Richard Burton's Hamlet
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Movie Reviews of Richard Burton's Hamlet
Movie Review: amazon replaces defective dvd with flawless copy
Summary: 5 Stars
Below, you will see my complaint about a defect in my copy of this DVD. amazon replaced the defective copy, and the new copy is flawless. This, along with his stage performance in Camelot, are Burton's greatest roles. If only his Camelot had been preserved on film -- but at least we have his Hamlet. Burton is an actor who was always better on the stage than on the screen.Rick Norwood
Movie Review: Shakespeare would have raved
Summary: 5 Stars
Over three hours of wonderful entertainment, Richard Burton is quite magnificent as Hamlet, the direction is superb, watch how wonderfully everyone on stage can be seen at any one time - blocking to die for. The supporting cast are exceptional, only in one place are some words lost because of background noise. A truly inspiring experience.Movie Review: Mesmerizing
Summary: 5 Stars
35 years ago I was very fortunate to see this masterful piece of work during its limited theatrical release. In my humble opinion , it is Burton's greatest performance. This goes beyond simply Shakespeare's Hamlet. No frills. No distractions. No pretentiousness. Absolutely brilliant and mesmerizing.Movie Review: Tremendous When it Works
Summary: 4 Stars
The great Shakespearean actor John Gielgud here directs Richard Burton in a final rehearsal for Hamlet in 1964. It is a fascinating, stage-shrewd interpretation that mostly works, is tremendous when it does, and is also in some scenes flat as a pancake. The rough quality of the film oddly adds to the intensity; it was not meant to be preserved.
Lighting effects and costuming being withheld at this stage of production, the concentration falls on language and gesture. The total effect is first quite weird, as in the first 1/3 of the play you are given Polonius and Hamlet dominating, playing off each other, and everybody else falling into the background. Hume Cronyn in modern business suit gives one of the most obnoxious Polonius performances on record, quickly gelling it as almost straight comedy. Moody and dark Burton floats around him, getting upstaged, and the audience laughs at even his most serious lines. Weirder yet, the air of comedy never totally disappears from this production of perhaps the greatest tragedy in any language.
Yet an incredible, mercurial interpretation by Burton uses all this as launchpad, building up in a workmanlike manner with uncanny pacing and distinct, deliberate phrasing. His mood swings need to be seen to be believed, and are quite convincing as they hammer at a central dramatic issue here -- is Hamlet truly mad? Burton achieves full flight by the time Hamlet kills Polonius, who is then cast off like so much detritus. What follows is this film's greatest moment -- the bedroom scene with Hamlet and Gertrude played better than you will ever see it again. Freudian interpretations of this scene by Sir Lawrence Olivier and Mel Gibson cannot hold a candle to this, which plays it straight with masterful dramatic intelligence. When Hamlet sees his father's ghost, presented as a great shadow, and Gertrude does not, we are finally convincingly informed that he is in another, special dimension of truth, which tragically only he inhabits in this poisoned kingdom. This is as good as Shakespeare ever gets, true treasure trove stuff.
The Claudius is decent, and shines in his confession scene. Unfortunately Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Ophelia are about as flat and stilted as they come. But their disappearance only weirdly adds to the crackling, intermittent power of the whole thing, and Burton's Hamlet is so real against them it hardly detracts.
The graveyard scene, unfortunately, is only so-so. This Laertes -- in a pivotal role that cannot be sacrificed -- doesn't deliver much, and the whole thing starts to wind down before it is over. Some of this is doubtless due to the artlessness of the filming of this stage play, from a distance. But nevertheless to be honest you can't give Gielgud's direction of the climax more than one star. Weirdness returns and finally doesn't go away. Hamlet oddly dies on his feet, ends up slumped like a drunk on the throne, and then is carried off in a straight rip-off of the Oliviet Hamlet, as if that is what the audience expects. Fortinbras walks in and starts shouting -- oh, please! In a nutshell, the ending is a big disappointment.
But you will never forget Burton doing the soliloquies, the gritty black and white realism conveyed by the bad filming, the use of friezelike blocking of scenes by Gielgud, and all that counts for very, very much.
Movie Review: A theatrical experience
Summary: 4 Stars
For those looking for a strictly cinematic version of "Hamlet" you should probably look elsewhere, but for a theatrical experience of the classic tale of the Melacholy Dane, you could do worse than pick up this version of the 1964 Broadway production starring Richard Burton.
Essentially a photographed performance of a stage production, this "Hamlet" was directed by John Gielgud with the concept of being a dress rehearsal (to pacify Richard Burton's dislike of wearing period costume) with actors in street clothes and bare bones set and props. The concept falls flat but Gielgud does a fine job of staging the action (the convention of showing the ghost as a massive shadow voiced by Gielgud works wonderfully well), making one wish that he'd used a more conventional look for the show. The cast is decidedly uneven, ranging from brilliant (Hume Cronyn in his Tony-winning role as Polonius) to incompetent (Alfred Drake as a rather hopeless Claudius). While Burton is hardly the definitive Hamlet, frequently resorting to vocal pyrotechnics which are ultimately meaningless, there is no doubting his intelligence or brooding charisma in the role. He may not have hit a bull's eye, but he is so far beyond such recent mediocre Hamlets as Ethan Hawke, Kenneth Branaugh and Mel Gibson that his performance truly gives the viewer a splendid example of what a distinguished classical actor is capable of. His handling of the soliloquies (especially "Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I") are very effective indeed.
Those who quibble with the lack of close-ups or iffy cinematic qualities are missing the point of the experience: the faraway perspective makes the viewer fell like they are seated at an actual live performance at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre in 1964, and gives a much more uniquely theatrical experience than attempts to "cinemize" the play such as Branaugh's vulgar and miscast film version or Olivier's celebrated bowlderized adaptation (whose gutting of the text frequently plays like "Hamlet's Greatest Hits").
Not much thought was given to the Special Features of the DVDs: the listing of the awards won by Burton, Cronyn and Gielgud are laughably incomplete, and it seems to me that the producers missed an opportunity by not including observations by a living cast member on a second voice track (cast members William Redfield and Richard L. Sterne each wrote books on the production, and it might have been rewarding to hear the remembrances of Hume Cronyn or John Cullum or Alfred Drake on this DVD).
But despite it's faults, this is a valuable little treasure for anyone with serious interest in Shakespeare's play and a unique opportunity to see a memorable theater production without leaving your living roon.