Abstract
In December 1996, rumours of a drastically cut version to be released later propelled serious viewers to Kenneth Branagh’s uncut, four-hour Hamlet, which was soon to be withdrawn in favour of a trimmed version.1 Those were heady times for filmed Shakespeare, of long queues and tickets that had to be purchased in advance. But many of us were impatient for the two-hour film. We wanted to see what Branagh would cut and what that would reveal about his interpretation. Now the two-hour version has appeared, and although I believe viewers in the USA and Canada have not seen it yet, it was shown on Spanish television in summer 1999 — a version which I have seen thanks to the timely help of Jesús Tronch-Perez (University of Valencia) and José Ramón Díaz Fernández (University of Málaga). Fortunately, I am disappointed in what is cut;2 — ‘fortunately’ because that gives me an opportunity to do my own editing. My long-range project is twofold: first, in this chapter, to excise what I think mars the four-hour film — much of which the two-hour film retains; and second, in a future article, to explore the artistry of what remains. Although at present I am concerned mainly with the film’s defects, I aim to be ‘cruel only to be kind’, to enable me to put aside everything that occludes this film’s many excellences.
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Bibliography
Andrews, John F., ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet’, Shakespeare Newsletter 46, 3 (Fall 1996): 53, 62, 66.
Bradshaw, Graham, ‘The “Encrusted Hamlet: Mousetrap in Text and Performance”’ in Approaches to Teaching Hamlet, ed. Bernice W. Kliman, New York, MLA, forthcoming.
Branagh, Kenneth, Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Screenplay and Introduction by Kenneth Branagh, New York, Norton, 1996.
Chamberlain, Richard, Hamlet, 1970. See Kliman, Hamlet, pp. 180–7.
Crowl, Samuel, ‘Hamlet “Most Royal”, An Interview with Kenneth Branagh’, Shakespeare Bulletin 12, 4 (Fall 1994): 5–8.
Crowl, Samuel. ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare Bulletin 15, 1 (Winter 1997): 34–5.
Dawson, Anthony B., Shakespeare in Performance: Hamlet, Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 1995.
Film credits, reviews, and purchasing information: http://us.imdb.com/
Gilbert, John, illus., frontispiece for Hamlet, The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare, ed. Howard Staunton, New York: Greenwich House, 1851, distributed by Crown, 1983.
Holland, Norm, SHAKSPER: Electronic ListServ, 2 January 1997.
Jackson, Russell, ‘Diary’, in Kenneth Branagh, ’Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare: Screenplay and Introduction by Kenneth Branagh. New York, Norton, 1996, pp. 175–208.
Jackson, Russell, ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Film of Hamlet: The Textual Choices’, Shakespeare Bulletin 15, 2 (Spring 1997): 37–8.
Jones, Emrys, Scenic Form in Shakespeare, Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1971, rpt. New York: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Kliman, Bernice W., Hamlet: Film, Television, and Audio Performance, Rutherford, NJ, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988.
Lyth, Ragnar, Hamlet: den tragiska historien om Hamlet av Denmark, 1984. See Kliman, ‘Hamlet’, pp. 202–24.
Mahon, John W., ‘Editor’s View’ appended to Andrews, ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet’, Shakespeare Newsletter 46, 3 (Fall 1996): 66, 76. See also Pendleton, ‘And the Thoughts of the Other Editor’.
Mallin, Eric S., ‘“You Kilt My Foddah”: or Arnold, Prince of Denmark’, Shakespeare Quarterly 50, 2 (Summer 1999): 127–51.
Nichols, Nina daVinci, ‘Branagh’s Hamlet Redux’ Shakespeare Bulletin 15, 3 (Summer 1997): 38–41.
Pendleton, Thomas, ‘And the Thoughts of the Other Editor’, Shakespeare Newsletter 46, 3 (Fall 1996): 60.
Shakespeare, William, Riverside Shakespeare, ed. J. Blakemore Evans et al., 2nd ed. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
Smith, Dinitia, ‘Much Ado about Branagh: The New Orson Welles’, New York, 24 May 1993: 36–45.
Walton, David, ‘The Fortunes of Fortinbras in Three Film Versions of Hamlet’, Shakespeare Bulletin 16, 3 (Summer 1998): 36–7.
Notes and References
My endnotes document my obligations, but I would like to thank Russell Jackson, the film’s text adviser, for very helpful information — published, conveyed by e-mail, and in person; and Sam Crowl, for his work on the film and on the stage production directed by Adrian Noble that stands behind the film.
Samuel Crowl refers to a two-hour, 35mm version of the four-hour 70mm version film that is ‘likely to end up in general release and in high school and college libraries’: see ’Hamlet “Most Royal”’, Shakespeare Bulletin 12, 4 (Fall 1994): 5–8. So far the shorter version has not been released in the USA or Canada but has been seen on Spanish television. According to pre-release interviews, Branagh had no artistic stake in the shorter version; Castle Rock Entertainment stipulated it for non-English markets and for airline screenings.
An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the first International Shakespeare on Screen Conference: The Centenary Conference at Benalmádena, 21–24 September 1999: my thanks to Sarah Hatchuel for generously sharing her impressive archives of Branagh interviews, to other conference participants for their helpful suggestions, and above all to José Ramón Díaz Fernández, conference organizer, for his encouragement and enthusiasm. My work on Hamlet is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
According to a letter from his assistant, Branagh had no script for the shorter version. It was shortened at the editing table (letter from Tamar Thomas, Assistant to Mr Branagh, 4 August 1999).
Samuel Crowl, ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare Bulletin 15, 1 (Winter 1997): 34.
Russell Jackson, e-mail, 28 July 1999. Jackson screened the omitted segment at the Mélaga conference.
Irene Dash, quoted in Nina daVinci Nichols, ‘Branagh’s Hamlet Redux’, Shakespeare Bulletin 15, 3 (Summer, 1997): 38–41, p. 39.
Michael_Kahn, reported in John F. Andrews, ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet’, Shakespeare Newsletter 46, 3 (Fall 1996): 53. See also John W. Mahon, ‘Editor’s View’ (appended to Andrews’s essay), who thinks the insets ‘work’ (66). Andrews (62) and Thomas Pendleton (‘And the Thoughts of the Other Editor’, Shakespeare Newsletter 46, 3 (Fall 1996): 60) disagree. Samuel Crowl approves at least of one set that I would extract, and remarks, approvingly, that Branagh ‘resists giving us pictures that other films have made standard’ (‘Hamlet’: 34). Some of these standard insets appear in the shooting script, and thus Branagh contemplated using them at some point. Unfortunately, since Branagh has not sent me a copy of his shooting script, all references to a script (unless otherwise noted) refer to the published version.
Emrys Jones, Scenic Form in Shakespeare (1971, Oxford: Oxford University Press; rpt. New York: Clarendon Press, 1985, p. 28).
Branagh, strangely enough, lists cast but not crew in his published screenplay. The experience of cinematographer Alex Thomson (b. London 1929) includes a job as an uncredited cameraman for Dr Zhivago (1965), to which some have compared scenes in Branagh’s Hamlet. He has been cinematographer for many films in a long career, but none of distinction, as far as I know. See Kenneth Branagh, Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Screenplay and Introduction by Kenneth Branagh (New York: Norton, 1996).
Russell Jackson confirmed my impression. He told me that the Ghost, meant to be invisible in the first scene, was added because’ something was not working’. I surmise that the problem was not the absence of the Ghost but the shots directed to where it should have been, showing viewers the Ghost’s absence rather than allowing them to infer its presence.
Russell Jackson, ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Film of Hamlet: The Textual Choices’, Shakespeare Bulletin 15, 2 (Spring 1997). The first quotation is on p. 38; the second on p. 37.
Andrews, ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet’: 62. Other quotations during this interview reported by Andrews show that Branagh had the audience in mind with his flashcuts: justifying the lovemaking scenes, he’ said that if he were a thirteen-year-old who’d been dragged to a bloody four-hour Hamlet, he’d be very grateful for an occasional nude scene’.
See Anthony B. Dawson, Shakespeare in Performance: ‘Hamlet’ (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 17. A reading of Dawson’s fine description of the stage production (11-22; 238–41), written before Branagh produced the film, reveals how many details in the film derive from the stage production: the Edwardian setting and costumes; the winter landscape; the over-full ‘complete’ text; the railway that conveys Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the film (Fortinbras and the players are conveyed by railway on stage). Like the stage production, the film seems to aim for ‘“reality-effects” as well as “alienation-effects”’.
Andrews, ‘Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet’, makes this point also: 62.
Nichols, ‘Branagh’s Hamlet Redux’: 39, points out that the flash-back in the first act makes ‘“The Mousetrap” scene [feel] quite superfluous and its dumbshow almost as tedious to us as it is to the Danish court’. She compiles a good number of critics’ views about the film, in addition to her own analysis.
See Graham Bradshaw, ‘The “Encrusted Hamlet”: Mousetrap in Text and Performance’, in Approaches to Teaching Hamlet, ed. Bernice W. Kliman (New York: MLA, forthcoming). Maurice Charney faults Branagh for trying, in the eighteenth-century manner, to tie up every loose end, to answer all questions. Quoted in ibid., p. 39.
In England, the title of the film was In the Bleak Midwinter. Dinitia Smith reports that Branagh can get into its of giggling that he cannot stop. ‘Much Ado about Branagh: The New Orson Welles’, New York (24 May 1993): 36–45, at 38.
Russell Jackson, ‘Diary’, in Kenneth Branagh, Hamlet, p. 177.
Branagh, in the interview reported in Shakespeare Newsletter 46, 3 (Fall 1996): 62, adds a more convincing explanation: ‘the intensity implied by a sexual relationship with the Prince would make Ophelia’s “descent into madness” seem more plausible later in the action’. See also n. 11. Russell Jackson pointed out (privately) that any one explanation for choices is liable to be incomplete; each explanation is a selection made from an array of reasons.
The Norton edition (1997), using the Oxford text, has the Folio line here; G. R. Hibbard, the editor of the freestanding Oxford Hamlet (1987), uses the Quarto line. All references to Hamlet in this chapter are from the Riverside Shakespeare.
Her cry is another transposition, and I wonder if it too was absent in the shooting script. In the play, in the Folio only, unnamed gentlemen, probably Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, call out to Hamlet at the beginning of IV.ii. In the film, Ophelia cries out at the end of the scene, a bridge to the next scene.
Given the aims of the King and Laertes, a smaller audience would seem a more appropriate choice.
For a positive view, see Walton, who admires the way Branagh contrasts the two sons through these flashcuts; Fortinbras ‘resolutely advances through any obstacle while Hamlet cannot manage to kill Claudius despite having “cause, and will, and strength, and means / To do’t” (IV.iv.46–7)’ (37). However, it is difficult for me to admire Fortinbras.
Jones, Scenic Form, p. 79.
Jackson, e-mail, 28 July 1999.
‘“You Kilt My Foddah”: or Arnold, Prince of Denmark’, Shakespeare Quarterly 50, 2 (Summer 1999): 127–51, p. 128.
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© 2001 Bernice W. Kliman
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Kliman, B.W. (2001). The Unkindest Cuts: Flashcut Excess in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. In: Cartmell, D., Scott, M. (eds) Talking Shakespeare. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-98574-8_11
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