the Shakespearean tragedy seen by Laurence Olivier (on Blu-ray and DVD)

Blu-ray Hamlet 1948 00

Artistic note: Red StarRed StarRed StarRed Stargray star(4/5)

Synopsis

The King of Denmark is dead. His specter appears to his son, Prince Hamlet, and reveals to him that he was murdered by Claudius, his own brother, who thus seized his crown and his wife. Hamlet decides to fake madness in order to confuse the couple and plot his revenge.

• Original title: Hamlet
• Media tested: Blu-ray
• Genre: drama, theatrical adaptations
• Year: 1948
• Director: Laurence Olivier
• Cast: Laurence Olivier, John Laurie, Esmond Knight, Anthony Quayle, Niall MacGinnis, Peter Cushing, Harcourt Williams, Patrick Troughton, Tony Tarver, Stanley Holloway, Basil Sydney, Eileen Herlie, Norman Wooland, Felix Aylmer, Terence Morgan, Jean Simmons
• Duration: 2 h 33 min 17
• Video format: 16:9
• Cinema format: 1.37/1 Black and White
• Subtitling: French
• Soundtracks: DTS-HD MA 2.0 monophonic English, French
• Bonus: Limited mediabook containing the Blu-ray (153 min 17), the DVD of the film (147 min 09) and the bonus DVD – booklet “The film of a director who knew how to make up his mind” written by Sarah Hatchuel, president of honor of the French Shakespeare Society, professor of studies (100 pages)
• Bonus DVD: Introduction to Hamlet by Pierre Kapitaniak, professor at Paul-Valery University, Montpellier 3 (2022, 56 min 30)
• Publisher: Rimini Editions

Art commentary

“Hamlet”, William Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, the text of which was published in 1603, tells how the specter of the king of Denmark demanded that his son Hamlet avenge him on his assassin Claudius, his brother who married his widow Gertrude, the Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet, prince of Denmark, is, moreover, in love with Ophelia, the sister of his friend Horatio. If we no longer count the stagings that have adapted the play to the theater, the cinematograph has not been outdone since its origins. Thus, from 1900, Clément Maurice directed Hamlet’s Duel, a silent short film (2 minutes) with Sarah Bernard in the role of Hamlet! In 1948, it was Laurence Olivier’s turn to conduct his version of Hamlet – the first sound made in Great Britain – which won four Oscars, including Best Actor and Best Film, and the Golden Lion at Venice. The actor had also started his career on stage brilliantly by being a member of the theater The Old Vic where he established his reputation by playing Hamlet before becoming its director in 1944. Encouraged by Winston Churchill, he made his first Shakespearean film Henry V (1944) whose considerable success encouraged him to pursue the experiment: while Orson Welles directed his macbeth (1948) and prepares his othello (1951), he decided to make Hamlet in 1948. Transposing the play to the screen is not easy and its script will cause controversy: characters are eliminated (Fortinbras, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern), replicas are modernized, others are cut to stay in reasonable timing. This truncated version, which annoys purists, does not lack assets: the very beautiful contrasting black and white (in reality Laurence Oliver was angry with the Technicolor people he had used in his Henry V), borrowed from expressionism, from the photography of Desmond Dickenson, the magnificent refined and labyrinthine sets of Elsinore signed by Roger Purse, the colorful costumes, the overall quality of the interpretation: Laurence Olivier (Hamlet), Eileen Herlie ( Gertrude), Jean Simmons (Ophelie), Basil Sydney (Claudius), Norman Wooland (Horatio), Anthony Quayle (Marcellus), Peter Cushing (Osric) and Christopher Lee (a guard), etc. The bias towards abstraction that permeates the various locations of the action and the highlights of the production (death of Ophélie in an exemplary pictorial form) is a laudable artistic decision by Laurence Olivier. As a fine connoisseur of the playwright, he conceives a deliberately timeless film which, less dated than it could be and with the intention of “popularizing” Shakespeare on the screen, works effectively without embellishment. Despite some aged aspects that show the production date, Hamlet the benefit of a brilliant staging that knew how to adapt to the constraints of cinema and the difficulties of adapting Shakespeare’s abundant text. The incarnation of the undecided prince in an Oedipal conception of tragedy adopted by Laurence Olivier will be a milestone and will influence, positively or negatively, the more modern versions that followed. His subtly melancholic interpretation remains forever engraved in the history of cinema: a reference of Shakespearean cinema not to be missed.

Hamlet 1948 Blu-ray

Technical Comment

Image : HD copy, superb definition and variable sharpness, sometimes surgical, homogeneous film texture (shooting in 35 mm), fairly clean image but not free from several vertical scratches, excellent contrast, sometimes even a little too high, very dense blacks, nuanced whites , very wide and homogeneous range of grays

His : English 2.0 monophonic mix, very clear voices, balanced dialogues, background noise, no distortion but high end lacking in clarity, fairly good dynamics; VF 2.0 monophonic to avoid, cavernous, breathy, artificial old dubbing, heresy of a French version for a Shakespeare classic

Our opinion

Image : Red StarRed StarRed Starhalf red stargray star(3.5/5)
Sound mixes: VO blue Starblue Starblue Starblue Stargray star(4/5) VF blue Starblue Stargray stargray stargray star(2/5)
Bonuses: Red StarRed StarRed Starhalf red stargray star(3.5/5)
Packaging: blue Starblue Starblue Starblue Stargray star(4/5)

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040416/

Blu-ray/DVD mediabook available on Amazon

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the Shakespearean tragedy seen by Laurence Olivier (on Blu-ray and DVD)