Order from Ruscico

Hamlet
Script and Director: Grigory Kozintsev
Music: Dmitri Shostakovich
Cast: Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Mikhail Nazvanov, Elsa Radzinya, Yuri Tolubeyev, Anastasia Vertinskaya, Vadim Medvedev, Vladimir Erenberg, Stepan Oleksenko, Igor Dmitriev, Grigory Gai, Reino Aren.
Lenfilm 1964.
Ruscico (Russian Cinema Council) Collection. 2-DVD set, Region 0, PAL or NTSC, B&W. TT 70 min + 70 min.
Sound: Russian (mono), Russian, English and French Dolby 5.1.
Subtitles: Russian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian.
Special Features: Interviews with director G. Kozintsev and actor I. Smoktunovsky; Documentaries: Making of…, I. Smoktunovsky awarded by the Lenin Award; Text material: W. Shakespeare; Sketches of production design; Photo Albums; Filmographies.

Of all the films that Shostakovich scored, the best known and most widely distributed is Kozintsev's Hamlet (1964). Yet despite this, the film has proved surprisingly hard to find outside (and sometimes inside) the cinema; Ruscico's new DVD release is therefore extremely welcome.

The climax of a lifetime of study for Kozintsev, Hamlet is the director's masterpiece and everyone involved was at the top of their game. Jonas Gritsius' beautifully-toned photography lovingly reproduces every texture from the alabaster-skinned Ophelia to the black-caped ghost against the luminescent mother-of-pearl sky. It also complements Yevgeny Yenei's designs, less Freudian than Roger Furse and Carmen Dillon's for Olivier's 1948 Hamlet, but still stressing the claustrophobic court. Smoktunovsky's Prince was a career-defining role and of course Shostakovich produced one of his greatest scores in or out of the cinema.

CD SACD

The suite that Atovmyan prepared from the score - in fact he had little to do but select and order the pieces - gives a good idea of the range of the music, from Ophelia's brittle harpsichord to the powerhouse brass and percussion of the most corporeal ghost ever to appear onscreen. Nevertheless Yablonsky's recent recording of the complete published score (Naxos 6.110062; reviewed in DSCH No. 21) is a revelatory listen, filling in the gaps and re-ordering the pieces to follow the film (in the suite the players' performance precedes their arrival!). Those who have that disc can now see just how the ghost's music is matched by the literal nightmare of the fleeing horses and the uncanny slow-motion images - 'time out of joint' - until we are finally lifted to heaven with the ghost as he bids adieu. In contrast we can see the painful constrictions imposed on Ophelia, gain a deeper insight into her downfall, or watch Claudius at The Mousetrap, transfixed between horror and rage, whilst fearing that not just Hamlet, but the whole court is scrutinising his reaction.

Order from Ruscico

Hamlet would fit onto one dual-layer disc, but preferring single-layer discs, Ruscico spread it over two. Like King Lear (reviewed in DSCH No. 22), it is a two-part film and Kozintsev's break point is respected. Hamlet is just under 150 minutes long, though since the PAL video format displays 25 frames per second as compared to the 24 frames per second of film, Ruscico's PAL discs total about 143 minutes, advertised at 140 minutes. As usual with Ruscico, the film is well chaptered: disc one (71:38) has 12 and disc two (71:01) has 11.

There are four soundtrack options: the original mono, Russian 5.1, and dubbed English and French (both also 5.1) and the menus are in the same languages. Of the Russian tracks, the original mono is obviously to be preferred: as so often, the newly created sound effects for the 5.1 track are sometimes a bit in-your-face. Fortunately, for the dubbed versions the single male voice that Ruscico have sometimes used has been replaced with several actors. However, the English is intoned rather than spoken (not always in synch with either the Russian track or the subtitles) and there's a sense that the actors aren't always entirely clear of the meaning of what they are saying.

Ruscico seem to be cutting back on the range of subtitle languages, but for Hamlet still we have Russian, English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. As with Lear, for the English they have returned to Shakespeare's original rather than try to give a rendition of Pasternak's translation. The subtitles do not extend very far into the credits though all the main players are covered. More importantly, they are superimposed on the image; it would have been possible to place them in the black letterbox areas, though viewers who prefer to set their televisions to fill the screen with the image would thereby have lost them, along with around 30% of the stunning photography.

There are almost 45 minutes of moving-image bonus material plus two text extras: the same Shakespeare biography as appears on King Lear and bio-filmographies of the cast and the crew that, while generally reliable would have benefited from a final proof-reading. Kozintsev was apparently a member of FACS (not FEKS) and some of the film titles are oddly translated. Shostakovich also has a long list of his honours and a slightly incomplete filmography including a couple which merely use pre-existing music. Cameraman Jonas Gritsius and production designer Yevgeny Yenei get briefer entries. On disc two are the cast members - a surprising number appeared in non-Kozintsev films that have music by Shostakovich.

Making the Film ends rather suddenly after 2:45 - perhaps it is edited down from a newsreel, as new films were commonly covered and there were frequent features on well-known actors. A coach arrives at the Estonian castle-set and incongruously costumed actors disembark. Vertinskaya is seen in make-up with Smoktunovsky. Kozintsev is shown directing the Mousetrap scene - sadly there is only a commentary and music (not from the film) on the soundtrack, so we don't hear his instructions. Smoktunovsky rather feyly mugs to the camera in his dressing room, then chats to Kozintsev on the battlements. Finally we have more footage of Mousetrap rehearsals, including Claudius practising his great reaction to the play.

Awarding I. Smoktunovsky (0:15) offers a tiny snippet of newsreel of the actor receiving a Moscow Film Festival prize. Interviews with G. Kozintsev and I. Smoktunovsky (3:18) are in fairly poor condition and the soundtracks have suffered particularly badly - Kozintsev's voice is made high-pitched and fluttery. The content, though hardly revelatory, is some compensation: Kozintsev talks about Hamlet as a lifetime project and Smoktunovsky pays tribute to his fellow actors, particularly Claudius (Mikhail Nazvanov) and Polonius (Yuri Tolubeyev), both Kozintsev veterans.

There are several photo albums, often accompanied by fragments of Shostakovich's score. Hamlet: Unity in Multiplicity (13:39) presents images of actors who have played Hamlet from 1660 to date. Intriguingly, if unsurprisingly, this includes several Russians, testament to the popularity of Shakespeare and this play in that country. The first Russian we see is Vasili Kachalov who played Hamlet between 1911 and 1920 in Stanislavsky's Moscow Arts Theatre production designed by Kozintsev's hero Gordon Craig. He was followed in 1924 by Mikhail Chekhov (though he is perhaps best-known as Ingrid Bergman's psychiatrist-mentor in Hitchcock's Spellbound from 1945), and Alexander Moissi (1925). Could the young Shostakovich have seen these productions? Almost certainly he would have seen Meyerhold's wife Zinaida Raikh play the Prince in 1931 but two stage productions of Hamlet which he scored - Akimov's (1932) and Kozintsev's (1954) - are absent from this roll-call. Mentioned but not illustrated is a production 'planned by' Alla Demidova in the 1970s; she also played Gertrude opposite Vladimir Vysotsky in 1971. More Russian Hamlets up to Valery Garkalin in 2003 are illustrated and there is a photograph of a Russian production of Thomas' opera, before a montage of other unnamed actors, some more famous than others. But fascinating as this is, there is no analysis of why this play has exerted such a hold on the country and, given the vast literature on the subject, materials - even if only text pages - would have been easy to find.

Stills from the Film (2:16) actually presents on-set photographs, many taken from books. For stills from the film (and some posters) you need to go to the Photo Gallery (1:16) on disc 2, which is complemented by Sketches (1:52), a selection of Yenei's outstanding production designs for the film. The World of Hamlet (2:34) has paintings and drawings inspired by the play including Millais' famous Ophelia, a painting that Kozintsev knew and drew on for the film.

Coming Soon on DVD (divided between the two discs) brings six trailers for films that Ruscico has actually already released. Those who have Ruscico's King Lear DVD will find the same trailers for War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Ashik Kerib and A Cruel Romance. Added to these are traversals of King Lear and The Lady with the Little Dog with a chance to hear Nadezhda Simonyan's ravishing main theme, albeit initially in a galloping variation. Inserted into this intensely scopophilic trailer there are several shots of a white, textured screen, as if a veil is being drawn over the most passionate moments.

Shostakovichians will need little urging to buy Ruscico's Hamlet as the film has only previously been available in very unsatisfactory versions (pan and scanned, or so badly transferred as sometimes to make details invisible - the ghost scene was a particular victim). This transfer does full justice to the film's brilliant visuals and the choice of the original mono track or the 5.1 update should satisfy everybody - certainly the music also comes across excellently.

Ruscico is releasing a regular flow of films, though some of their choices can only be explained by their aiming at the Russian expatriate market and their children. Nevertheless, we can hope that some more Shostakovich-scored films make an appearance. Perhaps The Gadfly (1955), a story popular enough to have been filmed again in 1980, would satisfy both markets?

John Riley
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