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Hamlet
Though dozens of versions of Shakespeare's best-known play have been filmed, none rival this moody 1948 adaptation by master dramatist Olivier, who produced, directed, and acted. Streamlining the text to achieve a leaner, tighter feel, Olivier wrings tremendous feeling out of his indecisive, ever-brooding Hamlet, while the radiant Jean Simmons makes an exceptional Ophelia, the dour prince's doomed lover. Distinguished by its inventive camerawork and lush black-and-white photography, Olivier's "Hamlet" won four Oscars, including Best Actor (Olivier) and Picture.
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Where are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Unfortunately, Olivier is a bit long in the tooth for this part, and besides Jean Simmons' Ophelia it does not wear time well. But most of all, how can a production of Hamlet omit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are not there, and neither are Hamlet's beautiful lines "I have of late but wherefore I know not lost of all my mirth . . . what a piece of work is man . . "
These two "friends" of Hamlet brought a certain depth to him, his complaint about being played on like a flute, which helps to establish that whatever else Hamlet was, he was first of all a Prince, and next to the Crown. And his escape from death by his wits on his way to England . . without Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that just couldn't happen.
Fie, fie, this version is a travesty and should be destroyed!
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Not Bored with the Bard
I have read Shakespeare and seen his productions on film and on stage. I was of the opinion that cinema could not touch the quality of the stage production but, after this weekend, I'm reassessing that opinion. I watched Laurence Olivier's "Henry V" and "Hamlet" and both were outstanding productions.
I understand the Olivier cut out portions of "Hamlet" and that its' 2 1/2 hour version is about 1 1/2 hours short of the standard stage production. However, not having seen a stage production of "Hamlet", I can say that I understand the play much better ofter seeing this movie than I did after reading it. Olivier assembled an excellent cast with few names I recognized. The sets were sparse, dark and highly effective. The sword-play at the end was outstanding. The emotions and enunciations (always a key for me in Shakespeare) were excellent. The costumes and lighting (and just about everything else) worked to help the great acting and directing. I'm a purist when it comes to Shakespeare but the editing that Olivier did allowed the soul of the play to come through without distractions.
I am impressed at how well Olivier knows Shakespeare and how long and hard he prepared to make the Bard comprehensible and enjoyable to a larger audience. There have been a number of movie productions of Shakespeare before and after this version of "Hamlet" that failed to do that. Too often the actors speak too fast and the director fails to provide the proper focus. Olivier seems to understand just how to do it and the results, especially in "Hamlet" are a joy to behold. This movie's a keeper.
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A Great Movie...Exciting, Tragic, Engrossing...But Most Of All, Cinematic
I'm no more competent to discuss Hamlet as literature than I am to ride a horse. So let's talk about it as a story and as a movie. On both counts, this version -- shaped and edited, directed by and starring Lawrence Olivier -- is powerful and engrossing. You have to sit back and allow yourself to get into the rhythm of blank verse. You have to accept the nature of classic British acting's Shakespearean diction...precise and a little declarative. If you can manage this, you'll be rewarded with a fine cinematic experience.
The story is so well known that it doesn't need much repeating. A son's father dies. He suspects murder by the man who subsequently married his mother. The ghost of his father seems to confirm this. He is determined to pursue vengeance. He eventually succeeds but at a cost of many lives lost due largely to his own demons. "...the ghost and the prince meet, and everyone ends in mincemeat," is how lyric writer Howard Dietz put it. The story is a gripper. Shakespeare's words aren't bad, either.
What do I like about the movie? First, Olivier's ruthless approach. He believed people should remember that Shakespeare wrote for the stinking, scratching, fornicating masses (and, of course, to curry favor with the Tudors). The groundlings might appreciate a good weeper tragedy, but if they didn't come to fill the standing area and pay the entrance fee, William Shakespeare wouldn't have much of a career as a playwright. Olivier edits, cuts and rearranges the text because he's taking a centuries-old stage play and turning it into a strongly-paced, dramatic...movie. There's no time or room for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and "Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" gets the heave-ho, among other soliloquies. The result is a movie which is tightly focused on the story and on Hamlet's conflicted character.
Second, Olivier's version of Hamlet the man. This prince of Denmark may be introspective, suspicious and more than a little self-centered, but when the times call for it, Hamlet is a man of action. The closing sword fight is a lengthy and brutal fight to the death. You'll want to take a step back and watch again when Olivier leaps from a parapet straight onto Claudius, crashes with him onto the stone floor, then takes his sword and thrusts deep into Claudius' chest over and over again. This is Olivier's Hamlet, not Shakespeare's stage directions. The groundlings would have loved it.
Third, the other actors, especially Basil Sydney as Claudius and Jean Simmons as Ophelia. Simmons was 18 when she made the movie. She'd already had major parts in films such as Great Expectations and Black Narcissus, but this was the first major Shakespearean role she'd ever played. Her Ophelia is so innocent and vulnerable it almost skewers the film; as it is, however, it underlines that Hamlet is not simply a man torn by grief and revenge. There is something more twisted going on within him. Sydney does a wonderful job as the King, Hamlet's stepfather and the lustful husband to Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. When Gertrude gives Hamlet a goodnight kiss, it is easy to assume that something erotic, something other than motherly love, is at play in the relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet. Sydney's Claudius is so pleased with being king, so eager to bed Gertrude at any opportunity that it's possible to almost like the man. He may be suspicious of Gertrude's love of her son, but he just doesn't want to know too much. Sydney makes Claudius' faults of ambition and lust easy to understand.
Fourth, the look of the film. Olivier has created a black-and-white vision of austere camera angles, with heavy stone stairways and battlements, fog and shadows, great dining halls that are damp and chilly. His Hamlet is also startling...blond, heavy lidded, too able to smile coldly. Yet when Hamlet's death finally comes, after revenge, betrayal and having followed his destiny, it causes an uneasy and deep feeling of retribution for his flaws. It was a sad, almost pointless loss. Olivier stages a flamboyant death for his Hamlet, but one which underlines all this. Countless high school students have giggled over "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." They might not this time.
Hamlet can be played in so many ways; Olivier's version might not be your version. For me, this movie is so good because it works as a dramatic movie. It's exciting, tragic and cinematic. And for all those who may remain giggling high school students at heart, tell them to watch the movie and see if they can spot in bit parts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The Criterion version looks and sounds very good. There are no extras.
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OLIVIER AND JEAN at their best
Unfortunately Laurence Olivier didn`t allow his wife Vivien Leigh to recreate her stage Ophelia(she played her in Elsinore, Denmark 1937 in front of Queen Ingrid, mother of Queen Margethe) stating she was too old...
Jean Simmons(a Vivien-look-alike, but a great talent all her own) and Olivier makes this a stunning film. Many feel that Shakespeare is highbrow, but the greatness of Olivier is that he looked for the truth in the text and he is never a ham(it`s so easy with the Bard), but a real life person despite the difficult lines...
Kenneth Tynan among others claimed Vivien was never a classical actress of the true kind....
Olivier refers to his ex-wife as the best Lady Macbeth he ever saw(and of her Cleopatra in the Bard`s Antony Cleopatra 1951-52, "it was as if Shakespeare saw her through the next decades and wrote the part especially for her")..
How unfortunate he saw this in retrosepect and didn`t give her Ophelia or Lady Anne in Richard III 1955(Claire Bloom did)....
Claire Bloom... she was heralded with Wenche Foss, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson and Glenda Jackson(amongst others and Jackson heralded the fact that our country take care of the legacy of our arts and artists) with a Special Ibsen Award as THE GREAT WOMEN WHO PLAYED HIS(Ibsen`s) WOMEN in the 20th century. This was honored in 2006.
