![]() ![]() A 1981 televised performance from the BBC starring Derek Jacobi, giving nearly all the text and a slightly post-modern production.(Oddly, the play was filmed without costumes or sets, but with a live audience, making it look rather like a cross between Hamletand Waiting for Godot.) A 1964 live performance, directed by Sir John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton ( right), giving us the full play in a crudely shot and miked black and white version.The film, which features music by William Walton, is self-consciously dark, primitive, and austere, reflecting the “high church” aesthetic of the time, largely established by T. The 1948 version by Olivier, drastically cut, almost in half, worth seeing as “Olivier’s Hamlet” rather than Hamlet.Since 1980, Hamlet has been done a number of times, both on television and as a film, and nine different versions are currently available on home video. ![]() In 1964 a Broadway production starring Richard Burton was filmed, giving viewers a near-complete version of the play on film for the first time. Remarkably, it was not until 1948 that the first Hamlet of the sound era appeared -Laurence Olivier’s cut-down noir version. And draped over the whole is the figure of Hamlet, that petulant, sulking, brooding prince who seems to have been born with no purpose but to die. The play’s language makes a near-fetish of self-indulgence, discarding the plot at the drop of a hat to pursue both poetic flights and linguistic quibbles as ends in themselves. Worse, what we are told often contradicts what we know about them from their actions. We are told a great deal about the characters. The most basic principle of narrative - “show, don’t tell” - is constantly violated. The elaborate plot is redundant, inconsistent, and full of holes. Hamlet, it must be said, is not a well-made play. “Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?” ![]()
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