BozMan-2 Reviews

Hamlet (1969)

Breath-taking shifts and lighting reminiscent of Rembrandt

[12 December 1999]

Yes, I'll concede that Kenneth Branaugh's uncut version of Shakespeare's text (never played on the Elizabethan stage, in all likelihood) is a benchmark for cinematic *Hamlet*s, but Williamson's performance (particularly his voice-over soliloquies) is still highly thought-provoking thirty years later. The film is like a moving Rembrandt painting (*The Night Watch* comes to mind) with its restless, shifting light and dissolves. It took great courage, for example, for Richardson not to show the Ghost, but rather to reveal him as a burning white light whose impact we feel by the responses of Horatio and the guards. Big budget and big screen it's not, but Richardson's direction has meticulously thought out many significant production details. This is definitely a cerebral *Hamlet* that gives the view

Lord of the Flies (1990)

An extremely free adaptation of Golding's novel

[20 March 1999]

The British black and white film is somewhat choppy as a result of massive editing; this colour film has the virtue of clarity and narrative smoothness. However, the quality of class, of the divisions in English society which the boys transfer to the tropical island in the novel, is wholly lost in this production about a group of stranded American military school cadets and their descent into sadism. The characters of Ralph and Jack are well foiled, but Piggy and Simon have lost something in the American translation. The substitution of the delirious pilot for the dead airman is ingenious, but the level of profanity is embarrassing. In the final analysis, the difference in maturity between the littluns and the biguns is insufficient, but the quality of the photography and sound is good.

Cromwell (1970)

A stunning historical recreation of the English Civil War

[18 March 1999]

The uncanny thing about this film, even all these years after it was made, is the striking likeness between Alec Guinness and the historical Charles the First. Timothy Dalton is marvelous as the cavalier Prince Rupert. But most memorable is the closing scene of the film, when the crowd chants, "Cromwell for King!" As Richard Harris remarks, they just don't get it. Ironically, Cromwell will go on to be a much bigger dictator than Charles, but the film closes with the death of Charles and Cromwell's chagrin at the people for still wanting any kind of king.