Hamlet (1964)

16 June 2019

Richard Burton's Hamlet (1964) is a Broadway production directed by John Gielgud and portrayed as a "final run-through". Through the process of Electronovision it was recorded from the stage and edited for film. It sounds like it had some similarities to today's Fantom events - providing a limited experience to audiences, then the films would be destroyed. The film was considered lost until a copy was found in Burton's garage following his death in 1984, and was re-released in theaters in 1995.

At times it's a difficult watch - partly because of the audio quality (hard to catch sometimes, and the dvd lacked subtitle tracks), and partly because of the film (closer shots generally looked good, but more distant shots in particular were fuzzy or glaring. That said, it's nice that this exists as a stripped down version of Hamlet with a minimal set and crew. It was a production that did really well on Broadway, so it's nice to get a snapshot of that experience. 7/10