DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER
Kenneth Branagh
based on the
play by
William Shakespeare
PRODUCER
David Barron
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Alex Thomson
MUSIC
Patrick Doyle
EDITOR
Neil Farrell
CAST
Richard Attenborough (Ambassador)
Brian Blessed (Ghost)
Kenneth Branagh (Hamlet)
Richard Briers (Polonius)
Julie Christie (Gertrude)
Billy Crystal (First Gravedigger)
Judi Dench (Hecuba)
Gérard Depardieu (Reynaldo)
Nicholas Farrell (Horatio)
John Gielgud (Priam)
Rosemary Harris (Player Queen)
Charlton Heston (Player King)
Ravil Issyanov (Cornelius)
Derek Jacobi (Claudius)
Jack Lemmon (Marcellus)
Michael Maloney (Laertes)
John Mills (Old Norway)
Rufus Sewell (Fortinbras)
Timothy Spall (Rosencrantz)
Robin Williams (Osric)
Kate Winslet (Ophelia)
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running
time: 242m
U.S. release: December 25, 1996
Video availability: VHS
Other Kenneth
Branagh films
reviewed on this site:
- Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein
See also:
- Hamlet
(2000)
|
At
his best, and sometimes at his worst, Kenneth Branagh is an exuberant
and playful actor-director. His excess was wretched when applied
to the sedate Mary
Shelley, but it's perfect for Shakespeare. In Hamlet,
Branagh gives you both barrels -- the full play, which usually
takes about five hours to perform on stage. Branagh brings it
in at just over four hours, and it hurtles ahead like the bus
in Speed
(a comparison Branagh might enjoy) -- bulky but fast and exhilarating.
As Hamlet, Branagh wears a triangular goatee pointing down at
his body, as if to indicate that this production will be preoccupied
with the physical. Branagh's camera circles around huge, opulent
sets; he delivers his pre-intermission soliloquy in front of
a vast expanse of snow, with Fortinbras' army approaching far
in the distance. (It's a glaringly obvious process shot, but
I didn't care.) The cumulative effect of four hours of Ken's
Magic Show is far from boredom; it's closer to happy exhaustion,
like the aftermath of a great meal or great sex. And Branagh
keeps serving up one irresistible dessert after another.
In his eagerness to lure the mass American audience, Branagh
also serves up a batch of novelty cameos. Ooh, there's Billy
Crystal as the gravedigger! (He's actually pretty funny.) And
here's Jack Lemmon, Charlton Heston, Robin Williams, and a few
others in a variety of walk-ons ranging from amusing to meaningless.
A gross example of the latter is Gerard Depardieu, whose sole
function in his one brief scene is to listen to Polonius and
say "Yes, my lord." Scenes like this make you wish
that Branagh had settled for an almost complete adaptation.
Still, even Branagh's insistence on retaining the pointless moments
is refreshing nowadays, when every scene in a Hollywood film
timidly serves some Screenwriting 101 purpose. And when Branagh
gives the floor to his main actors, all is forgiven. Derek Jacobi,
who directed Branagh in two productions of Hamlet, makes
an imposing and lusty Claudius. Kate Winslet's Ophelia is earthy
and lively, making her descent into madness all the more vivid.
Julie Christie, a newcomer to Shakespeare, is a touching and
conflicted Gertrude. (Branagh has ditched the Oedipal interpretation
as seen in the Mel Gibson Hamlet.)
Hamlet is a notoriously difficult role, and Branagh does some
amazing things and some other things that don't work. His gestures
often seem too smooth and practiced (watch him in his first soliloquy),
and he's too openly furious a lot of the time. Branagh never
met a rant he didn't like; he's Dennis Miller as a tragic hero.
Mostly, though, Branagh the actor-director just wants to put
on an eye-popping show, and he does. Consider, for instance,
the brilliant conception of "To be or not to be," which
Branagh delivers into a two-way mirror, with Polonius and Claudius
behind it watching him. At the end, Fortinbras' soldiers crash
through the mirrored doors, as if shattering the narcissism,
paranoia, and rampant deceit in the corridors of power. It's
an action climax; finally, John Woo meets Shakespeare! Die-hard
Bard students may quibble, but this gargantuan and glorious Hamlet
is a movie-lover's paradise. |
