Laurence Olivier's Hamlet

When the 1948 Oscars rolled around, their future was very much in jeopardy. The studios, looking to cut costs (and probably angered by the Academy honoring so many British films) pulled their financing. The show went from the 6,000 plus seats of the Shrine Auditorium to the 900-seat Academy screening theater, which couldn't accommodate all the members.

This did not change the Academy voters fascination with the British, though. For the first time, the top prize went to a non-Hollywood film, Hamlet, directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. Olivier also won Best Actor.

I've seen this film three or four times, and as I watched it again last night I realized how similar it is to a horror picture. Almost everything about the look of the film--the lighting, which makes use of deep shadows, the set--a foreboding castle with very little furniture, and winding stairs everywhere, like an Escher print, and the ever present fog makes one expect Vincent Price to jump out at any second. It is interesting to note that Peter Cushing, who would go on to star in several Hammer horror films (as well as the original Star Wars) played the small role of Osric. Olivier seems to have keyed the entire production from these lines:

"Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on."

Of course, Hamlet has elements of horror, in that the plot is pushed forward by the revelations of a ghost. Olivier opens the film with an almost Cliff Notes-like prologue. He says, in a voice-over, that this is a tragedy of man who could not make up his mind. An interesting statement, because I don't think that's necessarily true. Surely Hamlet is given to procrastination stemming from overthinking (he passes on a chance to kill Claudius while the latter is praying, which would thus send him straight to heaven). The tale of Hamlet, to me, is proto-Freudian, some three hundreds years before Freud became famous. Shakespeare, in his inimitable way, knew about the subconscious when doctors were still bleeding people with leeches.

Do I need to summarize the plot? Hamlet's father, the king, has died. His uncle, Claudius, marries the widowed queen lickety-split (less than two months later, we're told). Hamlet is justifiably disgusted, but then gets really mad when his father's ghost tells him that he was murdered by Claudius. He needs to know for sure, though, so contrives a group of players to act out a scene in which mirrors the murder. Claudius' agitated reaction convinces Hamlet of his uncle's guilt, but he dithers in getting his revenge, first toying with his sometime sweetheart, Ophelia, contemplating committing suicide, accidentally killing the foolish courtier Polonius, and getting involved with pirates on a ship to England. He returns, though, to find that Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, has gone mad and drowned herself. Her brother Laertes swears revenge against Hamlet, and in a supposedly friendly fencing competition everybody ends up dead.

Of course, any encapsulation of Hamlet robs one of the gifts of the play, which by most accounts is the greatest ever written. It is a magnificent treasure trove of language. Here's a game you can play--read or watch the play and count all the titles of other works that are contained in its lines. There are five or six alone in the "To be or not to be" soliloquy. Shakespeare wrote a play about grief, mortality, and the very nature of being a human, and he did it with language that positively sings.

Olivier was Britain's most celebrated stage actor, but was not new to Hollywood, having starred in films like Wuthering Heights and Rebecca. When he took on Hamlet he made sure it would be palatable to the masses, and that meant cuts, as an unabridged Hamlet runs four hours. His philosophy was to make a minority wince to please the masses. Gone completely are any reference to the invasion by Fortinbras of Norway (Fortinbras has the last lines of the play; Olivier gives them to Horatio). Also gone, and it pains me to say it, are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of Hamlet's university friends who arrive at Claudius' bidding to spy on him. Hamlet's exchanges with them are golden, including the "what of piece of work is a man" speech, one of my favorites in the entire canon. Also, some scenes are rearranged (To be or not to be is pushed back, and Olivier delivers it perched on a cliff, as if he might jump).

But even with these changes, a purist can't be too upset, for the film breathes and dazzles, and even at a muscular two-and-a-half hours, flies along at a brisk clip. The performance are all excellent (Jean Simmons, as Ophelia, received a Best Supporting Actress nomination). Olivier, of course, was never better, even though he does look disconcertingly like Sting.