Review – Hamlet (1948)

I know Olivier is supposed to be the ultimate cinema Hamlet, but frankly I found his performance a bit stiff, better suited to the stage than the screen. At least the acting was in keeping with the overall look and feel of the production. The sets all looked like stages. The gestures and line delivery clearly had the poor folks in the back row in mind. And yet the camerawork and editing were self-consciously cinematic, constantly manipulating the point of view in ways that worked not at all with the theatre-like job everyone else was doing. I’m glad they decided to play around with some unusual techniques, but nearly 60 years of subsequent perspective show that a lot of this just doesn’t work. Mildly amusing