Hamlet Re-Redux

I've just spent the afternoon watching Kenneth Branagh's 1996 film version of Hamlet. My entire afternoon. The film is just over four hours long, as Shakespeare's original text is presented completely uncut.

I suppose I understand the instinct to treat the text as sacred, but I feel that this is indulging that instinct too much. No one does Hamlet uncut. Not even the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's simply overwrought. On top of the lengthy, uncertain waffling over Hamlet's duties that forms the backbone of the drama (and which is left intact in most productions), the play is stuffed with odd flights of fancy, entire scenes where Hamlet trades verbal barbs with character after character, some appearing for only a single scene, and provided only enough personality to be skewered.

Branagh does assemble quite the cast to breathe life into the play, though. There are names you'd expect to see attached to a Shakespearean production, like Richard Attenborough, Julie Christie, Gérard Depardieu, Derek Jacobi, Rufus Sewell, Timothy Spall, and Kate Winslet. There are actors I for one was a bit surprised to see, such as Charlton Heston, Jack Lemmon, and Robin Williams. There are, in fact, so many big actors lining up to be in the production that Judi Dench and John Gielgud appear without actually speaking a word.

Making a particularly strong impact are Brian Blessed as the ghost of Hamlet's father, and Billy Crystal as the gravedigger. The former is a chilling and ominous force, the latter a truly funny bearer of wit and comic relief. Branagh, of course, takes the title role himself. There are moments where his performance is laser precise, but also moments where he chews up the scenery without anchoring his behavior in reality.

That scenery is exceptional, though. Brought forward to the 19th century and set in an actual palace, the film looks lavish and gorgeous. It is photographed in a way that showcases it well too, though at times the camera overindulges the desire to rotate quickly around the actors to convey a sense of urgency.

While you could take, say, nearly any 10 minute stretch of the film and praise it, the whole simply can't sustain itself when the audience must sit through that 24 times over. I'd rate it a B- overall. It's for the true Shakespeare fan that knows the story and has patience. I'd point the "uninitiated" to some other incarnation. (That BBC version I linked earlier, perhaps?)