王子复仇记

Bard’s purists may froth at the mouth over Sir. Laurence Olivier’s gritty cinematic adaptation of the canonical play by virtue of his autocratic bastardizing and abridgment, but truth to be told, Olivier’s dexterous transposition from one medium (rarefied) to another (popular) actually underscores his sobriety and perspicacity which makes his HAMLET an unqualified success of its kind.

Achieving its crowning glory of both Oscar’s BEST PICTURE winner (the very first for a British production, or by extension, a non-USA film) and Venice’s Golden Lion champ, Olivier’s HAMLET adheres to a stage scenography composed of bare-bones but period-accurate props, then cranks up the exceptional seventh art’s idioms with sharp compositions, wide-screen spaciousness, thick mist (eerie apparition) and striking display of chiaroscuro, often in tandem with ingenious dolly mobility (in one particular scene, the camera moves from interior to exterior in a long take as if it magically goes through a solid wall), riveting deep focus panoply, and/or affective close-ups, much obliged to the prevalent influence of CITIZEN KANE.

Bard’s urtexts are circumspectly modified to accumulate the approachability to a broader audience, but Olivier assuredly retains the cothurnus fervor that is endowed to almost every character. His platinum blonde Hamlet can still pass for a young prince (he was 41 year old), fleet-footedly scaling up and down the stairs, spouting those time-tested rhetorics in all earnest and resolute, frisson and cadence par excellence. HAMLET incontrovertibly marks Olivier's crowning moment as a thespian (for which he won his only competitive Oscar), his flawless elocution aside, his interpretation of the role’s tormented, angst-scourged, conflicted severity and finitude makes itself a lofty blinder, even more so, audience who is not au fait with the play (i.e. Yours Truly), can immerse raptly and vicariously into the Prince of Denmark’s visceral mentation, for my money, that is the criterion of a successful theatrical adaptation (and one fine opposite example is Anthony Harvey’s ostentatiously tedious THE LION IN WINTER).

Olivier the actor hogs the spotlight nevertheless, Olivier the director munificently vouchsafes enough space for the whole cast to shine, Aylmer is a crafty “prating knave” as Polonius, Lord Chamberlain; Cushing’s scarce appearance as court jester Osric is a different kettle of fish from the rest of the ensemble; Basil Sydney sonorously lords over as Claudius, the treacherous King, and Eileen Herlie (11 years Olivier’s junior) is a galvanic Queen Gertrude, who shares multiple the kiss-on-the-lips impulse with Hamlet, her own son, which is pregnant with the undertow of incest that Olivier plays up to. As the dainty, innocuous Ophelia, Simmons almost looks like a ringer of Vivien Leigh, only younger, meeker, a gossamer faerie receives a raw deal out of nothing, elicits a viewer’s most harrowing compassion in a veritable tragedy teeming with roaring fanfare, paranoiac fear-mongering and dithyrambic fatality.

referential entries: Anthony Harvey’s THE LION IN WINTER (1968, 6.2/10); Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE (1941, 8.6/10); William Wyler’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939, 7.9/10).