I remember seeing this movie when I was in college and being totally captivated by it. I had already seen the Olivier version as well as a modernist version with Maximilian Schell so I was familiar with HAMLET on the big screen (I had also just seen Dame Judith Anderson’s take on HAMLET live on stage). The late 1960s and early 1970s were full of movie adaptations of Shakespeare, most of them highly original and very good. Roman Polanski’s MACBETH, Peter Brook’s KING LEAR and this production were my three favorites. Like Brook’s LEAR with Paul Scofield, this had been a stage production before it went in front of the cameras.
The production was shot inside an old railway roundhouse giving it a somewhat claustrophobic feel. This was augmented by shooting most of the scenes in extreme close-up but this helped to draw me right into the drama. I felt as if Nicol Williamson’s Hamlet was speaking directly to me in a conversational way. At first I thought his Hamlet looked too old (Williamson is a year older than Anthony Hopkins who plays his uncle) but that feeling quickly passed as I became riveted by his voice and reading of the text. In no time at all, he WAS Hamlet. In addition to the young Anthony Hopkins there was also Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia which meant more then than it does now but she acquits herself well. Look carefully and you can see an 18 year old Anjelica Huston as one of the court ladies.
For this version, Tony Richardson streamlines the text so that only the core essence remains. There are no wasted words here. This bothers a lot of Shakespeare purists but for me this is is the ideal HAMLET for the Shakespeare novice to begin with and I would show it first in the classroom. It may seem like a Classics Illustrated version, but it’s easier to follow and if you’re just starting out that’s important. Later on you can see the Olivier or other versions, working your way up to Kenneth Branagh’s uncut version which I admire but which I feel is too much of a good thing.
Think of this as an indie version of the play which makes the most out of its limited resources. Originally I bought the Region 2 DVD (available from amazon.uk) which has subtitles and is a vast improvement over the old VHS copy but even it is in the wrong aspect ratio. Now that Sony (who owns the rights to this version) has come out with a Region 1 DVD-R, more people will have the opportunity of seeing it although I wish they would turn it over to Criterion or someone like them who could really do it up right as this is a remarkable film document of a legendary performance.
The Capsule Critic 