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Hamlet [1997] | ![Hamlet [1997]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71KAHCPGQNL._SL160_.gif)
 enlarge | Director: Kenneth Branagh
Actors: Kenneth Branagh, Julie Christie, Derek Jacobi, Kate Winslet, Riz Abbasi
Studio: Columbia Tri-Star Home Video
Category: Video
Buy New: £19.85
New (6) Used (5) Collectible (2) from £9.74
Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 251
Format: Dolby, Pal, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Parental Guidance
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 232
Discs: 1
EAN: 5023940603358
ASIN: B00004CULH
Theatrical Release Date: December 25, 1996
Release Date: October 20, 1997
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Picture as above.Brand new.Factory sealed.Widescreen version.
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Kenneth Branagh's four-hour production of Shakespeare's full text for Hamlet is visually lush (shot in 70mm, which is rarely done) and full of fascinating story moments that normally get cut from shorter stage versions. (Your idea of what kind of fellow Polonius is may change quite a bit.) The unexpurgated approach is truly enlightening, and Branagh intermittently succeeds at giving familiar moments in the drama an original cinematic spin, including Hamlet's spooky confrontation with his father's ghost (Brian Blessed). (Branagh also imposes some Hollywood glitter on the proceedings by casting the likes of Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Charlton Heston and Jack Lemmon in the smaller parts.) The pre-Titanic Kate Winslet is very good as the doomed Ophelia, and Derek Jacobi delivers a wonderfully nuanced performance as Claudius, whose character is definitely filled out by the restored material. Branagh's own performance is a little revisionist--some viewers have quibbled with it while others seem fine. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
Branagh as bleached-blond Hamlet January 16, 2008
This is a very well-directed film. The great joy of watching a Branagh-directed Shakespeare is the effort put into ensuring that the diction is as clear and natural as possible without losing the strength of the text. The cast is excellent, Derek Jacobi and Kate Winslet in particular; even cameos for which you would perhaps have doubts - such as Robin Williams, who impresses with his characterisation of Osric, and Billy Crystal as the gravedigger - work. Indeed, the repartee between Billy Crystal and Simon Russell-Beale in the graveyard scene is the funniest I have ever witnessed.
The colour and sets are spectacular, all filmed in 70mm, allowing for great richness and definition. Branagh says he wanted to escape the Gothic look of previous Hamlets, "away from the cliches of doublet and hose", so instead Elsinore becomes Blenheim in the nineteenth century. Almost everyone wears glitteringly smart military dress, for it is, after all, a time of war. It's also winter, although the effect is somewhat undermined by the lack of cold air on the breaths of the protagonists. Branagh wanted the look to be sexy and glamorous. He says he wanted, rather than a portrayal of an exact period, more an impression of period. He mentions the Austro-Hungarian Empire and claims the films "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "Mayerling" as influences.
The interior shots were made at Shepperton Studios. Here all is light and brightness, with a focus on the mirrored hall. There are some very long and impressive takes, but you become so engrossed in the action that you barely notice these. I only became aware of them when listening to the interesting commentary by Branagh and Shakespearian scholar and collaborator, Russell Jackson. It is well worth listening to, commenting as it does on both the philosophy and the practicalities behind both the original play and on the filmed production.
This film is long because it includes, more or less, the whole play. There have been some shavings; as mentioned in the commentary, Branagh has kept to the first folio and second quarto editions, so we do not see the scene of Gertrude being informed of Hamlet's return from England that is in the first quarto. The play itself, despite its length, is to some extent made worse by missing scenes, for example where Laertes is told of his father's murder and sister's madness, and draws together his mob to attack the palace. It would have been nice too to have seen how Hamlet returns to Denmark. Branagh tries to provide a detailed backdrop by, for instance, showing him making love to Ophelia, and by the use of cameos such as those of John Gielgud and Judi Dench, so perhaps I should not be too complaining.
It has an intermission between discs but the time passes quite unnoticed as you become involved in the drama, as when Laertes and Claudius conspire Hamlet's death. Indeed, I would say that Claudius is the key to this performance, and Jacobi (for once) is formidable in the role. Claudius now has time to be seen as a more well-rounded character. He is not a purely evil man, and Branagh in his commentary describes him as a "good man gone bad". This means that Hamlet is not so much the solution, but he is the problem to the play, for when he kills Polonius does not he become just as much the murderer as Claudius?
But what of Branagh's portrayal of Hamlet itself? It feels mean of me to criticise a man who has seemingly devoted half his life to the Shakespearian cause, but Branagh's Hamlet in his ravings and rantings in his soliloquies goes over the top. For me, Branagh's rages are seen as overacting, as not true. (Laertes too - played by Michael Moloney - tends to overplay his wrath, but, in a sense, he is Hamlet's mirrored self.) The worst scene in the entire play - just before the intermission - sees Hamlet raging against the universe, and set falsely against a vast winter landscape where Fortinbras's soldiers march across a plain. It is too full of hubris. If Hamlet is the Renaissance man that Branagh claims him to be, then where is his self-control, his healthy scepticism, his calm reasoning? I prefer him not to rage but to be more introverted; more moody; more in touch with his true self; cooler, calmer and more collected. Rage does not suit Hamlet, and it most certainly does not suit Branagh's hamlet.
Having said that, when Hamlet is in company, Branagh is excellent, almost faultless. He is suave, he is playful, he is comic, and he mad. But in all these scenes he is credible. His relationship with Kate Winslet as Ophelia is electric, and the interaction with his mother and uncle profoundly realistic. By the way, in this film Branagh has assumed that Gertrude does not know that the drink intended for Hamlet has been poisoned.
Some things do not work, such as Patrick Doyle's too-sweet score. The ghostly statue of Hamlet's father that is seen to move at the commencement of the play is also lacking, for he is just not scary at all. It is a wooden performance (literally?), for the camerawork here clearly does not portray the statue as great or as frightening as the film pretends him to be; the result is that the awed speeches surrounding the statue's movement are a little ridiculous, because we do not share the fear of the witnesses. On the other hand, Brian Blessed's later reprise of the role of the ghost in the woodland scene does indeed scare, with his whispered incantation and his glowingly dead eyes. It would have been, perhaps, an interesting idea in this scene to have compared Hamlet exuding cold breath from his mouth in the cold night air with the ghost's very lack of breath.
But at the end of the day, after four hours of intense drama, I felt somehow unmoved. Was it because I was numb? Or was the fault to do with the play itself? Is the ending too contrived for this post-Enlightenment viewer? Why did Shakespeare believe that his audience would be persuaded that Claudius would go to such lengths as to create a final fencing match to kill Hamlet, when he had the means to remove him more covertly, just as he had done to Hamlet's father? For me, Hamlet is a wonderful play ruined by the need for ends to be tied-up neatly at the close of the curtain. But as for this film version, there is so much wrong, and yet far more that is so right. I have yet to see a better filmed version.
 "Would Macy's Tell Gimbels?" September 26, 2007
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
I recall having to scout about all over the county to find a cinema that even knew Brannagh HAD a full-length Hamlet on release...Ah, the good old Robins Cinema in Durham, sticky floors and all. Listening to his Rennaicance Theatre radio broadcast in front of a crackling fire with the lights out one winter's evening in Orkney some few years earlier and of course the fabulous visceral cinema interpretation for a new generation of Henry V. I bought the VHS release at the time and have ever since scanned these pages regularly and now it's crept up on me unawares. I was so carried away that I ALmost started clicking away madly to get this Region 1 DVD - however, and here we come to the point of my reference to "A Miracle on 34th Street" and Santa's unusual marketing ploy, and to all you owners of non-multi-region equipement, I whisper - 'follow the white terrier'.
A Study in Power Politics August 24, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
It may be that many of the earlier reviews relate to the abridged version of the film, not the full length - 242 minutes - Region 1 DVD currently on offer, which also contains extras including a director's commentary, an introductory piece by Branagh and a "making of" documentary.
The film is facinating for a number of reasons. It is the only full length version ever made or is ever likely to be made. Hamlet is the greatest play in the language but in performance it is always cut. Characters like Rosencrantz and his pal, Reynaldo and Fortinbras, who are often omitted, now have their lines restored and scenes like Claudius' conversations with Laertes and the "How all occasions do inform against me" soliloquy are back in. The result is to paint in the important political externalities of the plot and provide a justification for seeing Hamlet as a man unwilling to act decisively rather than Olivier's view that it is the story of a man who was unable to make up his mind.
This full text is played as a study in power politics without fanciful psychological interpretations. This approach is helped by the set design [full of corridors, mirrors and secret doors], by the 70mm camera, which delivers beautiful images particularly in the crowd scenes, by the slightly sinister presence of the baroque Blenheim Palace in the exteriors and by the actors' performances. Thus Polonius is a virile and devious "prime minister" figure rather than an old dodderer and Claudius is a quite sympathetic figure in the early scenes. Branagh himself is the most believable and dramatically coherent Hamlet I have seen.
Kenneth Brannagh's 4 Hour Hamlet August 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I felt compelled to write something just to correct what a reviewer below (Orlando) stated; that this isn't the 4 hour version. Well I can assure everyone that it is, and it looks and sounds amazing. I don't know what Orlando was watching, maybe he/she only watched one disc(it runs over two discs, due to length), or maybe they purchased some poor bootleg.
Anyway, I highly recommend it. There aren't a huge amount of extras, but the ones there are are really good, and there's also the commentary by Brannagh. Excellent!
Buy it now!
 Not the 4 hours version February 22, 2006
18 out of 28 found this review helpful
This item is not the complete 4 hours version, contrarily to what the Amazon.co.uk review may lead you to believe, but a 2 hours version. It is not bad, but a big letdown if you're expecting as I was for the complete movie.
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