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Late last year I had the great pleasure of seeing Derek Jacobi perform MEASURE + DIDO, a modern update of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure that includes excerpts from Henry Purcell’s chamber opera Dido and Aeneas. Jacobi was marvelous as Angelo, the lusty, scheming and very funny deputy to the Duke of Vienna. With apologies to the other players, Jacobi owned the stage and effortlessly commanded Shakespeare’s ornate language. I was in awe of his powerful performance and in the process, I gained a new appreciation for Shakespeare’s comedy. But if truth be told, I prefer the Bard’s tragedies to his comedies so with the experience of seeing MEASURE + DIDO still somewhat fresh in my mind, I decided to revisit Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996) now streaming on FilmStruck.
Like many film fans and Shakespeare enthusiasts, I was bowled over by Branagh’s Henry V (1989) when I first saw it on screen. The young director and star, who was just 29-years-old at the time, brought Shakespeare back to the people and out of the rigged confines of academia by breathing new life into the Bard’s poetry and prose. Henry V rightly earned Branagh many awards, as well as critical acclaim, and Hollywood took notice. In fact, Hollywood seemed to swallow Branagh up.
His subsequent Shakespeare adaptations including Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Love’s Labor Lost (2000) and As You Like It (2006), lost a lot of the urgency, raw energy, and edginess that had made Henry V so enjoyable. The films seemed to be ill-conceived, more bloated and less interested in the sumptuous language that defines Shakespearian drama. They were also weighed down by the stunt casting of popular Hollywood stars in unsuitable roles, often at the request of producers to boost ticket sales. Branagh’s Hamlet suffers from these problems as well and when I first saw the film 20-years ago, I was so distracted by its shortcomings that I overlooked its many virtues.
Branagh’s Hamlet is the first unabridged film of Shakespeare’s play and clocking in at just over 4 hours, it demands a lot from viewers. Concise and considerate edits could improve the overall execution and flow but the film’s length also comes with some benefits. There have been over 50 film adaptations of Hamlet but fascinating supporting characters such as Rosencrantz (Timothy Spall) and Guildenstern (Reece Dinsdale) are often given short shrift due to time constraints. That’s not the case here. The length of the film allows for the play’s subtle plot points to fully blossom and minor roles no longer feel minor.
Much of the film’s focus is naturally on Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, who is seeking revenge for the murder of his father (Brian Blessed), and Kenneth Branagh does a good job of balancing the dual roles of director and star. Branagh is a lively and energetic Hamlet who is constantly on the move. He clearly loves the language and could probably recite the play backwards while blindfolded, which allowed him to give a very animated performance. For better or worse, the character is typically portrayed as a somber truth seeker but Branagh’s Hamlet is more ferocious, replacing melancholy with rage and bewilderment with bravado. It doesn’t always work and during my rewatch I often found myself wishing he had dialed things down but his delivery is flawless for some of Hamlet’s more assertive soliloquies, particularly the lesser repeated ones such as “’Tis now the very witching time of night” and “How all occasions do inform against me.”
Hamlet was photographed in stunning Super Panavision 70, a favorite of David Lean who used the same stock while shooting Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Ryan’s Daughter (1970). Branagh’s film lacks the depth and breadth of Lean’s work, but it does contain some arresting visuals. The baroque set pieces are stunning, particularly the gilded ballroom with its checkered floors and mirrored walls that absorb and reflect all the action. It’s here that Hamlet delivers his seminal “To be, or not to be” speech and fights his dynamic and beautifully shot duel with Laertes (Michael Maloney). And during the film’s final moments Fortinbras (Rufus Sewell) and his invading army make a spectacular entrance while crashing through the ballroom windows accompanied by Patrick Doyle’s bombastic and moving score.
Hamlet flounders when the casting doesn’t work and Branagh seems to have difficulty with the play’s darker moments. This is particularly noticeable during the introduction of the ghost (Hamlet’s late father) where a painfully out-of-place Jack Lemmon struggles to portray the devoted sentry and in the gravedigger scene featuring Billy Crystal who appears to be on the verge of cracking an ill-timed joke at any moment. Julie Christie, who is normally one of my favorite actresses, was well-suited to play Gertrude but she seems lost or forgotten in the vast halls of the immense palace most of the time. Even Kate Winslet’s interpretation of Ophelia suffers under Branagh’s scattershot direction. Her scenes, which are some of the play’s most memorable moments, lack the resonance they should carry.
Despite my criticisms, the film does contain some wonderful casting surprises. Charlton Heston, in what is arguably his last substantial role, makes an impressive Player King. He may be American but his booming voice is perfectly suited for Shakespeare and it makes you wish he had abandoned Hollywood late in life and relocated to England where he could have had a second career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. However, the best performance in Hamlet belongs to Derek Jacobi as the conniving Claudius who murders his brother (Hamlet’s father) and sets in motion a series of horrible events that will eventually lead to the demise of Denmark.
Jacobi’s Claudius possesses a byzantine complexity and is so slippery that he defies any attempt to brand him a villain. Like Shakespeare himself, Jacobi paints Claudius in rich shades of gray, allowing us to sympathize with his despicable deeds. He leaves us wondering if maybe, just maybe, he would have been a superior king than his dead brother, a more loving husband to Gertrude and a better father to the inconsolable Hamlet. The master thespian doesn’t try to upstage the Bard’s words or chew up Branagh’s lush scenery, instead, he thoughtfully and effortlessly recites each line of Claudius’s dialogue as if he were merely breathing. It is an organic and fully formed portrait of a character typically eclipsed by his actions.
For all its faults, Branagh’s Hamlet impressed me more during my second viewing and I’m glad I made time to revisit it again. Due to a lack of interest on my part, I haven’t kept up with the director’s recent output but I’m looking forward to his interpretation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (2017) scheduled for a November release later this year. Like Hamlet, Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express has a diverse cast of players and with Derek Jacobi on board, it’s sure to be an interesting trip.
Kimberly Lindbergs