Hamlet

Rating:
Summary: beautiful rendering
Review: One cannot stop comparing this Hamlet against Olivier's. This one is more beautiful, Zefirelli's color, texture, garments and decorations, epoch recreation, are superb. However, I take issue with the excessive dramatism. Subdued shadows of danish mist are replaced here by italian exhuberance. Olivier's hesitant progress towards doom is replaced here by well intended overacting - nicely done, of course, we have great actors in this movie, but overacting nevertheless. Zefirelli did a nice job on The taming of the shrew and Romeo and Juliet, but Hamlet requires, I believe, a more nordic introspection. Too bad Bergman never did attempt to film it.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, good cast, but..
Review: The story is kept to the essentials, and the supporting cast is very good. It's better than I had thought it would be, nice and crisp.

Sadly, Mel Gibson was a disappointment to me. He did give some force to the character that many others have lacked, but I kept feeling that large chunks of his interpretation and his delivery had been perhaps overly influenced by the 1964 Richard Burton performance, not a very well-known version today because it exists only as a fairly rough filming of the stage play. However, the Burton version is available on DVD, and I recommend it not only for the excellence of the performances but also for an interesting comparison with the Mel Gibson interpretation.