Let’s face it; you don’t come to me for an analysis of Shakespeare, so I won’t bother. What I can say is how terrific Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” is, not because it’s a faithful adaptation (it’s not) of the most enduring play ever written, or even because Olivier is the 20th Century’s best figure head of the classical actor, but because it set the stage for how to adapt the Bard to the screen. It values sumptuous visuals and symbolic set dressing to establish moods and themes over a strict retelling of the play, acknowledging full well it can’t get all of Shakespeare’s prose into the screenplay.
The result is a film that borrows a haunting aesthetic from both “Citizen Kane” and Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Desmond Dickinson’s deep focus cinematography coupled with the foggy set dressing in front of black infinity backdrops gives “Hamlet” a ghastly effect that emboldens the story’s more fantastical and spiritual themes. I love the labyrinth of a castle Hamlet and Horatio stand atop during the film’s first act. It’s a surreal set that doesn’t make spatial sense, and it makes the appearance of the ghost of Hamlet’s father all the creepier. When he appears, he’s framed in between two spears that make it look like he’s entering through Heaven’s Gate. Olivier uses the fog and backdrop to isolate Hamlet (see: him carrying his sword downward approaching the phantom) in truly iconic ways.
“Hamlet” has minimal editing and a surplus of wide shots, but the film never looks “stagy.” The camera acts as its own character on stage, approaching others and backing away as a part of the conversation and providing Olivier with room to breathe when his voice is really booming. It’s an active surveyor, often providing more context than the actors themselves. Look at one shot where Ophelia has just finished talking to Polonious. Out of the corner of her eye, she spies Hamlet sitting forlornly in a chair at the far end of the corridor, and we get his reaction shot in return. Both perspectives indicate visually what is going through these characters’ heads in a way that theatrical staging could not.
But the film won Best Picture where Olivier’s previous “Henry IV” did not because Olivier himself provides such fire in the role of Hamlet. They say playing is the ultimate actor’s challenge because it requires so much complexity and range, and Olivier is quiet and forlorn without losing his thunderous tone, most of all during the scene where he kills Polonious. Olivier was already a gigantic stage legend well before he attempted “Hamlet” or “Henry IV” on film, and he even had a lucrative career in Hollywood, both in “Wuthering Heights” and “Rebecca.” But this is the role that defines him as an actor. He’s the only actor to win an Oscar for a Shakespearean role, and he deserves it.
Future filmmakers like Kenneth Branagh would eventually tackle “Hamlet” in full, and others would adapt the story to modernity in ways that are so much more daring, but Olivier’s “Hamlet” set the stage for them all.
