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Believe it or not, this film is still not out on DVD...most recent word was that it would come out in the fall of 2007. Right now it's only available in used VHS and as a temporary download as an "Amazon Unbox" and in spendy used VHS copies
Branagh's Screenplay/Film Intro
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Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996) Kenneth Branagh is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. Or is he working? He directed a movie called Listening two years ago, which nobody's heard of, and Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000) was barely a blip on the radar. That would place this film, Hamlet, quite squarely as Branagh’s last “important” work. Nine years ago. He’s had steady employment as an actor in a slew of respect-able films (I loved him in Celebrity and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), and I’d have gladly given my pinky finger to see his performance as Edmund, the titular character of David Mamet’s play, on stage in London last year. But where is Branagh the erstwhile wunderkind, the heir to Olivier and Welles? Where is the man who made Henry V, Dead Again, and Much Ado About Nothing in the space of four years? Where is the director who first lit the flame of Bardolatry under me as a seven year old? Other kids wanted to be Robocop or the Terminator for Halloween. I wanted to be Henry V. I apologize for the ramble, but it’s meant more as an opening salvo. The fact is that Branagh is blinded by unbridled ambition. He swings for the grand-stands every time he steps up to bat. I love that quality, but his passion is double-edged, his most notable strength and weakness as a filmmaker. This aim-for-the-rafters modus operandi has produced a decidedly mixed bag of films: transcendent entertainment (Henry V and Dead Again), a monumental misfire (Frankenstein) and the muddled middle ground of Hamlet. One thing’s for certain: Branagh is never boring. Even at his ham-fisted worst (stalking around Frankenstein’s lab with oiled, glistening abs, giving birth to “the Creature”), he still succeeds at compelling the audience’s interest in a way more conservative directors fail to do. I was thirteen when Hamlet came out, and rarely had I ever been so jazzed to see something. I wanted this to be Branagh’s magnum opus. Okay, maybe my expectations were unreasonable, and my initial disappointment has been abated by the intervening time. There is no such thing as a definitive Hamlet. And there is so much to applaud about this movie, so much to celebrate. First off, it’s four hours long, and so far as I’m aware it’s the only full-text cinematic adaptation of the play. Branagh is uncompromising on that score, and the end result is a better sense of Shakespeare’s original vision (obviously) for the play than the trimmed versions. The scope is epic, novelistic. For example, most adaptations, in an attempt to streamline the material, hack out the entire Fortinbras subplot. Here the politics of the play (such as Fortinbras’ jockeying for power, and the inner workings of the Danish court), are given much welcome screen time. Emphasis shifts from Hamlet’s almost solipsistic melancholy/madness to a broader idea of how Hamlet’s behavior fits into the scheme of things. Points to Rufus Sewell (Fortinbras) for bringing a smoldering intensity to an oft-excised role. He commands the little screen time he has. Satellite characters are fleshed out, enriched, and motivations made more legible. Polonius is often played as a “tedious old fool,” good for little more than comic relief between Hamlet’s weighty soliloquies. Richard Briers, given breathing room, adds dimensions to Polonius: his cruelty to Ophelia, his lording-over of Laertes, his fawning obsequiousness to the king and queen, his preening self-importance and constant meddling in affairs, all add up to a character significantly more manipulative and destruct-ive than other versions showcase. Ophelia, doomed daughter of Polonius, is given a radiant treatment by Kate Winslet. Winslet is able to suggest Ophelia’s strength while not compromising the fragility that leads to madness. Her interpretation makes more sense than Helena Bonham Carter’s feisty spin on the role in Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990). Winslet also has a hum-dinger of a mad scene, setting a high bar for future actresses playing this part. Derek Jacobi, an all time great (whose own performance as Hamlet inspired Branagh to become an actor), turns in the movie’s best performance as the villainous uncle, Claudius. The unabridged text benefits Jacobi’s characterization as well, since Claudius has been too often reduced to a lecherous drunk with the hots for his brother’s wife. Here Jacobi balances Claudius’ outsized appetites with a menacing iciness. Don’t cross this guy. He’s smart, red-blooded, conscience-stricken, manipulative, and genuinely in love with Gertrude. He’s three-dimensional, and probably a pretty good king. Jacobi doesn’t hit a wrong note. I liked the touch of giving him hair as platinum-blonde as Hamlet's, a suggestion that perhaps Claudius’ designs on Gertrude began long before the death of Hamlet’s father. I have to give special props also to Charlton Heston as the Player King. Who knew he had this in him? Other-wise, Branagh’s star-studded cast is hit-and-miss (Billy Crystal’s a decent Gravedigger, Robin Williams is so-so as Osric, Gerard Depardieu’s a distraction, and Jack Lemmon is awful as Marcellus); but Heston shines. His performance is confident, comfortable with the language, and very affecting. Even in the context of a four-hour production, the success or failure of any Hamlet production rests on the interpretation of English literature’s most famous character. Branagh, like the film itself, has moments of breathtaking brilliance contrasted with head-scratching silliness. Branagh, who’s played the part so many times on stage, seems to rush through certain scenes, not inhabiting them, and reciting his lines by rote. You can almost see him thinking about the next shot. He turns the amp up to 11 too early in the movie, exhibiting an unnecessary amount of emotion as early as his “’Tis not my inky cloak, good Mother” spiel in his first scene at the royal court. The scenes with his father’s ghost (chillingly played by Brian Blessed) are set in a chintzy forest from Roger Corman’s backlot, and again Branagh goes over-the-top, nearly frothing at the mouth after the encounter. Worst scene in the movie, hands down, is when he delivers the “How all occasions do inform against me” soliloquy like it’s the St. Crispin’s Day speech, a choice that makes zero dramatic sense considering the content of the speech. Not that it matters, anyway, since I could barely hear Branagh over Patrick Doyle’s inappropriately rousing and climactic music. The digital soldiers in the background, meant to represent Fortinbras’ army, more closely resemble marching ants. Branagh has his moments, though. His “To be or not to be” soliloquy is striking, spoken to his own reflection. He really hits his stride in the post-closet scenes, after he’s murdered Polonius, thinking it was Claudius. There’s a particularly stunning, heated encounter between him and Claudius (“Where is Polonius?” “At supper”) that results in Claudius viciously backhanding Hamlet across the face. Branagh and Jacobi have great chemistry here, and for about fifteen minutes the movie truly takes flight. I also liked Branagh’s touching reading of “The readiness is all” soliloquy; he really slows down and lets the beauty of the language take center stage. But in the end Branagh’s reach proves greater than his grasp. What should have been his definitive statement proves definitively messy. Branagh has clearly attempted to match the play’s verbal ambition with a grandiose visual palette. Hamlet was filmed in 70mm, a format obsolete and most strongly associated with the grand epics of yesteryear like Lawrence of Arabia, Guns of Navarone, or 2001: a Space Odyssey. The sets are lavish, the costumes elegant, and the music annoyingly awash in Wagnerian excess. If Branagh was on a Hitchcock kick with Dead Again, here he’s an aspiring David Lean. And yet Branagh the director is not up to that standard, at least not yet. Bravo to him for having the cajones to attempt this ambitious, unwieldy production, but there are way too many flaws to consider it a resounding success. The years between its release and the present haven't dulled the sharp disappointment of my first viewing, and I can see it now for what it is: an uneven movie with moments of brilliance and moments of groan-inducing absurdity. Kind of a microcosm for Branagh’s entire cinematic óevre. Click here to watch a couple of videoclips
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