Customer Reviews

Hamlet [VHS]

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Tony Richardson's production of Hamlet is perhaps too subtle for those used to more ostentatious renderings of the play, but do not let that discourage you from enjoying the depth and clarity of this fine stage/film version, which reads very well on the television screen.

Celebrated Nicol Williamson plays an infinitely human and palpable Hamlet. There is no bombast nor bloat to the intelligent tone and pithy rhythm of his soliloquies. Williamson is one of a handful of actors who can phrase the complex *long bow* of Shakespeare's verse into the meaningful and memorable images that the author so ardently aimed. With Williamson (as with Branaugh 25+ years later), this Hamlet's increasingly cynical dispair fuels his rage -- not the simpering *moral confusion* of more formalized drama school portrayals.

Gordon Jackson, best known to American film buffs as THE GREAT ESCAPE's MacDonald (*Intelligence*), plays a wonderfully intimate and faithful Horatio -- indeed, here IS a true friend!

Marianne Faithful is in her element as Ophelia. And one can only wonder how Anthony Hopkins would play Claudius today? He seems to overdraw his character in this 1969 stage to film version - but then again, why wouldn't a King who breakfasted on baked fowl in bed have an overdrawn character? To save himself from tenderizing fair Rosencrantz and good Guildenstern for their fouled English mission?

Let others scoff at the humanity and subtlety of this performance. This lovely version [used to be] shown frequently on the BRAVO channel (when it was known *The Actor's Channel*) for good reason. The old VHS video is of terrible quality. The BRAVO channel version was the same as the current PAL-DVD release. One can only hope for an NTSC-DVD release but none looks in sight.

Nicol Williamson is a very fine actor, who does not seem to have realised his full potential. Nevertheless, all his performances deserve attention, as he is able to bring charisma and intelligence to anything he undertakes. All interpretations of Shakespeare's major works also deserve concentration and serious notice, since they are central to the Western canon of drama and literature, and Hamlet, especially, is the most remarkable of all his plays. It is not really sensible to enact the full script unaltered and uncut, and it seems doubtful whether it was ever produced on the Elizabethan stage in this manner, without trimming. What is essential, however, is that nothing but the words should drive the action, which is why Ethan Hawke's Hamlet and McKellen's Richard III are such relative disasters. At the same time, the director must have a unity of vision, and his take on the text must be coherent and consistent. Neither Richardson nor Williamson quite achieve this. The production suffers from ups and downs, and the various parts of the text that have been retained do not seem to integrate fully with each other. Richardson also appears to have been negatively influenced by Olivier's film, and sometimes seems to be going out of his way to avoid repetition of Olivier's reading. This is not a constructive approach, and one is left with a sense of dissatisfaction. There are other small gripes: why are the parts of the grave-digger and the player king both performed by Roger Livesey? This is extremely disconcerting. Marianne Faithfull was good, if not convincingly virginal.

Reading the lines above : No matter of how easy may be to scorn gifted genius, folks, you should first think and then act before trying to trench infamously this delightful dainty in a couple of poorly woven sentences, for this is one of the best Hamlets EVER seen and heared. Williamson's Hamlet crashes Branagh's right and left and overshadows the rest of the ensemble -but Hopkins'-. Yes, he looks like 50, though he was just 30, and so what?. So did also Orson Welles when he played the Claudius with Micheál MacLíammoír in the Hamlet role though this last one was over ten years his senior...Williamson could be for my sake 120, then his contribution to the character (edgy, defiant, sour, superb!) is probably the best one. And even if the backdrops were kind of unsofisticated and the whole production sparse -Richardson was lacking of the buck, hence the humble get-up- its darkness rather enhances the characters on stage, getting more eye-catching and preventing the spectator from any superfluous item that would disturb his attention. It's beautiful the way characters emerge from and slink and into the darkness. Williamson doesn't fall in the trap of giving the audience what they expect, nor needs to dye his hair or hide behind a million dollar scenery for a self complacent showing off, then what he's offering the respectable is a raw and intensely truculent Hamlet full of sarcasm and dangerously strong emotions, provided you can take them...
Yes, folks, this guy is unreachable, the KILIMANJARO of all Hamlets, if not the Everest. Not to be missed in anything -check the Merlin in Boorman's "Excalibur" or as the coke-snoring Sherlock Holmes in "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution"-. And where is he hiding now?. Is he still playing theater in London or elsewhere?.
Richardson was brilliant as well and did a good producer work, risky and controversial, it's just a pity that the play had to suffer from the many cuts in the screening version. This fact merms the whole thing a bit.
I wouldn't recommend this to the Kenneth Branagh's Estrogen Brigades, but for the rest of the respectable is just indispensable, if you can renounce to overloaded parades of firework in Shakespeare's adaptions.
Yes, mamma, give me more of this!

I'm amazed and thrilled that this version still exists!!! I saw this years ago and was blown away!!! Nicol Williamson is truly one of the most original and incredible actors ever. SO underrated and so talented!! Everything I've seen him in (not enough, unfortunately) has been an experience that becomes almost physical!! SEE this version, everyone who loves MAGNIFICENT acting and "Hamlet" itself. Not for the (dramatic) faint of heart. Those who love PASSIONATE acting will LOVE Nicol Williamson and HIS "Hamlet."

This video is an adaptation of the stage production that was produced in London's Roundhouse (a former train roundhouse converted into a theatre). The film makes use of the entire theatre, not just the stage. It makes for a very claustrophobic, but effective setting.

I have mixed feelings about this film. I am glad someone tried something different with Hamlet. I was glad to see a 30 year old Hamlet for a change. Hamlet is not the young undergrad college student we always picture him to be, but a 30 year old grad student. Shakespeare's play tells us that Yorick's skull has been in the ground for 24 years and Hamlet tells us how he knew Yorick as a childhood friend. Nicol Williamson (while not the common image of Hamlet)was a 30 year old actor playing a 30 year old character.

Much better than the Kenneth Branagh version. Marianne Faithfull is stunning.

After viewing Kenneth Branagh's flawed but infinitely rewarding "Hamlet," I was overtaken by a great curiosity to see earlier film versions, including those of Olivier and Zeffirelli. This incarnation, directed by Tony Richardson and featuring a cast that reads like a Who's Who of British Theatre, was undoubtedly the funniest, though perhaps that was not the director's intention. Cast members include Judy Parfitt, as a hard-faced, though handsome, Gertrude--if this queen knows that her new husband killed for the throne, you strongly suspect she doesn't care--and a youthful Anthony Hopkins as a somewhat out-of-his-depth Claudius. Gordon Jackson provides stalwart support as Horatio, the kind of man you'd want on your side in a crisis, but Marianne Faithfull's Ophelia has the disconcerting look and demeanor of a child-whore, in a court that often resembles a greasy Southwark stew, with its courtiers tricked out in garish hues and the "ladies" almost spilling out of their tight, low-cut bodices. Something is definitely "rotten in the state of Denmark," but unfortunately, we are given little reason to sympathize with Shakespeare's put-upon Prince. In the title role, Nicol Williamson neither broods nor thunders--he NATTERS, delivering most of his lines in a pinched nasal whine, like a peevish child. Just call him Hamlet, Twerp of Denmark, and send him. like Lear's fool, "to bed at noon."

A few things have been modified in the play, for example the concluding remarks by Fortinbras that have been dropped, or the fact that Osric is quite obviously a transvestite. But basically that does not change much in the content of the drama. A first crime, Claudius' incestuous killing of his own brother to seize his crown and his wife, makes it true that there is something rotten in this kingdom of Denmark. This disorder will have to be set back up properly in the traditional Skakespearian way. All protagonists will have to die. Claudius of course, but also Gertrude, the Queen, Polonius the King's counselor and the father of both Laertes and Ophelia. Then Ophelia, Laertes and Hamlet. And we mustn't forget Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Then and only then will Fortinbras be able to take over (though it is reduced to two allusions to him and his disembarking but not at the end of the play) and bring back some legitimacy, hence order in that disorder. We all know that plot by heart or nearly and we all enjoy the play in the play, the ghost, Yorick's skull, immortalized by Picasso, and so many scenes and situations. The distribution of flowers by Ophelia is one of these. Yet this film is different. I guess the editing of the DVD is closer to TV editing with a lot of close-up shots of faces. But what is the most original of this film is the sensual dimension added to it. Claudius and Gertrude in bed having some kind of breakfast with quite a lot of people around, Hamlet among them: an incestuous and adulterous situation that has to be a provocation for Hamlet both in his Oedipian frustration and the betrayal he will accuse his mother later on with. The long kiss of Laertes and Ophelia is more a kiss of lovers than sister and brother. The use of transvestites for the play in the play, which was normal under Shakespeare but may look bizarre today, even in 1969. But the transformation of Osric into one transvestite is more than surprising, since his business is not that of a woman, but definitely that of man, a courtier, a messenger of the King that reveals at the same time things he should not reveal, in other words a gossip but revealing a murderous plot against Hamlet, pointing out that this attitude is suspicious in many ways in feudal times and may reveal the homosexual dimension of Hamlet and the attitudes in that direction he may incite, voluntarily or not. That dimension of the play is quite obvious beyond the political approach of the action and the psychological characterization of the characters. But I find these added elements either not enough or too much. Too much if we stick to the text written by Shakespeare. Too little if we want to reveal the deeply erotic, Freudian and perverted situation created by the first murder. But is Hamlet a pornographic play? Some may think yes. Some may think no. But there is no in between in that field. Was Gertrude the prize of the crime or was she not?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

I remember seeing this movie when I was in college and being totally captivated by it. I had already seen the Olivier version as well as a modernist version with Maximilian Schell so I was familiar with HAMLET on the big screen (I had also just seen Dame Judith Anderson's take on HAMLET live on stage). The late 1960s and early 1970s were full of movie adaptations of Shakespeare, most of them highly original and very good. Roman Polanski's MACBETH, Peter Brook's KING LEAR and this production were my three favorites. Like Brook's LEAR with Paul Scofield, this had been a stage production before it went in front of the cameras. The production was shot inside an old railway roundhouse giving it a somewhat claustrophobic feel. This was augmented by shooting most of the scenes in extreme close-up but this helped to draw me right into the drama. I felt as if Nicol Williamson's Hamlet was speaking directly to me in a conversational way. At first I thought his Hamlet looked too old (Williamson is a year older than Anthony Hopkins who plays his uncle) but that feeling quickly passed as I became riveted by his voice and reading of the text. In no time at all, he WAS Hamlet. In addition to the young Anthony Hopkins there was also Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia which meant more then than it does now but she acquits herself well. Look carefully and you can see an 18 year old Anjelica Huston as one of the court ladies.

For this version, Tony Richardson streamlines the text so that only the core essence remains. There are no wasted words here. This bothers a lot of Shakespeare purists but for me this is is the ideal HAMLET for the Shakespeare novice to begin with and I would show it first in the classroom. It may seem like a Classics Illustrated version, but it's easier to follow and if you're just starting out that's important. Later on you can see the Olivier or other versions, working your way up to Kenneth Branagh's uncut version which I admire but which I feel is too much of a good thing. Think of this as an indie version of the play which makes the most out of its limited resources. Unfortunately the VHS version which is all that's available in America is a pretty sad affair. Not only is it pan and scan which is always maddening but the print is all beat up as well. I have the Region 2 DVD (available from amazon.uk) which is a vast improvement but even it is in the wrong aspect ratio. I would love to see Sony (who owns the rights to this version) come out with a high quality Region 1 DVD or turn it over to Criterion or someone like them who could do the same. Until then even the old tape is better than nothing as this is a remarkable film document of a legendary performance. After 40 years, Nicol Williamson still rules!

I remember watching this production on a grainy b&w television back in 1970. It didn't much register at the time. I remember gisting the plot pretty much and enjoying the "sound" of it all. (The look of it would have been lost on me in any event, since the reception on my parents' TV set was so poor.) As a rock music fan, I recall finding Marianne Faithfull's presence in the production intriguing. But while I had struggled through some required Shakespeare readings in high school (of which, HAMLET was not one), I really wasn't much ready for any production of the play at age 18--let alone one as brooding and dark as this one.

So forty years on, am I any the wiser? I like to think so--and also like to think that I can appreciate the differences in interpretation and approach in the various productions that I've seen over the years. This relatively low budget production has much going for it. Of all the relatively recent filmed productions I've seen, this one is the most stage-like I've seen, while NOT coming off as actually stagey. I loved Branagh's lavish four-hour production as well, but this Tony Richardson directed version is, in a very real sense, leaner and meaner.

Nicol Williamson was hailed by one critic as one of the TWO great Hamlets of the 20th century. (You can guess who the other one was). I'm not going to go there myself, but while I can understand why some don't care for his relatively subdued reading of the part, I couldn't disagree more with those who find him (and Richardson's interpretation) lacking. Hamlet SHOULD be all about brooding and not about bombast. It's not whininess: it's melancholia! Williamson's take on the soliloquies had me spellbound this time out. "So," I thought, "This is how you make 'to be or not to be' interesting and authentic." While I wouldn't say that the other Hamlets I've seen OVERDID it exactly, I was struck how humanized Prince of Denmark was in this production.

And since HAMLET is all about the human condition, I would have to call this productions take on the play a wise one. It may not be the last word on HAMLET, but it is a most worthy effort and one that should be seen.

It's also one that should be seen on DVD. I do hope that it is released in that format in the not-too-distant future.