As co-editors of HamnetAffonso Gonçalves and director Chloé Zhao say they found the ending of the film the most difficult to put together. Not necessarily just because they wanted an emotionally powerful ending, but also because Zhao decided to film a lot more film. Hamlet than what is displayed on the screen.
“The piece was the most difficult to cut,” says Gonçalves.
“The first version is about 35 to 40 minutes long and we shot scenes from Ophelia… and all the scenes are complete, because you respect Shakespeare’s play,” Zhao says. “You let it all play out, and then we had to really slaughter Hamlet to try to reduce it.
After filming a large portion of the play, the editing process of choosing the essential scenes for the film was a difficult task. “It’s kind of like a house of cards, because if you take one thing away, all of a sudden everything doesn’t work anymore,” Gonçalves says. “We’d take it out, then put some back in, then take it out…so it was a dance of putting things back in, taking things out, until we found the right balance. »
The duo continued working on the playback sequence until the last minute of post-production, wanting to make sure each layer of background came together. Zhao has previously said that pacing was very important to her in the editing process and that she was thrilled to find Gonçalves who could match her pacing, so piecing the piece together was a fun challenge.
“Until the last week of the mix, we kept cutting,” says Zhao. “We only built the first floor of the audience, and in the back are all the visual effects, so we were waiting for the visual effects to see what angle to use. You have a lot of different layers – you have dialogue in the audience, you have Will behind the screen, you have Hamlet play… so there are three things happening and you want them all to start moving towards a catharsis.
