Hamlet
I had a great day. I got to sleep in. Then I got up and made Cashew Chili, Cream Cheese Amaretto Brownies, and then Evil Saltines. Three of my students came over and we watched Branagh's Hamlet. I am proud beyond what I can say about how brilliant my daughter was in understanding really difficult Shakespeare. So. Proud.
I have now seen five Hamlets. Branagh, Gibson, Jacobi, Olivier, and wiliqueen's Rosebriar production where I think Tom was Hamlet.
Olivier...I just can't get into his work. I've seen his Henry V. Eh. I like his Lear well enough. But...I don't get why he was Such A Big Deal (I am, perhaps, missing the context). It's been a VERY long time since I saw the Hamlet but nothing from it stuck with me.
Jacobi...it was my first Hamlet. Saw all four, BBC hours of it senior year of high school, complete with the sci-fi-old-home-week of Patrick Stewart as Claudius (in a truly heinous curly wig) and Lalla Ward as a completely insipid and uninspired Ophelia. I had fond memories of it until I tried to watch it again a few years later when I wasn't quite so patient any longer with 80s BBC production values. Jacobi was good, but, yeah, gravity works, too.
I really like a number of things about Zeffirelli's Hamlet with Gibson. I like Gibson's work in the soliloquies. I LOVE Helena Bonham-Carter (and, again, yes, gravity works) in every scene she's in but ESPECIALLY the mad scene. I love the scene in the library with the ladder and Polonius and Hamlet with one boot on and one off. I thought Claudius was essentially a non-entity. I thought Glenn Close was a travesty (but pretty) who had NO idea what she was doing with Gertrude and gave the character NO through-line of ANY kind.
I liked the Rosebriar production and thought that it had absolutely hands-down one of the BEST Ophelias ever--they played her that she was over-protected by mom Polonia (lots of cross-gender casting in that company due to availability of performers) and was already mentally ill, trying desperately to hold onto the real world and keep the voices that beckoned at bay and, ultimately, losing that battle when the real world had nothing left to offer and giving in to the voices was a better option. UNbelievable. I remember Hamlet being pretty good and very serious. I remember wiliqueen and her cohort as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, set as Hamlet's sex-and-drugs friends from university. I remember Claudius and Gertrude not at all.
Branagh's Hamlet I'd seen large chunks of four or five years ago and REALLY liked what I saw--the opening scenes with the statue ghost, the "get thee to a nunnery," Ophelia's mad scene, the gravedigger scene...
I really like the setting (the palace with its hidey-holes as well as the 1890s aspect) and the costumes. I found myself very very distracted by Branagh's bleach job. I found the fact that Branagh FAR more resembles Jacobi than Brian Blessed to be visually interesting in a "How long has this affair been going on?" kind of way. I like the use of the statue as ghost. I love the actor playing Horatio and thought Charleton Heston was an excellent Player King. I liked Billy Crystal's gravedigger (though my students and I couldn't figure out why there were, like, 6 skulls in that particular grave). I was amused by Judi Dench being credited for her 20 seconds on screen--and at them for getting her to do just 20 seconds. I found myself wondering how MANY projects Kate Winslet did before she got to do a film without wearing a highly constricting corset (because Sense & Sensibility, Titanic, Hamlet, Quills just to start...). I like the clear choice of having Ophelia haunted by having had sex with Hamlet but was somewhat uncomfortable with Kate and Ken's age difference and by the AMOUNT of nakedidity (I liked the flashbacks but did there have to be SO MANY?).
I thought Ken did good work in the quiet scenes and in scenes where he was playing off of someone. I thought the scenes with characters who weren't Hamlet were fantastic. For Hamlet to work, the EXTENSIVE stuff where Hamlet's talking talking talking has to be interesting. And I didn't find it so. I wasn't compelled by Ken's monologuing Hamlet. I don't know if this is because of him or because of the uncut text being So Damned Long or something about me. I also didn't think Ken's shouting and BIGNESS for the middle 2 hours of the film worked...it felt like he was doing on-stage-for-the-back-of-the-balcony and it was just...over the top for me. I tried to watch it as HAMLET being too loud too big too crazy but that didn't work for either. And I kept hearing delivery of lines that was identical to vocal and facial and cadence stuff from Much Ado and Henry V; I think I know those two films just a little TOO well and can hear whenever there's even an echo of a line reading and I can't quite separate it so it's not distracting.
It was amusing trying to explain th plot convenience of the pirate ship to my daughter. THAT one is Will's fault. *grin*
My biggest problems are, again, with Gertie. I can't tell if I wasn't reading the text well or if Julie Christie just didn't make choices she should have or if her performance wasn't strong enough to make those choices clear. Whatever it was, I could not decide if Gertie knew about or was consenting unto the murder. I don't think the text provides a definitive ANSWER to whether or not Gertie knew or was a co-conspirator but I very much think that any given production should know and have made a decision and be playing it with that decision in mind. Glenn Close was all over the frelling place. I had hoped Julie Christie, especially working with Branagh, would have decided.
I LOVE the way this production not only deals with but makes CLEAR the entire conflict with Norway and even showcases it. I LOVE that Ken actually let the ironic nature of the final scene stand forward. In this production, a full-on battle is going on to take the palace while Hamlet and Laertes (whom I also love) are dueling and outside guards are being killed like flies. Then, JUST after Hamlet dies, something like FIFTY guards BURST through the windows (LOTS of horses taken out there) with their rifles and bayonets and Fortinbras marches in to take over...and finds a room full of dead people. It's really a wonderful moment.
The weird part is that there was a scene I remember with GREAT clarity and detail from last time I was watching this. I REMEMBER this Gertrude standing and watching Ophelia by the stream and possibly even giving her a nudge or helping her in then standing and watching while Ophelia drowned, looking distant and cold. I remember the blocking, the expressions, the costumes. I was waiting for and looking forward to watching that scene again and studying it. The inconvenience was the fact that the scene doesn't exist. Last time I watched this I was quite sick and not breathing well and fell asleep several times...and apparently dreamt the whole scene in great detail. Either that or it was in another production and I've transferred it over. I missed the scene being there (not that it ever was...).
All in all, I didn't feel like the Branagh Hamlet really came together fully. There was lots of good stuff, but it was a bit disjointed, a bit off.
I continue not to have seen a Hamlet with which I am fully satisfied.
I have now seen five Hamlets. Branagh, Gibson, Jacobi, Olivier, and wiliqueen's Rosebriar production where I think Tom was Hamlet.
Olivier...I just can't get into his work. I've seen his Henry V. Eh. I like his Lear well enough. But...I don't get why he was Such A Big Deal (I am, perhaps, missing the context). It's been a VERY long time since I saw the Hamlet but nothing from it stuck with me.
Jacobi...it was my first Hamlet. Saw all four, BBC hours of it senior year of high school, complete with the sci-fi-old-home-week of Patrick Stewart as Claudius (in a truly heinous curly wig) and Lalla Ward as a completely insipid and uninspired Ophelia. I had fond memories of it until I tried to watch it again a few years later when I wasn't quite so patient any longer with 80s BBC production values. Jacobi was good, but, yeah, gravity works, too.
I really like a number of things about Zeffirelli's Hamlet with Gibson. I like Gibson's work in the soliloquies. I LOVE Helena Bonham-Carter (and, again, yes, gravity works) in every scene she's in but ESPECIALLY the mad scene. I love the scene in the library with the ladder and Polonius and Hamlet with one boot on and one off. I thought Claudius was essentially a non-entity. I thought Glenn Close was a travesty (but pretty) who had NO idea what she was doing with Gertrude and gave the character NO through-line of ANY kind.
I liked the Rosebriar production and thought that it had absolutely hands-down one of the BEST Ophelias ever--they played her that she was over-protected by mom Polonia (lots of cross-gender casting in that company due to availability of performers) and was already mentally ill, trying desperately to hold onto the real world and keep the voices that beckoned at bay and, ultimately, losing that battle when the real world had nothing left to offer and giving in to the voices was a better option. UNbelievable. I remember Hamlet being pretty good and very serious. I remember wiliqueen and her cohort as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, set as Hamlet's sex-and-drugs friends from university. I remember Claudius and Gertrude not at all.
Branagh's Hamlet I'd seen large chunks of four or five years ago and REALLY liked what I saw--the opening scenes with the statue ghost, the "get thee to a nunnery," Ophelia's mad scene, the gravedigger scene...
I really like the setting (the palace with its hidey-holes as well as the 1890s aspect) and the costumes. I found myself very very distracted by Branagh's bleach job. I found the fact that Branagh FAR more resembles Jacobi than Brian Blessed to be visually interesting in a "How long has this affair been going on?" kind of way. I like the use of the statue as ghost. I love the actor playing Horatio and thought Charleton Heston was an excellent Player King. I liked Billy Crystal's gravedigger (though my students and I couldn't figure out why there were, like, 6 skulls in that particular grave). I was amused by Judi Dench being credited for her 20 seconds on screen--and at them for getting her to do just 20 seconds. I found myself wondering how MANY projects Kate Winslet did before she got to do a film without wearing a highly constricting corset (because Sense & Sensibility, Titanic, Hamlet, Quills just to start...). I like the clear choice of having Ophelia haunted by having had sex with Hamlet but was somewhat uncomfortable with Kate and Ken's age difference and by the AMOUNT of nakedidity (I liked the flashbacks but did there have to be SO MANY?).
I thought Ken did good work in the quiet scenes and in scenes where he was playing off of someone. I thought the scenes with characters who weren't Hamlet were fantastic. For Hamlet to work, the EXTENSIVE stuff where Hamlet's talking talking talking has to be interesting. And I didn't find it so. I wasn't compelled by Ken's monologuing Hamlet. I don't know if this is because of him or because of the uncut text being So Damned Long or something about me. I also didn't think Ken's shouting and BIGNESS for the middle 2 hours of the film worked...it felt like he was doing on-stage-for-the-back-of-the-balcony and it was just...over the top for me. I tried to watch it as HAMLET being too loud too big too crazy but that didn't work for either. And I kept hearing delivery of lines that was identical to vocal and facial and cadence stuff from Much Ado and Henry V; I think I know those two films just a little TOO well and can hear whenever there's even an echo of a line reading and I can't quite separate it so it's not distracting.
It was amusing trying to explain th plot convenience of the pirate ship to my daughter. THAT one is Will's fault. *grin*
My biggest problems are, again, with Gertie. I can't tell if I wasn't reading the text well or if Julie Christie just didn't make choices she should have or if her performance wasn't strong enough to make those choices clear. Whatever it was, I could not decide if Gertie knew about or was consenting unto the murder. I don't think the text provides a definitive ANSWER to whether or not Gertie knew or was a co-conspirator but I very much think that any given production should know and have made a decision and be playing it with that decision in mind. Glenn Close was all over the frelling place. I had hoped Julie Christie, especially working with Branagh, would have decided.
I LOVE the way this production not only deals with but makes CLEAR the entire conflict with Norway and even showcases it. I LOVE that Ken actually let the ironic nature of the final scene stand forward. In this production, a full-on battle is going on to take the palace while Hamlet and Laertes (whom I also love) are dueling and outside guards are being killed like flies. Then, JUST after Hamlet dies, something like FIFTY guards BURST through the windows (LOTS of horses taken out there) with their rifles and bayonets and Fortinbras marches in to take over...and finds a room full of dead people. It's really a wonderful moment.
The weird part is that there was a scene I remember with GREAT clarity and detail from last time I was watching this. I REMEMBER this Gertrude standing and watching Ophelia by the stream and possibly even giving her a nudge or helping her in then standing and watching while Ophelia drowned, looking distant and cold. I remember the blocking, the expressions, the costumes. I was waiting for and looking forward to watching that scene again and studying it. The inconvenience was the fact that the scene doesn't exist. Last time I watched this I was quite sick and not breathing well and fell asleep several times...and apparently dreamt the whole scene in great detail. Either that or it was in another production and I've transferred it over. I missed the scene being there (not that it ever was...).
All in all, I didn't feel like the Branagh Hamlet really came together fully. There was lots of good stuff, but it was a bit disjointed, a bit off.
I continue not to have seen a Hamlet with which I am fully satisfied.