Gamlet / Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, 1964)

The Danish prince strikes again - this time residing in Russia.

Apart from having some desperately needed cuts to the Lawrence Olivier's version, this film has an outstanding cinematography. Compared to this version, Olivier's rendering seems a bit stiff and stuffy - despite it's own qualities. Just as with Olivier, also this Hamlet seems quite a bit too old for the part. But he works with that beautifully. I guess that as a result, some of the love scenes were shortened - as far as I can remember. Despite the amazing work and the unchained camera in many scenes, the final sword fight cannot shake its stagy-ness.

But the memorable aspects of this movie for me were mostly the images of looming doom and despair. Black and white seems the perfect medium to tell this. Many images are shot out of dark hallways, into punctually lit courtyards. Fog is abundant and the camera seems to tiptop behind the actors as they stumble through this medieval labyrinth.

Another spectacular pair of shots is the contrast of the dancing scene. The one - well-measured and timid - has the stiffness and rigidity of the moral compass of the times: Ophelia carefully and tempered practicing her moves in her bedroom, observed and watched.

On the other hand, there is an animalistic (and probably deadly) energy in the masked dancers that move with torches in front of the camera. It is clear that their appearance foreshadows evil. There are a ton of other details that I should try to figure out in another viewing that I completely missed in this run.

Kommentare

Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

Time of the Gypsies / Dom Za Vesanje (Emir Kusturica, 1988)

A supernaturally gifted boy from a Gypsy community is forced to survive in the world of crime. The intriguing qualities of Kusturica's films I've seen is his relentless depiction of basically crazy communities. Not just agreeably potty, they're usually outright interstellar-nuts. Here, he follows the fate of the rather harmless boy Perhan, that leaves for Italy in hope of a better future for him and his loved ones. There are some enormously interesting images in the film that kept ringing long after. The ritual in the river and the last scene in the church ruin (with a horse standing somewhere far back in the image...). After sketchily mapping out the scenes it is surprising how rigorously three-acty the screenplay is constructed. The first act seems quite long in terms of time and number of scenes, but there is also a lot of imagery spent on depicting life in this crazy universe, which makes the second part in Italy much more believable. And there is a certa

Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013)

I haven't seen many of Villeneuve's movies, but I really like everything so far. When thinking about Prisoners after a few days, there was a particular scene that somehow kept returning to my memory: When Gyllenhal's character is introduced, sitting alone in Chinese restaurant, not-flirting with the waitress. For some reason this scene struck me as "different". That gave me the idea to examine all the first appearances of the characters in the movie. ( SPOILERS ) KELLER DOVER (Hugh Jackman) - we don't actually see him, we start with a very static shot into the forest. The man is looking into the forest, it is his POV (which we find out quickly). But we can hear him praying, while a deer walks into the frame. When the camera pulls back, a rifle points at the animal. And just after "Amen", a shot is fired. Now, here's a little surprise: Keller, who was doing the praying has his son RALPH (Dylan Minette) shooting the rifle. It's a fat

Odd Man Out (Reed, 1947) #TSPDT #469

An underground rebel is wounded during a heist and tries to evade the manhunt in Belfast. The story is of a steady decline towards the unsurprising end of terrible consequences. James Mason is quite astonishing as the soft-spoken hero, whom you just cannot imagine of doing anything as bad as scaring a child, let alone a robbery. Obviously, he does both in the film and much more. His endless odyssey which is much less about him than the various Belfastian characters towards him and - although explicitly denied by the filmmaker in a bizarre opening title card - ultimately about the struggle for independence in Northern Ireland (or any similar situation) There were two or three moments in the film that didn't hold up for me as well as they should, but the crazy painter and his bizarre co-inhabitant made it all up - a bold selection of outright frightening men from the fringes of society. There is no need to decipher the symbolism (payoff might be even bigger) - it's simply e

Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

Dieses Blog durchsuchen