HAMLET
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Unexceptional is really the word for the new HAMLET from Franco Zeffirelli. Gibson is okay as Hamlet but is nothing startling. Glenn Close is the only actor experimenting with her role. The scenery is nice but this much-trimmed re-telling is nothing Shakespeare would feel bad for missing. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
Generally in reviewing a film, first consideration is given to how good the story is. It is a little tougher to review a Shakespeare film because, whatever the good qualities of the story itself or even the dialogue, it is pointless to praise the gentleman who contributed them. HAMLET is a film that gets no points, positive or negative, for story. The question is not whether HAMLET is a good story, but rather whether this is a good HAMLET.
First of all, this is not so much HAMLET as HAMLETTE. Every line that's there is Shakespeare's, but not every line that is Shakespeare's is there. Franco Zeffirelli tells the story slowly, taking time to bathe the viewer in the impressive scenery, then cutting much of the play--half, I am told--to make it fit into two and a quarter hours. As one expects from a Zeffirelli film, it is lushly filmed, though perhaps not so much as some of his other films, particularly the ones set in Italy. This film has less of the soft focus of, say, ROMEO AND JULIET. The scenery is mostly in stoney castles shot with a much harder focus. Some of the exteriors look much like the real Elsinore, but the Scottish castles used for the interiors has far too much Celtic-looking decoration. Ennio Morricone's score is not only much less intrusive than usual, it seems nearly non-existent. Surprisingly few scenes have any score at all.
The important question is whether a popular actor like Mel Gibson can play a good Hamlet. In many ways Hamlet is very much a character of the 1990s. He has horrible family problems, he screws up his love life, and he has absolutely atrocious audience manners. Gibson's Hamlet, however, is surprisingly uninteresting and not particularly relevant to either Hamlet's time or our own. Gibson's performance makes no statement about the Dane that was not on the printed page. By contrast Glenn Close's Gertrude takes the incest a step further than Shakespeare's did by apparently being attracted to her own son. Alan Bates plays new King Claudius not very notably and even the great Paul Scofield seems unable to do much with his role. Helena Bonham-Carter of A ROOM WITH A VIEW and LADY JANE needs a new character to play.
This film has too many problems to become the definitive HAMLET the way Zeffirelli's is the best known version of ROMEO AND JULIET. It is simply an okay retelling of the classic story. Rent HENRY V instead. I give it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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