HAMLET (Two Cities/Rank, 1948) Criterion Collection

BEST PICTURE - 1948

The works of William Shakespeare are a perennial wellspring from whence modern story-telling continues to find its inspiration. Even when the work is cleverly masked, it bears the uncanny hallmarks of the Bard’s best narrative foundational principles. Certainly, there had been other storytellers from Shakespeare’s time, well before it and long since, who have endeavored to pitch their parables and reflect the best in mankind’s forbearance, contrasted with the deadliest of his follies. And, while more recent – if misguidedly creative – scholarship continues to chip away at the reputation of this Stratford-on-Avon zeitgeist (did he really write these plays?) the proof in Shakespeare’s longevity is self-evident to anyone over the age of five. Everyone knows Bill Shakespeare by reputation – even those who have never seen any of his plays. All the worse, it seems for the movies. As, although grand gestures have been repeatedly made to immortalize Shakespeare on film, only a handful have actually managed to capture the essence, energy and excitement of seeing these same plays performed nightly as live theater. Who can say where the fault lies – in those ambitious artisans, endeavoring behind the scenes to illuminate that which does not require the afterglow of their craft to add luster to what is already rhyming couplet perfection, or in the stars – even more enamored to speak such immortal dialogue, so as to overplay their hand and make a ghoulish mockery of such eloquent speeches? What players are these?!?

Where ever the shortcoming, one thing is for certain. With very few exceptions, Shakespeare on film has been a very tough nut to crack.  Warner Bros. tried with Max Reinhardt’s lavishly appointed, but otherwise failed attempt at A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). MGM gave a lustrous sheen to some moderately stilted performances in Romeo & Juliet (1936) – a critical success. And nearly two decades later, Metro was at it again with Marlon Brando giving uncommon depth to his Mark Antony in Julius Caesar (1953). From this vintage, Shakespeare on film entered its most fallow period, with only Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968) to carry the torch. Then, in 1989, a remarkable resurrection took hold, with Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, followed by an ebullient Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and, his opus magnum, Hamlet (1996). However, long before Branagh tackled Shakespeare’s great Dane, another beloved of the theater had broken through to popular opinion on film. Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet (1948) may not be exactly as Shakespeare intended (indeed, even at 155 min., Olivier had to trim dialogue and scenes to make it work), and, his casting of Eileen Herlie as Prince Hamlet’s mother – Queen Gertrude, when the actress was barely 29 to Olivier’s 40 – playing her son, left something to be desired, the resultant spectacle, filmed on a half a million pounds in stark, deep focus B&W, proved riveting entertainment.

Given its intercontinental success, Hamlet was not without its detractors; Olivier’s voice-over opener, describing the story as ‘the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind’ was openly criticized as being reductive. The star/director was also lambasted for excising virtually all of the politics from the play (so, no Fortinbras, Rosencrantz or Guildenstern). In their absence, Olivier wrought a richly satisfying psychological drama, telescopically focused on Hamlet’s Oedipal devotion to his newly re-married mother; the sight of Olivier’s blonde prince with the sugar-bowl haircut, kissing the woman who gave him life full on the lips, evoking a disturbing incestuous quality – impossible to overlook, although somehow, Hollywood’s cast-iron code of censorship did. And although Carmen Dillon’s production design and Elizabeth Hennings’ costuming remained steadfast to the period as written by Shakespeare (something the Branagh all-star re-envisioning does not), Desmond Dickinson’s sublime cinematography owed decidedly more to German Expressionism and film noir; transforming the cavernous and authentic sets into moodily lit labyrinths that, visually, typified Prince Hamlet’s imploding psyche.

Truth be told, Olivier spent a good deal more time fine-tuning the wail of his late father’s ghost, recording fourteen separate tracks; chorales of wailing women and deep-grunting men, reducing the speed of the track to add a disturbing quality to the sound mix. For its day, Olivier’s Hamlet was considered a minor coup. Not only did his vision for the picture gain notoriety and sell tickets aplenty on both sides of the Atlantic, but it stole the Oscar thunder right out from under such worthy American-made contenders as John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Johnny Belinda, The Snake Pit, and fellow Brit-nominees, Powell and Pressburger for The Red Shoes – a formidable coup. And, while the results in 1948 must have seemed freshly invigorated by Olivier’s centralized thespian bombast – he virtually is the whole show – his epic vision of Hamlet today has not aged well, and, in spots, vaguely hints of a slight whiff of formaldehyde.

Olivier’s vane Dane is a rather effete and not altogether prepossessing heir apparent; Hamlet’s world turned upside down when his newly widowed mother, Queen Gertrude (Eileen Herlie) marries his Uncle Claudius (Basil Sydney). The King by default, this grave injustice sticks in the young Prince’s craw, not entirely out of jealousy, but some deep-rooted concern his late father’s death was actually murder, most foul. Spending the next 2 hours in retracted lamentation, and the occasionally flawed scheme to expose Claudius as the murderer, our indecisive Hamlet skulks about Elsinore castle until, as the showbiz anthem – That’s Entertainment (co-written by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz) humorously summarized, the moment arrives “where the ghost and the prince meet…and everyone ends in mincemeat!”  In between, there is madness, and tears, and murder again – all of it culminating in a terrific duel, the likes of which – at least in this case – could have sincerely benefited from the likes of an Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in their prime.  Arguably, the greatest of all Shakespearian tragedies, Hamlet presented something of a challenge for Olivier that, at least in hindsight, can be argued the star/director never quite conquered.  Despite Olivier’s fairly marvelous attempt to will life into the proceedings, his version of Hamlet falls into all of the expected pitfalls. For starters, Olivier himself is overly theatrical, his Teutonic approach adding more distance than merit between the story and the audience; the sight of his slight masculine frame, poured into tights, further hampered by that tragic decision to go blonde with a wig that seems only to be sitting atop a brain always churning with mad speculation. Olivier’s performance is, of course, borrowing from the time-honored cache of great Hamlet’s on the stage. But in cinematic terms, it appears over-rehearsed – occasionally, to the point of absurd gesturing.

Particularly satisfying are Jean Simmons as Hamlet’s ill-fated lover, Ophelia and Felix Aylmer as her empathetic father, Polonius. Shot entirely on sound stages in England’s Denham and Pinewood Studios, the lack of authentic locations – even reasonable facsimiles shot outdoors, stymie the spirit of the piece, transforming each soliloquy into an endless and occasionally static series of moving tableau. Evidently, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences disagreed with my contemporary assessment – bestowing Oscars on Olivier and the movie, to say nothing of The Golden Lion for Best Picture, and the spirited tumbling forth of accolades from most of the critics’ lips shortly after its world premiere. Yet, viewed today, this Hamlet does more of an artistic belly flop than a swan dive. Olivier’s claim, that he excised two of the play’s most beloved fops, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, purely to pare down the picture’s run time, doesn’t hold water, as there have been many shorter versions of Hamlet since to retain these characters without adding formidable girth as a result. The other argument usually ascribed is that Hamlet – at least by comparison, pales to Olivier’s Henry V (1944) and Richard III (1955) – the latter, made with the foresight of all of his experiences gleaned from making Hamlet. Comparatively, and from a purely artistic vantage, all three Olivier films are on par in terms of quality. Each, to varying degree, is plagued by Olivier’s posturing for the camera, what worked on stage, never entirely satisfying on film. Viewed today, Olivier’s Hamlet struggles to maintain our attentions. Difficult to assess the sentiment for it in 1948. Our admiration today remains steadfastly affixed to Olivier’s blind ambition, representing something of ‘a first.’ Alas, this, very often equates to ‘best’ in the eyes of Academy voters.

It must be noted that during the grand old days of Laserdisc, Criterion represented the upper echelons in home entertainment. The company’s commitment to the preservation of rare and obscure films, as well as certified classics of international renown, resulted in a proliferation of superbly mastered home video releases and oodles of extra features to boot. Even in the late 1980’s no one was doing what Criterion did. Fast forward to 1997; the DVD revolution – a decade long love-in between the film lover and home media conglomerates of varying shape and size. In this newfound promised land, virtually every home video distributor took the lead from Criterion – jam-packing their releases with anything and everything one could ever wish for to celebrate a home video reissue. And now, we come to 2019 – a decade past the debut of Blu-ray…and still NO Hamlet in hi-def. In the U.K., this oversight has been rectified for a few years. But in North America no one seems to care if Olivier’s crowning achievement ever arrives in 1080p. So, what we have here is a careworn and slightly faded DVD from Criterion. At intervals, it can look rather smart – the chiaroscuro lighting, creating vast and cavernous pools of light and shadow. Close-ups fare the best, with a modicum of image crispness that has been competently rendered. But it’s the medium and long shots that suffer here; plagued by intermittent edge effects and artificial sharpening, with disturbing halos and occasional shimmer of fine details. While the gray scale on this B&W transfer is solidly represented, the overall image lacks definition. It also suffers from lower than anticipated contrast with inconsistently rendered film grain that can translate more as digitized grit. Age-related artifacts are everywhere. The audio is mono, though well-balanced. Extras are limited to an audio commentary and some junket materials. Bottom line: one sincerely hopes a third-party distributor is working on a Blu of Hamlet in the near future.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

2