For better or worse, this remains the definitive film version of hamlet.
I confess I'm not happy with that. Olivier re-edits the script considerably. What appear to be continuity innovations simply fall flat for me. The worst instance of this is the famed "to be or not to be" speech (most of it delivered in voice-over), which jumps out of nowhere in this version, apropos nothing. Olivier gets away with this butchery on the basis of his roaring egotism (which finally leads to a roaring Hamlet to the end) and the fact that his is one of the most careful directions of the play-as-film to be found on film.
Which of course leads me to the positive aspects of the film. Simply as a film, it is brilliantly designed and executed. I've rarely felt a film so successfully blend claustrophobia and depth - this is accomplished through careful juxtapositions of scenes of high-contrast black & white with scenes filled with grey fog; only Hitchcock could have done better (but of course Hitchcock would never have made Hamlet).
And although Olivier's performance is really over the top, he wisely makes sure that all the other actors get to come close to that level, especially the actor playing Hamlet's nasty step-dad. So the film vibrates with energy almost from the get-go and all the way to the end.
I keep trying to see every film version of Hamlet i can find, to see if the final, absolutely really and truly definitive version of Shakespeare's play (and not Olivier's version of it) might yet be viewed; but until then, this will have to do.
I confess I'm not happy with that. Olivier re-edits the script considerably. What appear to be continuity innovations simply fall flat for me. The worst instance of this is the famed "to be or not to be" speech (most of it delivered in voice-over), which jumps out of nowhere in this version, apropos nothing. Olivier gets away with this butchery on the basis of his roaring egotism (which finally leads to a roaring Hamlet to the end) and the fact that his is one of the most careful directions of the play-as-film to be found on film.
Which of course leads me to the positive aspects of the film. Simply as a film, it is brilliantly designed and executed. I've rarely felt a film so successfully blend claustrophobia and depth - this is accomplished through careful juxtapositions of scenes of high-contrast black & white with scenes filled with grey fog; only Hitchcock could have done better (but of course Hitchcock would never have made Hamlet).
And although Olivier's performance is really over the top, he wisely makes sure that all the other actors get to come close to that level, especially the actor playing Hamlet's nasty step-dad. So the film vibrates with energy almost from the get-go and all the way to the end.
I keep trying to see every film version of Hamlet i can find, to see if the final, absolutely really and truly definitive version of Shakespeare's play (and not Olivier's version of it) might yet be viewed; but until then, this will have to do.