Hamlet (1969) [DVD]

Is this fair? While both noticeably betray their stage origins, there the similarity ends. In fact, the two are chalk and cheese. Olivier's escapade is vastly shorter than the original text at a mite under two and a half hours, but Richardson tells the story in under 2 hours! This is Hamlet stripped to his absolute essentials. Any less and it would look like an Eastenders omnibus edition! Richardson's aim is to simplify and clarify the Bard, concentrating on Hamlet's emotional schizophrenia and aided by a claustrophobic, minimalist Elsinore (actually the Roundhouse theatre.)

For example, no distractions like a walking Peppers Ghost - we don't see the ghost, other than a bright light shone on the faces of the actors. We hear the words and watch every minute nuance of expression on Nicol Williamson's magnificent features in glorious close-ups. To be or not to be... not dangling over a clifftop but held precisely in the light and shade of Hamlet's meaning as he lies on a couch.

And what of Williamson? Olivier's Dane seems almost louche and laconic by comparison. Williamson is a study in how to smoulder with paranoid ambivalence. In turn intense and bewildered, he confides in the camera as a silent companion, maybe his alter ego. This is a great Hamlet, perhaps one of the finest performances in this role for many years. Like Olivier, Williamson is fabulously complex and multi-layered, but his simplified Hamlet retains depth and vision. His mystique and irony seems entirely appropriate to the brooding Dane (witnessed by the famous occasion when appearing in the stage version, he stopped in mid-soliloquy, apologised to the audience for his bad performance, and stormed offstage!)

The actor may not have appeared in any film since 1997, but his power is undimmed. Despite the presence of Anthony Hopkins (as a curiously lackadasical Claudius), Marianne Faithful (a prim and proper Ophelia) and many other fine actors, Williamson's towering presence bestrides this Hamlet like the colossus he might once have become, had he not become distracted or allowed his name to be sulllied by bad films.

So how well has Richardson succeeded in taming his cast to deliver a meaningful
Hamlet? One review I read suggested he had managed to "wing it" despite an abominably low budget, and there's a little truth in this. The restrictions allow an inventiveness to combat the restrictions of the medium and the set to great effect, such as in the comic banter between Hamlet and Polonius. The final tragedy is underplayed and probably benefits as a result. Maybe not orchestrated as well as some, and could have benefitted from some opening out, but if you wanted to concentrate on your actors then the stage has most certaily been set and Nicol Williamson laps it up.

On first appearance, Nicol Williamson might seem a bit old for the part. Certainly, I've seen Claudius's who look younger. But that does a disservice to his performance, which commands every scene he appears in. His Hamlet is far from mad; he's using a bluff technique to search for the why's of his father's death and how he's reacting to it. Unusually. in the intimate moments, during the soliloquey's he's at his most vulnerable, as though he's unable to come to terms with these feelings, and only really comes to life when there a peers to relate to.

A very young looking Anthony Hopkins makes a compelling Claudius, who with his gluttony seems like a man who could do wrong. Equally Judy Parfitt passes the test of being attractive enough for a man to kill for even if her skin is worryingly grey. Although not at grey as Ophelia, played by Marianne Faithfull who in some shots looks positively black and white, almost as though the trickery of the film 'Pleasantville' had been used. Which is a shame because it detracts from rather a good performance.

The production was film at The Roundhouse Theatre which explains that use of extreme close up and the complete lack of establishing shots. The lighting absolutely picks up the actors faces, making what settings there are perfunctury. It mustn't have been a very easy shoot -- most of the speeches and scenes are played out in one shots -- there is very little editing in places, which allows the text the breath. I've seen the play many times and it was a joy on this occasion to hear how much of our language found a basis here.

The main oddity this time are the supporting actors. This is the only Hamlet you'd expect to find Michael Elphick and Angelica Houston standing around in the background, along with Roger Lloyd-Pack popularly known as Trigger in 'Only Fools and Horses'. The latter is particularly distracting because his face is so familiar and he appears, not only as Ronaldo, but also as a player, one of Laertes friends and a miscellaneous bystander in the duel at the end. One man should not have that many different beards. Also worth noting is the approach to the credits at the end, which are spoken, in a style similar to Truffaut's 'Farenheit 451' over a shot of Hamlet.