depth to the play; they're not 'inconsistencies'. At 134 minutes, it's good that the production is short, because a full three-plus hours of such unrelenting earnestness would have been rough sledding indeed.

This production is apparently famous as 'Peter Brook's "Hamlet"', which I suppose is appropriate because it's not quite Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'...

23 people found this helpful

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Two interesting films

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 20, 2005

I've studied Peter Brook for years. I find his methods fascinating. I love his Mahabaharata.

In Hamlet, Peter Brook pares down the play to its essentials. It makes for a very quiet, meditative look at Hamlet, the character, which allows us to explore him deeper than a more flamboyant portrayal. Adrian Lester does an excellent job.

In Brook by Brook, we catch a small glimpse of Brook as a person. The documentary doesn't capture him as his books do, but it still educates the viewer on a most innovative individual.

14 people found this helpful

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Hamlet By Brook / Brook By Brook [DVD]

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