Hamlet (1948)

This weekend, I decided on impulse to watch the 1948 version of Hamlet. I’d been skeptically curious about it for a while because I couldn’t see how, in spite of its sophisticated source material and creative pedigree, it could possibly have beaten The Treasure of the Sierra Madre for Best Picture; and I was just in a random mood to sit down and watch some Serious Classic Film I’d never seen before. I actually had to break it up into a couple of sittings, because I hadn’t realized it was so long (two and a half hours), and because of the sheer intensity. When it was over I felt like I’d spent a long night in a theatre (where you have intermissions to break up a lengthy play!)

My thoughts? Yes, this is an impressive piece of filmmaking. The cinematography, the lighting, the camerawork are all stunning; the massive, eerie, stylized castle sets somehow fit exactly the atmosphere I imagine for a Shakespearean tragedy. The way the camera pans and floats up and down long halls and staircases, through thick stone walls and from window to window gives the impression of one long, continuous sequence of events, which probably contributes to the feeling of intensity. This was the first time I’d ever seen Shakespeare performed, as opposed to just reading it, and it was almost magical to discover just how beautiful the words can sound when enunciated clearly and spoken in natural, though dramatic rhythms. The opening scene with the men-at-arms on the misty ramparts of the castle just pulled me straight in—in fact, those two scenes on the castle walls, with Horatio and the guards waiting for a sight of the Ghost and later with Hamlet joining them, were some of my favorites. The understated simplicity with which the men-at-arms deliver their speeches, the way their faces are framed in the screen and the quiet tension as they wait for the Ghost, and the thrilling horror when it appears, are all magnificent. I’d forgotten that it was Marcellus who delivers the “bird of dawning” speech, and as he was speaking, I thought—wow, here is this character who is practically a nobody, reciting one of the most beautiful passages in the play, and for those few moments while he’s speaking, suddenly he isn’t a nobody anymore.

The overall acting is captivating, though I had both praises and criticisms for each of the central characters. There are times when Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet is enthralling and other times where he loses you a little, times when his Hamlet seems a little too inscrutable and you can’t get a sense of what he is really thinking or doing. Jean Simmons as Ophelia was a little more noticeably uneven: sometimes she’s simply lovely and heartbreaking, other times she seems wild-eyed and overly dramatic. I think what I found missing the most was any real sense of Hamlet having been actually in love with Ophelia—it would have added so much more to their scenes together, particularly the “get thee to a nunnery” scene, if you had a sense of his real feelings for her wrestling with the necessity of his playing a part toward her and his disgust over how he suspects (or in this interpretation, knows) that she is helping her father entrap him.

Claudius (Basil Sydney) was very good in the “O, my offense is rank” scene in particular, though overall I found him almost a tad too laid-back and genial—I’d have liked to see some more overt villainy. Annoyingly, this version does lean into the Oedipal angle between Hamlet and Gertrude, which frankly I don’t think adds anything to the story and even distracts the focus of the revenge plot. What I did find interesting, though, was the hint that Gertrude’s conscience is eventually affected, possibly shifting her alliance by the end of the play. There’s one really striking shot where the king and queen are reading the letters sent to them by Hamlet during his absence, where they slowly walk up separate staircases angling away from each other as they read—it’s like a visual metaphor illustrating that Hamlet has managed to drive a wedge between them.

My personal favorites in the cast were Horatio (Normal Wooland), who manages to convey mainly through his expressions and relatively little dialogue the shining integrity, loyalty and sympathy that are the essence of the character; Polonius (Felix Aylmer), who, if a little less sly and more doddering and kindly-seeming than I found him when reading the play, is still extremely entertaining (I chuckled all the way through the scene where he informs the king and queen of Hamlet’s “madness,” and then interrogates Hamlet to try and prove it); but above all, Laertes (Terence Morgan). Maybe it’s partly because I’ve always had a soft spot for the character (I have a soft spot for the youthful hothead/kid brother character in anything), but—wow. I merely thought he was good in the early scenes, but by the more dramatic scenes at the climax he was far and away my favorite. The entire climactic duel sequence, by the way, is one of the finest scenes in the film all the way around: just a masterpiece of suspense and action.

I’m not enough of a Shakespeare buff to want to watch multiple versions of Hamlet and try to find the best. I’d be mildly interested to see different interpretations of Hamlet, Ophelia, and Claudius in particular; but the style of this film fits so much with my own idea of what dramatized Shakespeare should be like, I’d be more inclined to wish there were more adaptations by the same creative team responsible for this Hamlet.

But I do still think The Treasure of the Sierra Madre should have won the Oscar.