19.04.2003. - ANN-216/g English Drama
Balázs Horváth Page 1
OLIVIER VS. KOZINTSEV
Differences between two interpretations. - First draft edition.
ANN-216/g English Drama
Balázs Horváth
2003
OLIVIER VS. KOZINTSEV
Differences between two interpretations. - First draft edition.
"Alas, poor Yorick!"
Part I.
Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is perhaps the best known drama and theatrical play in Renaissance literature. Many modern directors and actors tried to capture its emotions and passion, but the two most admired approaches are still the films by Sir Lawrence Olivier and Grigori Kozintsev. They are the “milestones” in interpreting, so to speak.
The two pieces provide an interesting occasion for a comparison because they can also be taken in a relation of action and reaction given to each other. Two viewpoints clash with a difference of more than twenty years, and in a way, of individuals and West and East. In this essay the goal is not to decide on which version is better, but to outline the facts we have to pay attention to before we make a verdict.
Sir Lawrence Olivier’s version was the first one back in 1948 with a mysterious, controversive and psychological feeling reached by special effects with the fog, zooming and the “cross fading” camera angles. These move the imagination, depict and predict the scenes before and after the characters would begin their dialogues. By this way the story is told twice. This “technically influenced” interpretation does not want to be full with the simple jettisoning of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Much of the dialogs are also cut or given to other characters in order to fit the story in 153 minutes with no intermissions. For example Hamlet’s narration of the play “The Murder of Gonzago” and the actors’ dialogue are totally missing and substituted with mime play. The last sentences said by Horatio are truly Fortinbras’ lines. As a contrast the actors’ performance make the movie an unforgettable and never boring experience (Jean Simmons as Ophelia, Basil Sydney as the King, Eileen Herlie as the Queen); so we need not to pay too much attention to the lacks and take the film as an “appetizer” before reading the original text or going to theatre. Note that even comedy is present by the character of Osrick. Olivier achieved the aim, that we do not actually miss the skipped parts.
In a greater detail playing with duration can be observed during several occasions for example during the two scenes of King Hamlet’s appearance, when a whole night passes away within minutes and when Ophelia tells the audience instead her father about Hamlet’s visit.
At first some critics offended Lawrence for the solutions he had chosen. The most important complain was that he fell into the pitfalls of directing and acting at the same time so he was not so “lifelike” as his fellow actors and actresses; - in connection to that, Olivier’s real directorial characteristics are indeed revealed when he is giving orders to the guest actors. Second, the “soliloquies” have been turned into interior monologues, which diminished them. Third, critics also said that maybe with the shortening of the camera movements, a lot of time could have been saved. Last but not least, nobody knew why this picture of the director was filmed in black and white. Technology already made possible the filming of “Henry V.”(1945) in color, which was also produced by Lawrence. Of course using colors in this piece was problematic and not a wise choice because of the theme and the ambience. Anyway these opinions with the fact that the team overleaped the budget limit with over one and a half million dollars, provided some obstacles and the motion picture only received greater attention and appreciation after the four Oscar nominations (Best Actor (Olivier), Best Costume Design, Best Set Decoration and Best Art Direction (the last two designated for black and white films)).Olivier excused with the statements that all interpretations are just simple “essays” of the original play and that: “we, in this film, have allowed ourselves considerably less license in the matter of cutting than did that fine English-American actor, Maurice Evans, when he took a version of his superb "Hamlet" to army camps during the war.” (WW II. - H. B.)
What nobody understood at fist was that Olivier really wanted to fashion a tighter, albeit abridged version of the famed play. In fact he even dyed his hair platinum blond in order not to let anyone feel that it was he, the “famous actor”, playing the melancholy and young Dane. (This way people don’t have to say that it was a good performance because of him.) Rather, he wanted the audience to feel that what they were seeing was really Hamlet himself.
In contrast to the Russian version, lot of the scenes are rather based on mimic used by movements and language, and not on scenery. Specially, we have to mention the three scenes with King Hamlet’s spirit, who is mostly covered by the fog and is more awkward looking, which represents that he is truly suffering and he is a projection of an ideal haunting lost-soul. His voice also adds a lot to this. Than there is the end of the “mousetrap” scene when Claudius immediately jumps up before the end of the players’ performance and covers his eyes because of fear and anger. (We do not know whether the players already arrived at the point of the prince’s addition.) Or when Hamlet stabs Claudius three times. These elements are completely presented in a different way by Kozintsev, who tries to keep the script verbatim to Shakespeare’s lines. - For example by him, according to the original “gist” of the text, King Hamlet appears as a black figure in slow motion with a cape, demanding.
This is important in his production, because there was no possibility of advantage with the language, because the Russian translation of Boris Pasternak is also beautiful, but different in manner. By Grigori, King Hamlet only appears once and is a heroic figure hidden in the shadows. Also the King’s reaction is delayed and at the end we do not see Claudius’ falling immediately after he was wounded only once.
If we watch the first edition, we may feel that we are still in some sort of a theatre. By Lawrence no additional stage setting is added, the “light sources” are mainly candles and torches, the castle of Elsinore reflect “emptiness” and made from rigid stone that underlines Hamlet’s statement: "Denmark's a prison." (In Grigori’s version the masses of people represent this.) Also there are not so many mass-scenes than needed, and this may express not only the feeling of the era (the 1600s) in the play takes place, but reminds us also on the Shakespearean theatre. Mostly, only necessary figures appear to make scenes simple, but understandable. A perfect example for this is Ophelia’s scene with the flowers for which every drama actress dreams about. Here, - after switching the view from Horatio receiving Hamlet’s letter - we see only, the King, the Queen and Laertes. By Gregori other soldiers and courtiers are also present…
Part II.
The Soviet Hamlet or “Gamlet” of 1968 version (filmed on 70mm Sovscope) became more than a "cult” film of the era and the new wave film movement featuring a more grandiose tone. In every aspect some scenes are so glancing, that we may think we see a march past and we may think ourselves as small grains of sand when we see the armies of Fortinbras or the foreign consuls in the castle. Again there are some mysterious footages and sequences, but the picture has a rather different taste, and not free of political influences of the time. This is a feeling we cannot shake when we see it. Today we wonder how the director was able to squeeze the story into 140 minutes with one intermission and again in black and white colors! (We do not know if he used this solution for the same reason Olivier did.) His production presents a bit older prince (Innokenty Smoktunovsky), who seems to be more sinister when he sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into death, than the thinking and philosophical Hamlet of Olivier. (Only hair colors match, because no Danish prince can truly be imagined without boyish blond hair…)
During projection we may feel that Kozintsev “wanted to react” on the previous English version, because of its “disabilities”. The most arguing for him were the mentioned shortenings, but he also skipped or changed important elements (- for example Hamlet is not present when Claudius announces him to be the first courtier;) as well, and “just” added other very valuable ones for a good balance.
A lot of religious motives are missing to which other actors and directors paid attention. (Even Richard Burton presented some in his modern costumed performance in 1964.) The absence of these does not make much difference in the tone of the outcome, but in the understanding it does. By letting these “go”, Hamlet and the settings appear idealised for Soviet philosophy of 1960s.
First we have to mention a small “directorial solution” from the scene in which Hamlet stands face to face before his father’s ghost. Here the prince is supposed to express his fear and amazement by holding his sword up side down in his hand, forming a cross from the handle. This way the viewers’ attention is attracted by how a believer in the Renaissance period would behave in the presence of a vision. In the Soviet version this is understandably missing and we only remember on how Hamlet freed himself from the bounds of Horatio and the others…
The second scene we have to mention is a key one. It is the one when Claudius tries to pray after he had been trapped… As we all remember Hamlet arrives right that time and begin to ponder about stabbing him. The scene would provide a golden opportunity to highlight again the prince’s continuous hesitation and Claudius’ shame. Accessories like a crucifix would also pay an important role. Kozintsev just turned the sequence into a simple shortened monologue and Hamlet is also absent. Mostly this is the only thing people mention as a “real” negative. At this point of the observation we have to recall the director’s thoughts back from 1962. The following quotation is about how to interpret peoples’ feelings to the modern audience: “…I think it is absolutely possible, and desirable, to show Shakespeare productions in Elizabethan costumes; but the general sense of history, the spirit of the poetry, the sense of humanity, should be modem and absolutely lifelike for audiences today.” (from: Films and Filming magazine)
As a substitution for the above-mentioned shortcoming, we have to mention that Grigori also created a masterpiece with the manipulation of music, mass scenes and the repetitions. He achieved using these like Olivier used his cameras.
So the two movies have some things in common if we look at them from the point of relations and continuous references. As if the films were small universes of the “accessories” and returning motives. (The directions are quite the same from this perspective.) Fist both movies are set in a frame, which is expressed by the way they begin and end. The 1948 version begins with the carrying of Hamlet’s corps to the bastion of his vision as a preview of a tragedy coming up, and an extract of the play itself as a prologue. This composition is repeated at the end, but from a different shot and without text. As an additional link we can also observe that the sea which Grigori uses the same way as we fade in and out from the used ”image”, is also present during Olivier’s picture, but only when the credits roll and when Hamlet says the most famous line: “To be, or not to be. That is the question.” But, of course the two productions also pick up the storyline from different places, because Kozintsev also shows the burial ceremony of King Hamlet.
Many returning elements refer to Ophelia and the duration as well. Once again we must return to the “players within the play”. By Olivier, a three seconds long sequence reminds us on Ophelia - “perhaps” incidentally - when prince Hamlet fixes a blond wig on the boy actor’s head and gaze upon him for a flash of time. By Gregori Ophelia’s maddening scene is important. In the beginning of the film she practises a dance before she speaks to Polonius about Hamlet. The melody was composed by Dimitri Shostakovich, and it is sweet in the context. During the maddening scene we hear it again as a reminder and as a great ambience factor. Now it really represents madness as Ophelia thinks back on his father put into the grave. We can all agree that this is the most chilling moment of the production, a perfect mixture of irony, anger, sorrow an of course insanity…
We have already discussed how Olivier handled time, but as for the presentation of the time passing by, the Russian director used an old clock with small figures. This clock returns again and again showing the arrival of the last character, Death to the front. When it clock finishes its route we will witness the fall of all. This is Kozintsev’s brilliant “draw”, because in the original Shakespearian drama, action lasts several months and it is nearly impossible for filmmakers to demonstrate it with a logical link, which would impress the audience. This effect is not only good for this reason. It is a perfect tension maker for the last three scenes. The first of course is the duel between Laertes and Hamlet. The swordfight in this version was filmed from a wider perspective, and somehow it is not so exciting. There is no trace of mentioning that Laertes has a baited sword until he cheats on Hamlet. Following this, the second scene is when Claudius dies. This is a rapid one before the beginning of Fortinbras’ arrival, which is again a mass-scene with open spaces.
Part III.
Unfortunately the Russian “Hamlet” received only one Special Jury Prize of the Venice Film Festival (1964). Some say it is because Richard Burton also announced his version of the play, and that attracted more people’s attention. Anyway, it is such a jewel of the Russian film making industry as the 1920s films of Sergei Eisenstein. In conclusion we can state that both directors achieved a lot. The mystic atmosphere and cinematic surround of Olivier’s film is much as great as the precision, music and care of Kozintsev. Everybody can choose freely between them.
Used sources (19.04.2003.):
MS - ENCARTA 97 Encyclopedia (World English Edition);
MS - Home ‘CINEMANIA’ Encyclopedia;
The life and works of Grigori Kozintsev: “
Lodger’s Reviews at FILETHIRTEEN.COM:
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“Review of Hamlet” by Walter Metz (06.09.2000.):
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“Will Red” by David Templeton:
“ “;
Reviews by CineBooks' Motion Picture Guide, Pauline Kael and Leonard Maltin:
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