Grigori Kozinstev's Hamlet (1964)

From before I even sat down to watch it, this Hamlet had one major strike against it for me: it’s in Russian.  I happen not to speak a word of Russian, so I was expecting to have a lot of trouble getting through this.  I mean, the biggest reason to watch Shakespeare is the language, right?  I almost considered not watching it at all, but I heard somewhere that it was good and decided to give it a shot. 

Thank god I did, because I was simply blown away by this film.  There are a couple of issues I have with it, but as a whole, it’s one of my favorite adaptations I’ve seen. 

However, I’m going to start with the biggest issue: the subtitles.  They were bad.  Really bad.   I know Hamlet well enough that it wasn’t a major problem, but for someone who’d only read the play once, it would have been hard.  I can’t quite figure out how they were done or why they came out the way they did.  Some of the time they directly quoted from Shakespeare’s text.  Some of the time it was an approximate paraphrase.  Some of the time there weren’t subtitles at all.  And some of the time it was just incorrect, like when Hamlet carefully instructs his mother to “let the bloat king tempt you again, pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse.”  There was a fairly consistent issue with negative statements, and they often came out as assertions instead of negations.  There were also a number of lines that just weren’t subtitled.  This happened most commonly in conversations: ten lines of dialogue would be exchanged and only half of them would be subtitled.  I could often fill in what was left out, but sometimes I had no idea what they were supposed to be saying. 

Had everything else been less exquisite, this would have been a nail in the coffin.  However, I couldn’t bring myself to care too much about the subtitling because the rest of it was just so good. 

The visuals throughout this movie were consistently striking.  Unlike Olivier’s film that was shot almost entirely in the empty, winding halls of Elsinore, much of this film was outdoors or in wide, open hallways full of people.  However, Hamlet’s isolation and entrapment felt even more pronounced here than in Olivier’s film.  In the opening sequence, Hamlet rode into Elsinore as black flags were lowered from each window.  As he dismounted and walked in, the bridge was raised behind him, and an iron portcullis slammed shut.  It only opened once again in the film: when he was carried out by Fortinbras’s men on a makeshift stretcher of spears.  Ringed in on one side by the castle walls, Hamlet was fenced in on the other by the ocean.  The camera continually returned to gaze across the horizon every time Hamlet went to the shore, as if he was searching for some way out of the prison that was Denmark.   The sense of Hamlet’s complete isolation was cemented in the first scene: he sat at a small chair in the corner, apart from the rest of the king’s courtiers, and he delivered “Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt,” in voiceover as he walked through a crowded room of nobles and courtiers, all talking except for him.  He didn’t look at them, and they only acknowledged his presence by moving out of the way to let him through.  He was completely alone in a crowd of people.  

Ophelia too was completely trapped and isolated in Elsinore.  The only person who showed her any affection, Laertes, departed for France, leaving her alone with her father and Hamlet, who both terrified her.  She was visibly, physically afraid when she spoke to them, and they both treated her with callous disrespect.  In the nunnery scene, Hamlet wasn’t angry or out of control so much as contemptuous and callous.  Afterwards, she ran, sobbing, to Polonius, who pushed her away so he could continue plotting with Claudius.   The only other character she interacted with while sane was a household servant who played music for her so she could robotically practice dance moves alone.  Throughout the movie, Ophelia was viewed through metal bars: when she first encountered Hamlet in the nunnery scene, when Hamlet saw her through the bars of her window as he left Elsinore, and when the Queen came to see her in the first mad scene.  When her servants were dressing her in black after Polonius’s death, they surrounded her and locked her in an iron, cage-like corset, shutting her up behind bars yet again.  After her death, a single bird flew away from Elsinore and out over the sea: the only one who escaped Elsinore intact.  

In other ways as well, beautiful, striking images were used throughout.  When the Ghost appeared, horses bolted from the stable before the camera panned up to show a massive black silhouette with a dark cloak flapping behind it.  Most of the time it seemed barely human: just the outline of a giant looming over Hamlet.  It only once showed more of itself than an outline: when it instructed Hamlet to leave Gertrude to heaven, it raised its head up so its eyes were visible for just a moment.  The mad Ophelia was draped in a sheer black veil, and she walked with her hands up by her face like a blind woman trying to feel her way around.  The camera focused in on a willow leaning over a brook, then, almost painfully slowly, panned over to show Ophelia’s body floating under the water.   This elegant, striking imagery was extraordinarily effective, and one of my favorite parts of the film. 

Unlike the Olivier Hamlet that shied away from the political elements of the story, Kozinstev’s Hamlet embraced them.  In the very opening scene, a town crier read the first part of Claudius’s speech to a crowd of commoners.  The movie showed the servants who broke their backs closing Elsinore’s portcullis, and the starving beggars shooed away from Ophelia’s funeral procession.  Laertes stormed into the castle with a massive, well organized mob that took out Elsinore’s guards and broke into the King’s room.  The people were restless, poor, and socially distant from court life.  As for the Court itself, everybody was on edge and tense. The new King hadn’t quite gotten everybody on his side yet: “With equal scale!” a nobleman scoffed after hearing the announcement of the Royal marriage.  When the situation came to a crisis during The Murder of Gonzago, a tone of panic descended and never quite lifted. 

Of course, I still haven’t addressed the center of the film: Hamlet himself.  Unlike Olivier’s single-note, depressed Hamlet, Innokenti Smoktunovsky created a multilayered, complex Hamlet who was simply a joy to watch. 

Smoktunovsky’s Hamlet was certainly depressed, but he primarily manifested it by showing a cold disdain for everyone.  He didn’t quite seem to have the energy to care enough to hate anyone, so instead he held himself aloof and reacted coldly when spoken to.  He didn’t really mock Polonius, Osric, Rosencrantz or Gildenstern; he was too detached and in his own head for that.  Instead, he seemed like he was trying as hard as possible to make them go away: they bored and tired him.  He kept himself tightly under control most of the time: when told of his father’s ghost, he visibly tensed and engaged in the conversation, but he didn’t display any emotion beyond that.  During the nunnery scene he was cold and harsh, but never raised his voice.  He kept the same sort of control for most of his confrontation with Gertrude as well, only yelling once, just before the Ghost arrived. 

He seemed to vibrate constantly with nervous energy, even while he kept all of his actions tamped down and under control.  He had a powerful intensity about him, and because he was so thoroughly inside of his own head the entire time, he was unpredictable to everybody around him.  Every character except for Horatio seemed frightened of his intensity, unpredictability and intelligence.  If he walked into a room, it would clear almost instantly; Ophelia shrank away from him when he touched her hand; the King treated him with obsequious politeness; and all he had to do was walk towards Gertrude, speaking softly, for her to beg him not to murder her.

There were really only two issues I took with the film itself (leaving aside the subtitle problem).  The first was Stepan Oleksanko, playing Laertes.  He continually overacted throughout the entire movie, but it was at its worst during Ophelia’s funeral, where the writhed and yelled embarrassingly.  Except for him, the acting was artfully understated, so his ridiculous overacting stood out even more in contrast. 

The second issue I had was the cutting of the text, which seems to be shaping up to be a running theme for the rest of this month.  Unlike the Olivier text that cut deeply, excising entire characters and scenes, Kozinstev cut shallowly, leaving in almost every scene but cutting pieces here and there from each one.  I generally prefer this method of editing: it doesn’t leave me feeling cheated of an essential piece of Hamlet, but it still gets the movie down to a reasonable length.  He also managed to both cut less and have a shorter film that Olivier by taking it at a faster pace than Olivier did; again, I thought this was a step in the right direction over Oliver’s occasionally glacial Hamlet. 

However, the few scenes that were entirely omitted seemed strange to me.  Naturally, I will miss anything that is cut, but the decision to cut the second half of both the “Rogue and Peasant Slave” soliloquy and the “How all Occasions do Inform Against me” soliloquy seemed odd.  I find both of those, but particularly the first one to be very important to character development, and I was disappointed that only bits of them were left in.  They also left out Hamlet’s encounter with the praying King: a decision I usually feel is slightly cowardly, as if they don’t think they’re capable of making a sympathetic character who wants his Uncle to suffer in Hell.  I think Hamlet’s less pleasant side is an important part of him that shouldn’t be removed or understated. I also missed the conversation between Gertrude and Claudius after the closet scene; it’s the only time that they’re seen alone together, and it also establishes where Gertrude’s loyalties lie after her encounter with Hamlet.  Without that scene it’s almost impossible to know where she stands and whether she still trusts Claudius or not, so I can’t understand why that would be cut.   It’s acceptable to leave her somewhat ambiguous, or unsure herself of where she stands, but showing nothing at all of her response seemed problematic.  I understand the need to cut the text, but these edits seemed to keep some less important scenes at the expense of these much larger ones that I think really needed to be left in. 

These issues were minor though in contrast to the rest of the film.  It was visually striking, well acted, engaging and thoughtful.  Definitely worth watching, even if you don’t speak Russian.