Shakespeare did something sophisticated and modern with the old tale of a Danish prince who feigned madness while contemplating vengeance for the murder of his father, and Hamlet was the result, a piece written to order that nonetheless has many of the qualities of a self-portrait. Now Kenneth Branagh has done something sophisticated and modern with what Shakespeare created, and you get the feeling that he's also putting a lot on the line. Shot in 70 millimeter and running more than four hours, this Hamlet, unabridged but updated to the 19th century, announces itself with a robust grandeur unheard of in any other film version. Branagh adapts for the screen, directs, and needless to say, stars. The word mania comes to mind. Maybe he didn't get enough attention from Mum as a child, but then so say the Freudians--that was Hamlet's problem all along.
Hamlet uncut is too long, because a monolithic text was assembled after Shakespeare's death by editors intent on preserving his every line, and because everyone in the play, with the exception of the women, talks too much. Hamlet himself witters on incessantly, though beautifully. For my money, Branagh does the verse much better than even Laurence Olivier, which is to say that from Branagh's mouth it springs spontaneously, with natural energy and life. Any problem a modern audience might have with the metaphor-charged Elizabethan lingo disappears the moment he comes onscreen. His Hamlet has bleached hair and a little Vandyk. He's sensual and scornful, playful and depressed, a brilliant mind trying to understand how to be a human being; as soon as he figures it out, he realizes he will die.
One of the film's coups is to take itself into the character's consciousness, presenting offstage events and even fantasies. There are flashes of the beginning of the affair between Claudius and Gertrude; the murder of the old king is remembered; and there's a shock when it seems that Hamlet really has killed his enemy. Branagh has also decided that Hamlet is sleeping with Ophelia before the action starts, which gives us a dramatic frisson by heightening every moment that occurs between them, and the purely prurient one of seeing Kate Winslet without any clothes on. I was all for it. The overall effect is to open out the play, investing it with terrific speed and a sense of visual space.
At the same time, Branagh loses none of Elsinore's incestuous intimacy: Every sheet is steaming inside this wintry palace of huge marbled halls, roaring fires, and the type of nubbly period furniture designed for optimum show and minimum comfort. Branagh gives a chilling picture of power in decay, of a royal family fiddling, feuding, and at last eating its own entrails while doom marches to its doorstep, in the shape of Fortinbras (Rufus Sewell, with those oddly wayward eyes--Marty Feldman born again as a sinister hunk). There's a sly dig at the house of Windsor, lest we forget that Shakespeare is our contemporary.
The performances are mixed. Derek Jacobi is the biggest plus, a steely and yet very human Claudius. Polonius is made less the fusspot and more a capable and conniving old shit by Richard Briers, and when Ophelia goes bonkers, Winslet does her stuff heartrendingly. Julie Christie seems self-conscious at first as Gertrude but eventually relaxes.
Unfortunately, Branagh grabs too many stars for the smaller parts, as if he is afraid to let up on the pizzazz for even a second. After two hours, I found myself wondering, Who isn't going to be in this? By then we'd already seen Jack Lemmon, Gerard Depardieu, Sir John Gielgud, and Charlton Heston. Still to come: Billy Crystal, in a low-key turn as the gravedigger, followed by Robin Williams' whiskered and clownish Osric. Williams is fun, of course, but a distraction at the moment when the action is speeding to a climax.
Cinema has been kind to the Bard lately. Baz Luhrmann directed a terrific Romeo and Juliet--with rap, platform shoes, and Leonardo DiCaprio in a silly suit of armor--understanding that each generation needs a reinvented Romeo, simply because there aren't many stories that work so well. Al Pacino's Looking for Richard is a wry, self-deprecating investigation of why Shakespeare still compels. And now here's Branagh with an epic Hamlet that is engrossing and alive, an act of hubris that could blow up in his face. Four hours! (A two-and-a-half-hour version in 35-millimeter will be released after the original.) If Hamlet should prove a commercial folly, then at least it's a grand one. Hats should be doffed, and Branagh duly rewarded with gold statuettes.
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