Hamlet (1964 film)

Hamlet Russian , tr. Gamlet is a 1964 film adaptation in Russian of William Shakespeares play of the same title, based on a translation by Boris Pasternak. It was directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro, and stars Innokenty Smoktunovsky as Prince Hamlet.

Kozintsev also wrote extensively about Shakespeare and a major chapter in his book Shakespeare Time and Conscience is devoted to his thoughts on Hamlet together with a historical survey of earlier interpretations. In an appendix entitled Ten Years with Hamlet, he includes extracts from his diaries dealing with his experiences of the 1954 stage production and his 1964 film.Kozintsevs film is faithful to the architecture of the play, but the text based on Pasternaks translation is heavily truncated, achieving a total running time ofhours 20minutes from a play which can last as long as four hours in full performance. The opening scene of the play is cut entirely, along with scenesandof Act IV, but other scenes are represented in sequence, even though some are drastically shortened. Hamlets final speech is reduced simply to The rest is silence. There is some resequencing of material in Act IV to illustrate the outwitting of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the voyage to England. Kozintsev seeks constantly to represent the content of the play in visual terms, and there are notable sequences which are constructed without the use of dialogue e.g. the opening scene in which Hamlet arrives at Elsinore to join the courts mourning, and the vigil awaiting the appearance of the ghost. ........

Source: Wikipedia