HAMLET
A film review by Jerry Boyajian
Copyright 1991 Jerry Boyajian
Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET was what sparked my interest in Shakespeare over 20 years ago, so I was looking forward to this very much. I thought this film version was more than good but less than great.
(For the record, it might be worth noting that I've never seen a production of HAMLET -- even the Olivier film version! -- though I have read the play a couple of times and studied it as part of a college course.)
The heart of the production is in the performances, and here the film gets generally high marks. Gibson was, on the whole, adequate. It comes as no surprise that his better moments in the film were those moments of action and passion (I mean strong emotion here, not romancing), but I found his quiet moments too dry and uninvolving. Most of his soliloquies came off relatively poorly (the most notable exception in my mind being the "conscience of the King" soliloquy). The worst aspect of his performance to my mind was the fact that he almost always came off as second banana to me whenever he was playing against someone else. Even the lesser parts, such as Horatio and Laertes, seemed better to me than Gibson's Hamlet. But as I said, in the scenes that required more "action" and emoting, he worked better, with his best scene being the aftermath of the play-within-a- play.
Glenn Close, however, was wonderful as Gertrude, playing her as a sincere and passionate woman who was, unfortunately, totally without a clue about anything (which is a nice switch from the usual interpretation of Gertrude as being co-conspirator with Claudius). I've never been a particularly big Close fan, but this is the best of her performances that I've seen.
My favorite of the cast was Ian Holm as Polonius. I'd never pictured Polonius as the "comic relief" character of the play, but Holm does a great job of playing it this way. Paul Scofield has, lamentably, too small a part (as the ghost of the dead king). Helena Bonham-Carter came alive as Ophelia descends into madness, but unfortunately played the character as so thoroughly dull as dishwater earlier in the film that I was almost (note: almost) unable to feel much for the character later. I think, though, that Zeffirelli purposely had her play it that way to contrast with the later madness.
Zeffirelli's direction was pretty straightforward for the most part, so much so that when he occasionally threw in a "trick," it seemed totally out of place. The more obvious examples were the circular tracking shot around Hamlet and Ophelia during their meeting in the hall when he "dumps" her, and the exterior shots of her leading up to her drowning made me feel like I was watching a Swedish "art film" (I was almost expecting the camera to pull back and reveal Death standing there in black cloak, right out of THE SEVENTH SEAL). Still, he did a good job of "opening up" the play from the confines of stage sets.
I'm not a purist, so a lot of the cuts didn't bother me overmuch, other than my occasionally reacting, "Waitaminute ... isn't there supposed to be a scene with so-and-so here?" And I was a bit thrown when the entire first scene of the play was missing (as contrasted to ROMEO AND JULIET, which starts out exactly as the play). The only part that really threw me was hearing Hamlet's "Get thee to a nunnery" speech during the play-within-a-play scene. I'd *thought* that it came in the scene where he "dumps" Ophelia, and flipping through the play after I got home, I saw that I was correct. But the cut-and-paste aspects of the screenplay will most likely affect only the purist.
Overall, HAMLET is worth seeing, but don't expect to be overawed.
--- jerry
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