Kirpianuscus the best adaptation of Hamlet. it is not exactly a verdict. or an impression. it is a profound feeling at each new discover of this special masterpiece. a film like an ice flower. the coldness. the delicate beauty. the moment of touch. it is an impressive mixture of Shakespeare and Russian soul. each as reflection of the other. each as revelation of profound truth. like an ice flower, it is only a detail from the entire picture on the window. the music of Shostakovich, the performance of Smoktunovsky, the costumes, the special sound of words, the new light and shadows of well known scenes, the emotion. it is Hamlet. the same who you knows. and the other who, like the veil - spider web of Ophelia or the air of Elsinore are a never heard message each occasion to see again the film.an ice flower. that , I believe, could be the inspired definition of this remarkable gem.

tsf-1962 I've never understood those who insist that Shakespeare's plays were written by an aristocrat like the Earl of Oxford. Only a man who lived life on the edge could have written the way Shakespeare did; it's difficult to imagine an upper-class twit writing "Hamlet" or "King Lear." Perhaps it's easier for people in eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union to understand Shakespeare than Americans; in many ways, living conditions there are much closer to Elizabethan England than anything we can imagine. Like Shakespeare, they have had to endure tyrannical governments, social injustice, religious persecutions, and other ordeals the more prosperous West scarcely remembers. Grigori Kozintsev's "Gamlet" illustrates this thesis. Here is a no-frills "Hamlet," in beautiful black-and-white, with a brilliant score by Dmitri Shostakovich and an exceptional cast. It's not surprising that Innokenti Smoktunovsky (Hamlet) was a holocaust survivor: pain is etched on his face, and for once Hamlet's suffering doesn't seem put on. Anastasia Vertinskaya is lovely as a tiny, fragile Ophelia, and Elsa Radzin is stunning as the queen. This is a surprisingly traditional Hamlet, free of trendy modernistic interpretation, almost nineteenth-century in its use of period detail. It's almost the kind of "Hamlet" one might have seen in the days of Edwin Booth or Sir Henry Irving; only Vertinskaya's beehive hairdo gives it away as having been made in the 1960s.

starinmoon5 Kozinstev does a BEAUTIFUL job with his Hamlet. The choice of black and white, the setting by the sea, his actors, Shostakovich's music... It's all brilliant. The interpretation of Hamlet and his motivations might seem a little sketchy at times, but the overall interpretation is far too commanding to be affected. The portrayal, especially, of Hamlet himself is , simply put, one of the best out there. Smotunovsky's controlled and deliberate performance cannot help but leave you stunned during some of his soliloquies. And in my personal opinion, anyone who has read Hamlet should have to see Kozinstev's vision of Hamlet Sr.'s ghost. SO awesome.

machadocoelho I have first seen Kozintsev's Hamlet back in 1963 and saw it again yesterday, as part of my job as music critic in a São Paulo newspaper, for the commemoration of Shostakovich's centennial -- he is the author of the soundtrack. The film has not aged, it is still one of the most beautiful adaptations of Shakespeare tragedy, Smoktunovsky's acting is thrilling and Shostakovich's soundtrack is marvelous. His irony reveals itself in the way he accompanies the scene at the graveyard: Hamlet's bittersweet dialog with the gravedigger (what an actor!) and his sad monologue about frailty having in his hand's Yorick's skull. A great film!