Olivier won the Academy Award for Best Picture and directed himself to the Best Actor award too.\u00a0 That is still a unique circumstance.\u00a0 Despite this acclaim purists condemned the excisions that Olivier made to the plot eliminating the sub-plots involving Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Fortinbras.\u00a0 This shaved an hour and half from its length and concentrates the play into a personality study.<\/p>\n
Despite Olivier\u2019s modifications it remains a very formal telling of the tale from the aspect of the acting.\u00a0 Olivier spent a number of years in London\u2019s Old Vic Theatre Company performing Shakespeare\u2019s plays with the greatest living British actors of his generation.\u00a0 Comparing his portrayal with an American version such as Mel Gibson\u2019s excellent 1990 version defines the two schools of acting.\u00a0 The American method acting version requires the actor to submerge himself into the personality he \u201cdiscovers\u201d for the character.\u00a0 He feels the part.\u00a0 The British actor learns the techniques needed to portray the character and emotions he desires to project to the audience.\u00a0 Olivier himself once described a circumstance that highlighted this difference.\u00a0 During the making of the film Marathon Man his co-star Dustin Hoffman tortured himself with various discomforts to help him feel the part of a man exhausted and at the end of his strength.\u00a0 When Hoffman noticed that Olivier was sitting comfortably in anticipation of his scenes Hoffman asked him how he could get into his part without some physical method.\u00a0 Olivier was said to have answered, “Dear boy, it’s called acting.”<\/p>\n
So, all that said.\u00a0 I consider this the best version I\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 The dialog, the acting, the staging, all excel the other two versions I\u2019ve seen.\u00a0 The story flows and the characters live in front of us in a way that often escapes other performances of Shakespeare\u2019s plays.\u00a0 Every little phrase and movement works the way it should.\u00a0 Olivier is a craftsman walking us through his weird world of pain and revenge.\u00a0 The lines are alive and sound like dialog and not museum exhibits.\u00a0 They fit perfectly with the action that attends them.\u00a0 They are poetry and human speech both.<\/p>\n
And I actually have no complaints with any of the actors.\u00a0 All were skilled and none fell short that I can remember.\u00a0 That is not a small thing.<\/p>\n
And despite the formal theater there are naturalistic touches that work well.\u00a0 My favorite is the gravedigger.\u00a0 When Hamlet comes upon him he fits completely with what you would expect of a son of the soil.\u00a0 He is contrary and defers not at all to the high-born questioning of his Lord and better.\u00a0 He is witty and authoritative in his knowledge of graveyard ecology.\u00a0 Another technical advantage of this version is the dagger and rapier duel in the final scene.\u00a0 Olivier and Terence Morgan who plays Laertes do an impressive job of simulating a sword fight.\u00a0 No special effects either.<\/p>\n
My advice to anyone coming to Hamlet for the first time, watch this version first.\u00a0 Measure the other ones by it.\u00a0 It will actually make the others easier to understand and thereby improve them.\u00a0 Olivier is truly a master at his work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Olivier won the Academy Award for Best Picture and directed himself to the Best Actor award too.\u00a0 That is still a unique circumstance.\u00a0 Despite this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,238,237],"tags":[747,887,890,295,2363],"class_list":["post-10147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-classic-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-england","tag-hamlet","tag-laurence-olivier","tag-shakespeare","tag-shakespeare-in-film"],"yoast_head":"\n