Well, Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (now available on Warner Video) seems custom-tailored to today's audience...not that it made much money when it was first released. Zeffirelli and his star, some good-looking guy named Mel Gibson, have constructed a sort of Hamlet-Lite that runs less than half as long as the full play, although it still contains a few solid performances and features lots of neat speeches and murderous histrionics. It's over before you know it, which, you have to figure, is exactly what some people want to hear.
Kenneth Branagh's much more effective four-hour version of Hamlet, which was filmed six years after Zeffirelli's, suggests that, major piece of writing or not, a complete cinematic unveiling of this tale of betrayal and madness can still be a chore to sit through. But Zeffirelli and his co-screenwriter, Christopher De Vore, excise subplots involving entire countries, in favor of little more than one Dane's screwed up family life. Though this is a very handsomely mounted production, it's the movie equivalent of sitting down for a meal of steak and potatoes, only to have the steak cut in half and the potatoes thrown away before you start eating.
Gibson, as you might expect, plays Hamlet, and he's actually pretty good. He hardly leaves you lamenting the theater's great loss when he opted to make a career out of movies, but he doesn't embarrass himself either. His performance is more animated and wall-to-wall forceful than purists might expect it to be, which is just fine. At least he doesn't pull Lethal Weapon-style "crazy faces" when the going gets tough, and he carries himself in a manner that's in keeping with the period. He focuses on the character, rather than expecting the audience to swoon at his mere screen presence, and he should be applauded for it.
The rest of the cast acquits itself nicely. Glenn Close not anywhere near old enough, but still playing Hamlet's treacherous mother, Gertrude - is twice the actor that Gibson is, and seems to know it. There are moments when she's Acting with a capital "A", although she keeps it in check most of the time. Alan Bates (Claudius), Ian Holm (Polonious), and Helena Bonham Carter (Ophelia) are the other big names on hand. Bates and Carter get the job done, no complaints. But Holm is one of the screen's great underrated actors, and, as usual, he delivers sly, sharply focused work. Still, nobody seems too worried about going to war with Norway, and it's more than a little bit off-putting if you've been here before.
The digital transfer is gorgeous, and you get a couple of decent, Gibson-based featurettes. One is Hamlet: An Actor's Journey,in which Gibson sits for a laid back interview about playing the Dane. Rather surprisingly, he admits that the play is best suited to the stage and doesn't really come across in all its glory on film. The other bonus, Mel Gibson: To Be Or Not to Be, is Gibson's video journal of making the film, complete with a case of cold feet, the building of sets, and actors feeling each other out at rehearsals.
For more information about Hamlet, visit Warner Video. To order Hamlet, go to TCM Shopping.
by Paul Tatara
