We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Shakespeare *s stage, road the cuts and camera shifts of the motion picture* With the camera on roller skates, the onerous and time-consuming scenery shifts of* the so-called modern stage are a thing of the past, and the star performer is ho longer tempted to pose*in fableaus before each curtain. This is one of the ways in which theshape of film fills out the profile of Shakesperean production.
There are others* The soliloquies in Hamlet are delivered in the manner first suggested by Olivier in Henry V. At times -the actor !s image appears t© speak, at times it is silent while the voice continues on the soundtrack, Yifith this mechanical device ("whose mechanism, like most, is only noticeable when it falters) the film achieves that blend of uttered a'nd u nattered thought which is the dramatic intention of the soliloquy. In fact, -in the auditory closeup of the screen all of Shakespeare r& words find a new sort of potency, especially whqn they are spoken by Mr. Olivier anda distinguished &ast. Basil Sydney, himself a graduate Hamlet, makes an unctious Claudius, with Eileen Her lie a youthful and seductive Queen. Norman Yfooland is the Horatio and Felix Aylmer « the bumbling wi soman Polonius. Wi th t he si ng le exception of Jean S imm o ns wh o p la y s Ophelia, th e s e are all actors trained in Shakespearean diction. They speak their speeches trippingly on the tongue (which is more than the Player King and Queen can do, who are condemned to a dumb show -after ail of Kamiet*s exhortations!) Yton eatery word is captured and forwarded by the microphone,, the listener in the farthest reaches of the 'bo loony is no moru remote from the poet's phrases tna-n those more fortunate souls in the third row orchestra. O^ee more the people are in possession of the playwright.
In one way, the history of Hamlet can be told in terms of its star interpreters ana the characteristic bits of business with which each has left his own nark upon the tradition. It is remembered that Sean kissed Ophelia * s via ir at the end of the* nunnery scene j both Sarah Bernhardt and Moissi brandished a flaming torch at the King when that dignitary cried out for lights at the end of the play within a play; Tree wore a blond wig (and a beard to bootj and Gielgud gave motivation to the nunnery scene by having Hamlet overhear Polonius,1 plot to test him by Ophelia. Olivier has siezed upon all of these traditions and added some of his own • Certain inventions, such as the doctoring up of the *Io' be-or not to b e 1 soliloquy with falling daggers and crashing seas and musical interruptions, are none too hapr*jr. Others add tone and specific film insight to their scenes* Such is the moment when Bamiet fife the blonde wig on the Player Queen and discci^rs that he has nade an ungainly image of the r enounced Ophelia. Such is the suggestion near the end, in a look an da turn of the camera, that th£> Que>en di-inks from