Hamlet

Entertaining, but a lot is missing
Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, at 153 minutes, is no popcorn flick. However, in order to get the film down to this rather long length, Olivier had to make significant cuts to the famous Shakespearean play. As a film that won four Oscars, this is (was) mainstream entertainment. Presenting Hamlet in its entirety (or even close to its entirety) under these circumstances was therefore an impossibility. Olivier's modifications come in three forms: small deletions from speeches and conversations, "streamlining" of main story lines, and cuts of entire subplots. The first, least drastic change, leads to the second, and finally the third, and greatest, of the changes. The cutting of lines has the least effect on the production's ability to tell the story. The removed lines are usually unnecessary and repetitive, and the transitions are smooth. Without a written version of the text in front of him, a viewer (unless he knows the play extraordinarily well) can rarely pick out where a line...

Reviewing this film is a trap
Consider this: Shakespearean films more than other films are dependent upon the director's translation of the text. HAMLET in particular has been adapted roughly 43 times in film. I'll say up front that this version is not my favorite interpretation, but I won't deny that it certainly set the standard back in its day.

For those unfamiliar with the play, Hamlet's father, the king of Denmark, has recently passed away and he resents the speed with which his mother, Queen Gertrude, remarried. It doesn't help that her new husband is the dead king's brother, Claudius. Soon an apparition who is the spirit of his father, the dead king, visits Hamlet. The ghost explains that Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, murdered him in his sleep and tells Hamlet to avenge his death. The remainder of the story primarily revolves around the Prince's struggle to stop thinking and start doing (exemplified by the famous "To be, or not to be" speech. Can Hamlet do what it takes to truly...

Essay, Laurence Olivier's Hamlet in comparison to BBC Versio
Many critics have viewed the Lawrence Olivier version of Hamlet to be the best among the 43 film adaptations of Hamlet. The film won four Academy Awards, and Lawrence Olivier amazingly gained two Academy Awards for both directing and acting. The Jacobi Hamlet, on the other hand, was a BBC TV film put together in a short time with a small budget during the late 70s. (As a side note, Jacobi was actually introduced into Shakespearean acting by Olivier.) Despite this difference in prestige, the films presented two equally valid interpretations of Hamlet. The central issue was if Hamlet was mad, and through manipulations of voices and the degree and timing of Hamlet's violent actions, the audience was faced with two emotionally upset Hamlets, one who had more madness and the other who had more control.

Both Hamlets were emotional in their voices and had bursts of anger, but Olivier was more rational and controlled in his voice then Jacobi, who seemed truly mad. At first,...

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