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Hamlet
(1948) O'erstepping the Modesty of Nature “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature…” Hamlet’s advice to the players is well-taken. Laurence Olivier, one of cinema’s first and foremost interpreters of Shakespeare on film, generally neglects the Melancholy Prince’s pearls of wisdom. He saws the air with his hands, tears a passion to tatters, to very rags, and splits the ears of the groundlings. He admittedly cuts an impressive figure while doing so. His Caesar haircut, Roman profile, dimpled chin, noble bearing, and melodious voice each contributes to the overall impression of a finely-tuned, highly polished musical instrument. The music is here in the first sound-era film of Hamlet, but not the muscle. Olivier plays Hamlet the Icon, not Hamlet the character. He famously intones at the beginning of the film, “This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.” Well, glad to have that cleared up, Lord Laurence. As such a reductive quote would suggest, Olivier doesn’t bother too much about getting inside Hamlet, trying to understand what makes him tick. Poor fellow simply can’t make up his mind, that’s all. The other actors, perhaps guided by Olivier, give equally un-nuanced performances. Many of them are fine, reputable thespians, but their readings are fairly predictable. Polonius is a doddering old fool, Ophelia (the gorgeous Jean Simmons) is fair and fragile, Claudius is drunken and lascivious, and oblivious Gertrude dotes creepily on her fair-haired son. No real surprises, though it should be taken into account that Olivier was helping to make some of these molds as much as repeat them. Fans of the original Star Wars movie will enjoy watching Peter Cushing (who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the space opera) chew up the scenery as the swishy “waterfly,” Osric. Because of Olivier’s towering reputation as the classical actor of the twentieth century, it is easy to overlook the innovations he introduced as a director. For better or worse, Olivier put forward as early as 1945 (with his rousing, jingoistic Henry V) the concept of an accessible Shakespeare on film—ages, in fact, before Franco Zeffirelli or Kenneth Branagh set their visions to celluloid. Purists who praise Olivier but put-down Baz Luhrmann’s hyperactive Romeo and Juliet (1996), for example, are not paying much attention. Not only did Olivier excise the character of Fortinbras, he got rid of the entire Rosencrantz and Guildenstern subplot! In going from stage to screen, he pruned the play, re-assigned lines, rewrote lines (if you can believe the audacity! Though mostly for the sake of clarity), and put a lot of energy and invention into both his performance and his production. So none of this bosh about Olivier being a bastion of Shakespeare classicism and directors like Luhrmann or Peter Brook being sacrilegious with the text – they’re all peas in a pod, straining to make the old Bard exciting for new generations. To Olivier’s credit, his Hamlet is much more visually arresting than one might expect from a film helmed by a classically-trained theater actor. The chiaroscuro camerawork owes a clear debt to the Orson Welles school of cinematic expressionism. The floating camera, askew angles, fog-bound black-and-white, and deep, slanting shadows are more reminiscent of Citizen Kane than the vivid Technicolor dreamscapes of Olivier’s own Henry V. This is not a filmed stage play; it is thoroughly cinematic. And that may well be Olivier’s most lasting contribution to the development of Shakespeare-on-screen – the use of new technologies and cinematic styles to retell age-old stories. And in case you’re under the impression that Olivier the actor is a limp-wristed old ham in black tights, you’re at least partially misguided. He adds plenty of spice to the proceedings, including a heady dash of Freudian symbolism. For a film from the vaults of the late 1940s, the overtly Oedipal reading of the relationship between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude (played by Eileen Herlie, an actress thirteen years younger than Olivier) still has the power to shock. The lingering lip-locks between mother and son would make Larry Flynt blush. Speaking of, do I just have a dirty mind…or were the folds of Gertrude’s bed canopy evocative of certain, let’s say “fertile,” parts of the female anatomy? Olivier must have been undergoing psychoanalysis at the time, or else decided the dusty text needed some 20th century shock-value. Whether you prefer Olivier’s Freud-filtered Hamlet, or Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Richard Burton, Adrian Lester (or any number of other actors) in the part is probably a matter of taste more than an objective judgment of quality. Perhaps our favorite Hamlet says more about us than it does about the character. (Something along the lines of Harold Bloom’s assertion that Shakespeare reads us, not the other way round). Olivier is an iconic Hamlet, as I mentioned, and there’s room for that interpretation along with a melancholy Hamlet (Kline), a sarcastic Hamlet (Jacobi), or a sensitive Hamlet (Branagh). Simply put, the part is big enough for all comers, and Olivier has much to be thanked for in proving that Shakespeare was as worthy of the Big Screen as the Old Vic. Click here to watch vidclips from Olivier's Hamlet back to Hamlet on Film |
