#406: hamlet (1990)
a straightforward take on the classic revenge tale, with some unusual casting.
hamlet (1990, d. franco zeffirelli): it’s my habit that when i’m looking for shakespeare on film, i try to find something that meets a simple criteria: it must be in english, it must be a period piece (relative to today) and it has to be cinematic — that is, it must take advantage of the possibilities of film, rather than be confined to the stage. you would think, after a hundred years and change of film, that shakespeare on film wouldn’t be such an uneven proposition. most of the less popular plays tend to fall by the wayside, and even the more well-known ones are frequently either a recording of a stage performance, or may very well be mistaken for one. the “modern interpretation” is equally quite common (cf. the 1999 adaptation of titus) whereas finding something more closely resembling the era in which the play is set is more difficult, not least because the few that exist are often either foreign-language or outright silent, and obscure besides. or you could get lucky with a kenneth branagh take, though he too tends to prefer more anachronistic settings.
hamlet is no stranger to film, all things considered —after a bevy of silent adaptations in the first half of the 20th century, the 1948 laurence olivier version was the first english-language talkie adaptation (preceded by a hindi version titled blood for blood in 1935) but was controversial for its cuts. cinematic takes on the tragedy would appear in the decades since, but tended to be either foreign-language, modernist, or, in the case of akira kurosawa’s the bad sleep well, both.
which brings us to franco zeffirelli’s controversial take, released in 1990. zeffirelli, already an accomplished filmmaker and opera director, was no stranger to shakespeare, having directed arguably the most famous version of the taming of the shrew (at least until 10 things i hate about you brought a modern american take to bored high schoolers) and did the same for romeo and juliet (again, until the gangster-flavored romeo + juliet made it edgy enough for 90s teens.) loved and hated by critics, often for the same reasons, zeffirelli’s approach to shakespeare was often more sensual than is typical; this is no less true in his hamlet, ramping up the oedipal aspects of the title character (which builds on a tradition that started with the 1948 olivier version.)
if you slept through high school english, the story goes like this: a young prince of denmark grieves after the death of his father and the swift remarrying of his mother to his uncle; when the ghost of his father tells him that he was murdered by the uncle, the prince begins to craft a plan to get his revenge. a lot of bad stuff happens and everyone dies. the end.
zeffirelli’s hamlet is unusual for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the decision to cast mel gibson in the lead role. zeffirelli seems to have picked gibson to capitalize on his then-popularity as an action star (lethal weapon was a linchpin of the buddy cop genre at the time;) indeed, while hamlet is by no means an action film, the film is edited a little frantically at times, and the finale’s sword fight can be surprisingly dynamic for how poor hamlet and laertes’ form is.
of course, mel gibson in today’s world has pretty much pissed away his reputation, so now only boomers and christian nationalists still like him anymore; however, he’s still a decent actor in his own right, and it can be interesting to watch his older work. his hamlet, while not quite an illuminating read on the character, is furious and conniving, and disturbingly oedipal towards glenn close’s queen gertrude.
at a mere two hours and change zeffirelli’s hamlet isn’t as truncated as you’d think. all the main story beats are there, as is some element of the political machinations of king claudius (culminating in an almost simpsons-ian cutaway to rosencrantz and guildenstern being dragged to the chopping block after hamlet swaps their letters from the king on the way to england.) zeffirelli also didn’t shy away from making monologues wholly external, though whether other characters hear them is up in the air. alan bates’ role as the ghost of king hamlet is probably the high water mark of the film, the centerpiece of an incredibly creepy sequence that i’d wager is way scarier than even shakespeare could have imagined.
hamlet is my favorite of shakespeare’s plays, and zeffirelli’s take on it is a series of pleasant surprises — gibson seems to represent the film as a whole, in that probably he’s not what you have picked, but he makes it work.
