SHAKSPER 2001: Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 09/28/01 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2244  Friday, 28 September 2001

[1]     From:   Mark Harris <mark_r_harris@yahoo.com>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Sep 2001 09:35:16 -0700 (PDT)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2232 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet

[2]     From:   Don Bloom <dbloo@asms.net>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Sep 2001 15:15:42 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2232 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet

[3]     From:   Werner Brönnimann <Werner.Broennimann@unibas.ch>
        Date:   Friday, 28 Sep 2001 15:16:22 +0100
        Subj:   SHK 12.2210 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mark Harris <mark_r_harris@yahoo.com>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Sep 2001 09:35:16 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 12.2232 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2232 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet

Sean Lawrence wrote:

> I got the feeling, through a Russophone would have
> to confirm it, that
> the sub-titles represented somewhat less than the
> characters actually
> said.  The reason for this would be simple:  few
> people can read as
> quickly as they can listen.  If I'm right, and I'm
> not sure that I am,
> then the intended audience would get far more of the
> script than would
> people like me.

Even without being a Russophone I can confirm that film subtitles
*invariably* translate only a significant portion of what is spoken,
never all of it. Your reasoning is exactly correct.

Mark R. Harris

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Don Bloom <dbloo@asms.net>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Sep 2001 15:15:42 -0500
Subject: 12.2232 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2232 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet

While directors -- whether of plays or of movies -- have a perfect right
to do what they like in the process of interpreting some well-known
text, we likewise have a right to rip them when we think they've done a
bad job.

A bad job technically will usually never be seen, and certainly not turn
into some kind of "cult-classic" like the Kozintsev "Hamlet." But it
still may be a bad job literarily. I offer no opinion on this matter
with regard to the specific film, since I've never seen it. But I cannot
see where Charles Weinstein should be criticized merely for expressing
his dislike of it since he explains why very cogently: he considers the
cuts made in the dialogue to be excessive, and not compensated for by
some beautiful or striking visual images that were (apparently)
substituted.

"De gustibus" and all that.

As for me, I like Shakespeare. I think very few directors are as
brilliant as he, but I have observed that a fair number of them are both
egotistical and foolish enough to think they are. They set out to serve
not the text, but their own vanity. In the process, they overlook the
losses they accrue in pressing for effects that are original, striking,
and politically significant.

I may be drifting slowly into the Middle Ages (not to be confused with
middle age, as I've been *there* quite a while), but I don't really care
that much about originality any more. I like to see the thing done as
well as it can be by the cast at hand. And I can happily do without the
extraneous items dumped in just to make it different.

Cheers,
don

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Werner Brönnimann <Werner.Broennimann@unibas.ch>
Date:           Friday, 28 Sep 2001 15:16:22 +0100
Subject: Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet
Comment:        SHK 12.2210 Re: Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet

Kozintsev did not just cut ("This is too long": Polonius may have a
point), he has also added a few scenes: Ophelia's dance instruction;
Ophelia and her iron corset; Hamlet on his way to England.  There is a
complete film transcript by Gerhard Müller-Schwefe (Tübingen: Gunter
Narr Verlag, 1981; ISBN 3-87808-988-0) which offers full parallel
documentation on a double page spread of 1. frame count 2. events or
"stage" business 3. dialogue 4. sounds (detailed account of music) 5.
camera (angle, close-ups etc.) 6. time in seconds.  Comprehensive;
useful for film buffs; in German, not in Russian, with the
back-translation from Pasternak mainly based on Schlegel-Tieck, I think.

Werner Brönnimann

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