Disc Two of my set of three. Fortunately, something of an improvement on the dismal MacBeth. This version of Hamlet bears all the marks of a very low budget production but has enough going for it to make it worth while.
It looks like a theatre production opened up and filmed. The cast range from competent to very good - a hint they are presenting a well rehearsed stage production - but some are incongruous. A very contemporary looking Osric, for example, or the youthful Polonius. On stage oddities such as there are less noticeable than on film. The production looks cheap, with the final duel between Hamlet and Laertes taking place in a small, drab room that doesn't reflect well on the majesty of the Danish royal house. A badly presented ghost doesn't help either.
The text has been edited heavily. The film bravely dumps the brilliant opening Shakespeare envisaged on the dark battlements of Elsinore. "To be or not to be" is shunted forwards to just before the entrance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. This gives Hamlet's melancholy a more genuine feel - no question of him hamming it up for Claudius and Laertes - but it also means the audience has empathy with him, and less sympathy for his plight. We've only just met the guy, and he's telling us about how he wants to off himself. Don't you hate people like that? Fortinbras is gone entirely - the final catastrophe that befalls the Danish royal family leaves a power vacuum with no cynical warlordling ready to stride into it.
The film stutters at the start. The opening scenes are stages in Elizabethan buildings and look awkward and staged. Subsquent scenes are more effective, and the Elizabethan settings are discarded in favour of pleasingly medieval look. It's possible the director was trying for something similar to Olivier's Henry V in mind, which started with a facsimile of an Elizabethan staging of the play. It doesn't really work, and the opening scenes are ragged but it does pick up after that.
The main strength of the film is the cast. It looks like they have been playing the parts on stage and they are generally very good. Will Houston as Hamlet is very good, after a shaky start. Gareth Thomas is a sympathetic Claudius, and Lucy Cockram - after another dicey first scene - is good as Ophelia. David Powell Davies is too young for Polonius, but provides the character with a more dignity than he is usually allowed. He doesn't come across as pompous or foolish. This combination of a fairly likable Claudius and a wily Polonius makes our identification with Hamlet more provisional than is often the case, and this is good, for me at any rate.
The staging of the Mousetrap and the confrontation between Hamlet and Gertrude are very well done - the latter is superb. Houston imbues his lines with manic energy to make them more menacing than they are often read. This Hamlet's witty retorts seem to be teetering on the edge of madness. He carries this over onto the following scene, where he is quizzed about the fate of Polonius. Our sympathy here is actually with the hapless Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as they try to keep pace with the Prince, and it works very well. Hamlet's verbal sparring alienates us, as it should - he has, after all, just killed someone. That Houston manages to pull us back to him in the final scenes is a credit to a young actor who should shine in years to come.
All in, a brave attempt to film one of the difficult texts in the cannon. It is flawed, but the flaws relate more to the realities of film making. Its virtues, on the other hand, are most noticeable where they are most needed - the acting, the poetry, and the staging. There has been a glut of Hamlets recently. None have been perfect, including this one, but this is the one I like best.
**
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