Thursday 13 February 2014

Hamlet (Series 2 Episode 6)

First Transmitted 25th May 1980

Derek Jacobi climbs one of the literary summits of the world in Hamlet

Cast: Derek Jacobi (Hamlet), Patrick Stewart (Claudius), Claire Bloom (Gertrude), Eric Porter (Polonius), Lalla Ward (Ophelia), David Robb (Laertes), Patrick Allen (Ghost), Robert Swann (Horatio), Jonathan Hyde (Rosencrantz), Geoffrey Bateman (Guildenstern), Emrys James (Player King), Ian Charleson (Fortinbras), Tim Wylton (First Gravedigger), Peter Benson (Second Gravedigger), Paul Humpoletz (Marcellus), Jason Kemp (Player Queen), Geoffrey Beevers (Player/Lucianus), Peter Gale (Osric)
Director: Rodney Bennett
 
For his final production, producer Cedric Messina presented the most famous play of all time: Hamlet. His vision of Shakespeare was always sharply traditional with a focus on clarity, clearness and faithfulness with an aversion for invention and interpretative daring. So the real tragedy of Hamlet is that this most deep, complex and searching of works is strait jacketed here, with little real aim beyond capturing a ‘complete’ version of the play on screen.
 
Which is what you get: an almost complete reading of the play (there are no more than a dozen small cuts at most) with the characters and events interpreted more-or-less as you might expect. Characters circle around each other, communicating but not truly interacting. The play rolls gently from set-piece to set-piece, with Jacobi’s soliloquies hammered into the ground like milestones for the viewer to pace themselves to (however wonderfully they are performed). There is nothing unique or truly interesting here – if you’ve seen a couple of Hamlets you’ve probably seen every idea there is in this film. Combine this with the play’s bum-numbing length (I had to watch it in about four shifts) and there isn’t much here to tempt a viewer back for repeated viewings.
 
The focus here is firmly on the language of each scene, to the detriment of action, emotion and (of course) interpretation. This is not always a bad thing: if you want a chance to simply listen and think about the play, this might well be the production for you. I certainly enjoyed reflecting on the depths of Shakespeare’s writing – the six pages of thoughts and reflections I made about this production are a tribute to the intelligence of Jacobi and his fellow actors. But without drama there is a lack of engagement. If the production places the whole play on screen as an act of intellectual taxidermy what is there for me to invest in? Put it another way: would you rather see the stuffed animals in Natural History Museum or real ones at London Zoo?
 
Director Bennett originally wanted to film on location – an option vetoed after As You Like It. Instead the first truly impressionistic set we’ve seen so far in the series is created. The basic location is a sort of cyclorama, a bare blue oval into which are dropped various walls, perspective tricks, tables, graves and thrones to create different locations. It’s an attempt to bring theatricality to television once again, but much more successfully and consistently than in Henry V. And it pretty much works. It’s also the first production to use incidental music to develop mood. What music can do, when it’s used well, is to add texture and depth to film – and it’s used very well here, unobtrusively placed and used to particular effect at the end of Act 1 to underscore Hamlet’s encounter with the Ghost.
 
But the filming here is largely safe and straight forward. There is some neat editing in A3 S4 where different angles are used to show the different perspectives of Hamlet and Gertrude during the Ghost’s second visit (making it clear that Gertrude sees nothing). There has been a bit of ribbing of the Ghost’s appearance, like a fluorescent Jacob Marley, but it does give him an unworldly feeling. Typically, any interesting interpretative questioning of the Ghost’s faithfulness (or Hamlet’s relationship with what must have been a distant and imposing father) is ignored, although an interesting comparison is made between his overbearing browbeating of Hamlet and Polonius’ bullying of Ophelia one scene earlier, with similar angles and shots used.
 
But to really talk about a production of Hamlet you need to get down to the actor playing him. Messina went all out to get the biggest name he could get and secured the man who seemed to have spent most of the 1970s playing Hamlet all over the world. So, if nothing else, this film should be noted for recording one of the great Hamlets of the twentieth century for posterity. I feel (and this is a personal thing here) that this production allows you to see what a brilliantly cerebral actor Derek Jacobi is. Jacobi successfully plays Hamlet as an exceptional, deep thinking genius in a performance that is notable for its low-key, softly-spoken nature.
 
From his first lines the sharpness of his intelligence are clear, as he addresses Claudius in A1 S2 with a scruffy, hands-in-pockets contempt. His introspection has only been heightened by great sadness at his father’s death (crucially not despair), and you can feel a bookish gentleness to him. He’s a reserved man, close to only a few. He’s not an avenging angel. Like all performances, certain lines ring out, and when hearing of the Ghost the key phrase Jacobi embraces is “it troubles me” – his unease at the implications for him of the Ghost are plain. He may suspect Claudius – and his reaction to the Ghost’s story makes clear he does – but he’s not comfortable with the obligation of revenge.
 
Throughout, Jacobi explores the impact of this news on him, specifically the idea of how far Hamlet’s madness trickles over from pretence into reality. As an actor, Jacobi is willing to go quite far – after the departure of the Ghost, he howls and literally beats himself in fury, a frantic disposition quite alien from the opening scenes. His feigning has a gentle, open-mouthed simplicity to it but there is a hint under the surface of a wildness that has been activated in him. During his “rogue and peasant slave” speech he deliberately takes on the character of a man raging for revenge, either side of a more reflective nature – Jacobi even points up the ‘acting‘ Hamlet is doing, by stopping the speech and looking quizzically at his sword, as if unaware of what it is for.
 
But this is still a Hamlet energetic enough to do what it needs to get the truth. Jacobi takes over the play performance in A3 S2, pushing aside the players to act out the tragedy himself, Hamlet challenging Claudius directly – making it clear to the man he knows the truth and challenging him t make the next move. His maniac laughter and nonsense singing after the performance however suggest a looser grip on sanity – a feeling that continues throughout A3 S4 where it seems ambiguous as to whether his callous disregard for Polonius’ death and savage physical assault (including miming sex) on his mother stem from controlled rage or mania.
 
But Jacobi, like Shakespeare, is smarter than that – he knows madness is not only about running around shouting. From A3 S2 Hamlet is oddly disconnected (other than with Horatio). In A4 S1 he confronts Claudius with an eerie calmness. His “to be or not to be” speech may be a sharp intellectual meditation (and Jacobi does it very well) but it also has unsettling notes of suicidal peace and playful joy. By A4 S3 he seems almost psychotic, calmly talking about plans of murder. It’s a clear the Ghost has turned Hamlet from a reserved intellectual to a suicidal depressive with bouts of mania who, by the end of the play, has disconnected himself from all joy and lightness in the world and seems engaged only by death. And if that’s not a type of madness, I don’t know what is.
 
That’s a lot on one performance – but there is a lot there to analyse. Jacobi does a terrific job of bringing it to life, exploring the myriad ideas and debates behind him. If there is one thing missing, though, it’s heart. Ophelia is worthy of a few tears – at both her betrayal and death – and his closeness with Horatio has an almost homoerotic frisson, but neither really moved me as a viewer. I didn’t get the sense of emotion – and this is part of what I was saying earlier. It’s a production where ideas are triumphant over emotions, where characters talk but don’t interact. It’s brilliant (more accomplished than other filmed Hamlets), but it’s harder to love.
 
Many of the supporting performances are mixed. For me, Lalla Ward just doesn’t have the range for Ophelia. It’s a difficult part, but her performance is too weak and simpering, lacking in depth – it’s never clear why Hamlet is interested in her; it’s easy for a viewer to tune her out. I was also disappointed by David Robb’s Laertes. His Laertes doesn’t quite work – he has a patrician charisma, he’d make a very good Orsino but not a great Laertes. It’s hard not to see an actor as exciting as Ian Charleson wasted as Fortinbras and wishing they had swopped roles. Robert Swann makes very little of Horatio (though to be fair I’ve seen very few actors manage to make much of what must be the dullest role in all the great tragedies).
 
Eric Porter’s Polonius seems trapped between interpretative stools. There is a clear jump between A1 and A2 in how his character is portrayed, moving from an overbearing and controlling father to a more muddled old man, struggling to keep up with Hamlet. It’s a switch I found a little jarring, as if there had been a tug-of-war over interpretation and we had been left with a compromise performance as a result. Honourable mentions must go to Emrys James’ excellent Player King and Tim Wylton’s gravedigger (Wylton makes more impact in five minutes here than he did in three hours of Henry V).
 
Claire Bloom is the only cast member (including Jacobi) who speaks to the heart. She clearly has a genuine love for her son – though is not averse to slapping him in A3 S4 – and her breakdown into guilt and regret in A3 S4 is one of the best I’ve seen done. It’s a scene that clearly hangs over her and affects all her actions from that point on – you can see it in her growing distance from Claudius but also in the living death Bloom manages to show behind her eyes from that point on. It’s as good as her work on Henry VIII.
 
Patrick Stewart’s Claudius I found interesting, largely because it is very similar in tone and interpretation to the performance he would go on to give to almost universal acclaim in the David Tennant production 30 years later. Stewart’s Claudius is a cold politician, smiling and smiling but always a villain. He’s clearly a competent ruler but is playing the honest Joe to everyone while being deeply corrupt. Stewart throws in an interesting ending with Claudius, stressing at several points the character’s hatred and contempt for Hamlet – the tension between them in A3 S2 sizzles. Stewart plays him as a man obsessed with destroying Hamlet – even laughing when Hamlet murders him, as if overjoyed to have trapped him into committing open treason. But it’s a safe performance, helped by his undeniable charisma. Watch the Tennant Hamlet and you will see a great Claudius, one of the best on film.
 
Reading back through this review, Hamlet-like, I cannot decide if I have been either too harsh or too easy-going on this production. It’s trying its best, but it has no heart and it falls between too many stools. It feels like a mixture of intellectual exercise and faithful Xeroxing of the text. There is stuff here to admire and, whatever its flaws, Derek Jacobi’s performance simply has to be seen for anyone interested in this play. But I’m not sure there is enough here to come back to – certainly nothing in the bits he isn’t in. And in a world where we have so many filmed Hamlets it’s hard to see anyone rushing back to this one when they have a choice of Olivier’s, Branagh’s, Gibson’s, Tennant’s, Hawkes’, Kozintsev’s or Williamson’s.
 
Conclusion
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That probably sums up what’s missing from a production that I looked upon if anything with a countenance more in sorrow than in anger. You won’t find your tongue full of praise for it. Jacobi is brilliant, but the rest just doesn’t quite cut it.

NEXT TIME: We move into the reign of Jonathan Miller with John Cleese casting his mission statement in The Taming of the Shrew.