There are things you do hate, Lord. Perfume-smellin’ things, lacy things, things with curly hair.
Grigori Kozintsev’s 1962 film version of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is plagued from the influence of Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film of the same name. Shot in black and white, featuring Elizabethan sets and costumes and employing visual techniques (extremely high angles, lengthy tracking shots, slow zooming) used by Olivier in his Oedipal/Freudian approach to Sahakespeare’s tragedy, Konzintsev’s version seems rather conventional and a bit staid, comparatively.
The singularly novel aspect of the film lies in its depiction of the community surrounding Hamlet and his immediate circle. The community surrounding him is entirely involved with Hamlet and his personal drama. Kozintsev seems to do this in order to minimize the distance between Hamlet, the court and larger world around him and highlight the dangers of too much introspection and deliberate self-alienation. In this sense, Gamlet is a decidedly Soviet film. It’s, nonetheless, one of the best versions of the film on DVD, staying true to the essential spirit of the play, though obviously, the absence of Shakespeare’s verse is a significant minus.
by Marlin Tyree | Source: Facets DVD
24 Jul 2007 5:38 PM | Submit Comment