Cinema: Olivier's Hamlet

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Rational Sharpness. Short of such majestic challenges, Olivier is as sure in his work, and as sure a delight to watch, as any living artist. No other actor except Chaplin is as deft a master of everything which the entire body can contribute to a role; few actors can equal him, in the whole middle register of acting. He takes such little words as My father's spirit in arms! and communicates and is worthy of their towering poetry. He can toss off lines like For every man hath business and desire in a way to make Shakespeare congratulate himself in his grave. His inflection of Hamlet's reply to Ophelia's You are keen, my lord, you are keen (It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge) is enough to make the flesh crawl with its cruelty, the complexity which leaps into view behind the cruelty, and the brilliance of the actor who hides behind that.

That lightning rational sharpness which is among Olivier's surest assets may also account for a weakness. He freezes such a jet of enchantment as Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered with cold irony; but on the words, Are you honest? he is like a scalpel. He is a particular master of the sardonic, of complex reaction and low-keyed suffering, of princely sweetness and dangerousness of spirit, and of the mock-casual. On the invention of business, he is equally intelligent and imaginative. I am glad to see thee well is delivered with a pat on the head to a performing dog; Yorick's skull is poised with piercing ironic grace, cheek to cheek with his own living skull; the lost eyes stare into the audience as Hamlet says, very quietly, Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.

Broad as his range and virtuosity are, it seems possible that Olivier's greatest gifts are for comedy, especially for comedy which works close to the tragic. Like every first-rate comedian's, his sense of reality is strong and cool; his understanding of "the modesty of nature," and his regard for it, are exceptionally acute. Those who venerate the best in acting will easily forgive the rare excesses in this Hamlet, and will easily get over disappointments as beautiful as these; they will not soon forget the lively temperateness, the perfect commingling of blood and judgment, the high grace and spirit, which inform the performance as a whole.

Shakespeare's Audience. It is not likely that Shakespeare will ever again reach the lusty, semiliterate mass audience for which he wrote; today's equivalent fills the neighborhood movie houses. Henry V was seen by an estimated 5% of the people in each U.S. city where it was shown (as against a rough 30-40% who see the average Hollywood movie hit). Some who did see Henry must have gone to see it out of culture-snobbery, or because they were led by the ears. The heartening fact is that the picture better than paid for itself in cold cash, not to mention prestige, in its U.S. run. And for years to come, Henry V and Hamlet will refresh and enchant every moviegoer who has it in him to love great dramatic poetry, beautifully spoken and acted.

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