Watching Grand Theft Hamlet this year made me realise that I’d never watched an adaptation of Hamlet. Obviously being one of the big William Shakespeare plays, I know it through pop culture, the famous lines, the references and parodies (thinking of Schwarzenegger doing Hamlet in the parody dream sequence from Last Action Hero). I wanted to watch a proper film version of Hamlet, so why not go to one of the acting legends associated with The Bard, Laurence Olivier, with his Hamlet (1948) film which he starred, adapted and directed.
Olivier has a tempestuous swagger as Hamlet, with his short blonde hair and black tights, and I marvelled at his swinging moods, from suicidal anxiety to wise-cracking daring. Desmond Dickinson’s black-and-white cinematography is forebodingly expressionistic, prowling through the Elsinore sets and spaces. It made me think of Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, and the tradition of black-and-white takes on Shakespeare, what movies that was pulling from for its look, this and the Orson Welles adaptations I haven’t seen.
Olivier was apparently older than the actor who played his mother, Queen Gertrude (Eileen Herlie), and played up the oedipal quality to the relationship. One of my favourite moments was Hamlet dragging Polonius’ body from Gertrude’s chambers with a hearty, “Goodnight, Mother!” The gothic elements of King Hamlet’s ghost, the manipulated quality to his voice, and Ophelia (Jean Simmons) floating in the water, recalling that classic Sir John Everet Millais painting. A good cast throughout including Basil Sydney as Claudius, Norman Wooland as Horatio, and my favourite, a younger Peter Cushing as the foppish Osric.
With my lack of familiarity with the play, I was only missing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern due to their recognisable names and pop cultural use, who Oliver left out of this film version. Overall, this does play into the classic idea of what a Shakespeare movie should be, and yet has alluring and striking qualities beyond its Masterpiece Theatre comparisons. Available on SBS On Demand. Recommended.
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