I went to see Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet this weekend.
Brevity is the Soul of Wit
Branagh is my favorite actor and director. Derek Jacobi is my second favorite actor. Shakespeare is my favorite playwright. Hamlet is my favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies. I was not in the least disappointed by this production.
**** (Out of 4).
But Length Can Provide More Information
What makes Branagh's Shakespearean production so good is that he never forgets that the plays were not written to be great literature for the few but to be good entertainment for the masses. Thus the heroes are not high-flung lords, but everymen flung into high places. Branagh's Hamlet is not some Freudian case study, but a complex, living person, dealing with a complex, difficult situation.
Hamlet is a likable fellow; full of emotion, nasty when he needs to be, but caring and joyful when occasion calls. He gives the distinct impression that he sometimes enjoys pretending to be insane. In several comic moments, his physical mannerisms almost mimic those of Bugs Bunny*.
Derek Jacobi usually plays more gentle -- or at least seemingly gentle -- characters. But as Claudius, he brings out a hard militaristic side that Jacobi isn't quite comfortable with. Or perhaps that's the point: This Satyr to his dead brother's Hyperion -- and Brian Blessed makes the Ghost a vital character -- is in over his head. Events spiral out of Claudius's control, even more than they spiral out of Hamlet's.
I'm always fascinated by Horatio -- my favorite character. And here, Nicholas Farrell plays Horatio perfectly -- an intelligent, slightly bohemian, loyal college friend to Hamlet, always there, serving as Hamlet's second. Branagh's staging is excellent in placing Horatio in several scenes that he doesn't normally appear in, but which it makes sense that he would be present. Rosencranz and Guildenstern (Timothy Spall and Reece Dinsdale) are suitably slimy. Kate Winslet is a somewhat stronger than one would normally expect of an Ophelia -- even insane, she still retains a touch of deviousness. Julie Christie's Gertrude is appealing and perhaps a stronger character than Jacobi's Claudius.
There were really nice touches in casting. Michael Maloney, who played an actor playing Hamlet in the Branagh-directed A Midwinter's Tale, played Laertes in this production. Similarly Richard Briers, who had played an actor playing Claudius in A Midwinter's Tale, switched over to Polonius. Even though part of Branagh's regular repertory cast (Briers and Blessed appeared in both Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing, as well), Briers was an inspired choice for Polonius: His comic gifts -- he was hilarious 20 years ago in the BritCom, The Good Neighbors -- make the tedious old Lord Chamberlain's long-windedness wonderfully comic. This was especially true in the speech that begins "Since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief," and continues on well past Polonius's initial promise.
The politics around the play are quite well-developed. Shakespeare's text states that Denmark is concerned with Fortinbras, son of the former and nephew of the present King of Norway, who would just as soon gain the Danish throne that he thinks is rightfully his. Usually, Fortinbras is shown -- when he is shown; he's one of the most frequently cut characters -- as coming to terms with Denmark, and lucking into the throne, anyway. I'm not going to give too much away, but suffice to say that Fortinbras is of a much more frightening temper in Branagh's production -- and that this Horatio would be well advised to get out of Denmark, ASAP.
Branagh's reputation is obvious in the actors he gets for bit roles. Jack Lemmon works as Marcellus, and Gerard Depardieu is appropriately Gallic as Reynaldo. Charlton Heston plays the player king and Shakespearean veterans John Gielgud and Judi Dench appear, acting out Priam and Hecuba, from the Player's speech. Billy Crystal plays the First Gravedigger perfectly. The only disappointment among these stars is Robin Williams as Osric, who actually manages to underplay the fop. Peter Cushing (!) was much funnier in Olivier's version -- the only thing that Branagh fails to equal or surpass Olivier in.
The set -- the Duke of Marlborough's Blenheim Palace -- is spectacular, with rooms, especially the library, that I break the Tenth Commandment about. With the full text of Shakespeare, the movie lasts about four hours, with an intermission about two-thirds through, when Hamlet is sent to England. It can be a bit of an endurance test, but the movie is so engrossing that I didn't really notice. If anything, I thought a few scenes were rushed.
Check back with me in a month when I've had time to calm down, and it may well be on my list of ten favorite movies -- as if the list weren't already cluttered up with Branagh movies.
Footnote:
Yeah, that's an idea: Bugs Bunny as Hamlet; Daffy Duck as Claudius; Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote as R&G; Elmer Fudd as Polonius; Tweety Bird as Horatio. The only problem would be casting Ophelia and Gertrude. Well, maybe Lola Bunny as Ophelia and Granny as Gertrude, but that would be a stretch on both counts.
Horatio
OK, I lied: This isn't a third review of Branagh's version, it's a comment on the play in general.
It was Coleridge (he of "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan...") who wrote, "I have a smack of Hamlet." Well, yeah, everyone -- at least those who like the play -- tend to find a bit of themselves in the Dane. But as for myself, I find myself in Horatio.
Horatio is a puzzle. Many critics have suggested that he exists merely to provide plot development, either through his commentary or by asking Hamlet or the soldiers. The results seems inconsistent. Horatio is a character who knows Hamlet and his father before, but who doesn't know members of the court; who knows the politics, but not the customs of Denmark. He is, in short, to many critics an inconsistent character.
But Hamlet is Shakespeare at the height of his power. Surely, a character with as much of a role as Horatio would be more than a cipher. Sorting out what Horatio does and doesn't know, a pattern emerges: He knows Hamlet, father and son and he knows the soldiers. Who he doesn't know is Polonius and Laertes, habitués of the court. He knows about the political give and take -- for example, the causes of the "post-haste and rommage in the land" -- but he doesn't know about Danish customs.
The explanation is quite simple: Horatio is a friend of Hamlet's from Wittenburg who traveled with Hamlet when the Prince and his father went to war -- where he met the soldiers -- but who has never visited Elsinore. Likely, Horatio is not even a native of Denmark -- when the soldier, Marcellus, proclaims himself and Horatio "liegemen of the Dane," Horatio has merely claimed they are "friends to this ground." His loyalty is not to a nation, nor, like Rosencranz and Guildenstern, to social climbing. Rather, he gives his loyalty to, perhaps, some philosophical ideals -- though his stoic skepticism does take quite a beating in the course of the action -- and, more importantly, to his friendship with Hamlet.
I find Horatio to be among the most admirable characters in literature. I personally, have always found it the more comfortable position to be in. I admire his devotion to knowledge. And most of all, I admire his devotion to those he cares about.
There is one other thing I find admirable in Horatio: He survives. That cannot be said of any other major character in Hamlet.
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