Hamlet poster

Hamlet( 1964)

TV-MADrama
71%
User
Score

Overview

Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.

    Top Billed Cast

    1. cast image

      Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy

      Hamlet

    2. cast image

      Anastasiya Vertinskaya

      Ophelia

    3. cast image

      Mikhail Nazvanov

      Claudius

    4. cast image

      Elza Radziņa

      Gertrude

    5. cast image

      Yuriy Tolubeev

      Polonius

    6. cast image

      Igor Dmitriev

      Rosencrantz

    7. cast image

      Vadim Medvedev

      Guildenstern

    8. cast image

      Vladimir Erenberg

      Horatio

    9. cast image

      Stepan Oleksenko

      Laertes

    10. cast image

      Grigori Gaj

      Ghost of Hamlet's Father

    11. cast image

      Ants Lauter

      Priest

    12. cast image

      Viktor Kolpakov

      Gravedigger

    Social

    Review 1Discussion

    A review by CinemaSerf

    8
    Written by CinemaSerf on Sun Jun 08 2025
    Now not being a Russian speaker I was a bit trepidatious about tackling this with just the subtitles. Well I needn’t have feared as a basic knowledge of the original Shakespearean tragedy is all that is required to underpin this experience as I sat back and savoured this exquisitely dark, brooding and melancholy story of betrayal, duplicity and madness - written as only the bard could and quite possibly delivered as only the Soviets could. We start in the best place, the oppressive and formidable fortress of Elsinore (well, Ivangorod, actually) with it’s thick, high walls and imposing portculli...

    Media

    Videos 1Backdrops 3Posters 6

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    Facts

    Status

    Released

    Original Language

    English

    Budget

    -

    Revenue

    -

    Keywords