Mel Gibson became a movie star in such action adventure movies as Road Warrior and Lethal Weapon.\u00a0 But he was interested in more intellectually challenging projects and so eventually he became a director and produced some very interesting films such as Apocalypto and Passion of the Christ.\u00a0 But even before his directorial debut he branched out into less popular films.\u00a0 He starred in Franco Zeffirelli\u2019s 1990 version of Hamlet which is the subject of this post.<\/p>\n
Gibson was surrounded by a very respectable group of American and British actors with Glenn Close as the Queen, Alan Bates as the King and Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia, Hamlet\u2019s love.\u00a0 The staging is more naturalistic than the Olivier version and has a number of outside shots that make it feel less claustrophobic than the Olivier version.\u00a0 Interestingly the selection of scenes coincides closely to Olivier\u2019s.\u00a0 Zeffirelli didn\u2019t completely eliminate Rosencrantz and Guildenstern but they were minimized.\u00a0 And once again as in Olivier\u2019s version it is Horatio who speaks the final lines of the play.<\/p>\n
Without a doubt this version is much more emotional and the dialog is imbued with a more theatrical air.\u00a0 I won\u2019t say that the intensity is over the top but it is decidedly less restrained than Olivier\u2019s version.\u00a0 From a personal perspective I prefer Olivier\u2019s rendering but by no means would I call Gibson\u2019s performance poor.\u00a0 It is spirited and heartfelt but it lacks the polished perfection of Olivier\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
In an earlier installment of these Hamlet posts I described the different acting methods used by the British Shakespearian tradition that concentrated on mastering techniques versus the American method acting school.\u00a0 Gibson is not an extreme method actor but he emphasized the emotional aspect of the part and that explains some of the difference between the two versions.\u00a0 But as much as Gibson is a good actor he cannot compare to Olivier.\u00a0 So, Gibson\u2019s version is interesting and skillfully done.\u00a0 But it wouldn\u2019t be the one I would add to my collection if I was only going to have one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mel Gibson became a movie star in such action adventure movies as Road Warrior and Lethal Weapon.\u00a0 But he was interested in more intellectually challenging<\/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":[239,237],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n