THE FODOR HAMLET PHENOMENON
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Press Release 26-3-2007
press release
press stills
cast List
A year on from its initial conception, the latest filmed version of HAMLET is released this week (the 42nd).
From the outset if was aimed to be shot on a low-budget. It was shot almost entirely in one room, above a pub in North London (a former Fringe venue) and follows the underlying concept of the London Film Fringe in that it is a theatre play developed into a film.
Spartan it is not. Feedback has universally commented on how well it is shot. There is not a hint of suspension of disbelief about it, instead a surreal, Kafkaesque otherworld has been created, but a world viewers feel exists (or existed). One comment of its style was that "if David Lynch shot Shakespeare it would look like this".
Probably the most striking departure from the norm is the abandonment of textbook definitions of characters. Old men become femme fatales, lords become viscious brutal louts. But the original text remains. In this respect Fodor's Hamlet betrays it London Fringe roots in its shear experimentalism.
From the outset director Alexander Fodor designed the production to appeal to people who had never know Shakespeare. He workshopped the actors to deliver the text as natural speech, and developed themes and subplots never there in the play. Strongest of these to the casual viewer are the development of the supernatural elements, the machiavellian undercurrents and viscious brutality.
The production was shot on just £15,000 (£9,000 was stolen when an exec producer literally went mad) and yet all cast and crew received payment. There was no room for any sort of delays or re-shooting and it was shot in just 15 days last Summer. Not a single day overshot by more than an hour.
Press copies are now available for journalists and include a 12-page booklet, as well as stills from the production and a full commentary by director and members of the cast.
The website includes clips from the production as well as a trailer.
Contact:
+44 (0) 7930 365 234 (Paul Allan-Slade - Producer)
+44 (0) 7894 152 651 (Alexander Fodor - Director)
A London West End Press screening is now set for Monday 23rd April at the NFT.
Buy now via: 
PAL & NTSC COPIES AVAILABLE
