Key Highlights
- “It’s about 35 to 40 minutes long in the first version and we shot Ophelia scenes… and all the scenes are full length, because you respect Shakespeare’s play,” says Zhao.
- “You let the whole thing play out, and then we had to really butcher Hamlet to try to cut it down.” Related Stories News 'Hamnet': Read The Screenplay For Chloé Zhao's Take On What Drove Shakespeare To Create His Magnum Opus News 'One Battle After Another' & 'Hamnet' Lead Australia's AACTA International Awards Nominations After filming so much of the actual play, the editing process of choosing what scenes were essential for the film was a difficult task.
- “It’s sort of a house of cards, because you take one thing out and all of a sudden the stuff around doesn’t work,” says Gonçalves.
- “We’d cut it out, and then we’d put a little bit back in and then we’d cut it out… so it was a dance of us putting stuff back, taking it out, till we found the right balance.” The pair kept working on the play sequence until the last minute of post-production, wanting to make sure that every background layer flowed together.
- Zhao has previously said that rhythm is very important for her in the editing process, and that she was thrilled to find Gonçalves who could match her rhythm, so piecing together the play was a fun challenge.
