Grigori KOZINTSEV
Григорий КОЗИНЦЕВ
Grigori KOZINTSEV
USSR, 1964, 140mn 
Black and white, fiction
Gamlet
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Гамлет

 

 Hamlet

 Hamlet

 
Directed by : Grigori KOZINTSEV (Григорий КОЗИНЦЕВ)
Writing credits : Grigori KOZINTSEV (Григорий КОЗИНЦЕВ)
 
Cast
Igor DMITRIEV (Игорь ДМИТРИЕВ) ...Rosenkrantz
Vladimir ERENBERG (Владимир ЭРЕНБЕРГ) ...Horatio
Grigori GAY (Григорий ГАЙ)
Viktor KOLPAKOV (Виктор КОЛПАКОВ) ...Fossoyeur
A. KREVALD (А. КРЕВАЛЬД) ...Fortinbras
Vadim MEDVEDEV (Вадим МЕДВЕДЕВ) ...Guildenstern
Mikhail NAZVANOV (Михаил НАЗВАНОВ) ...Claudius
Stepan OLEKSENKO (Степан ОЛЕКСЕНКО) ...Laertes
Elsa RADZINYA (Эльза РАДЗИНЯ) ...La Reine Gertrude
Innokenti SMOKTUNOVSKY (Иннокентий СМОКТУНОВСКИЙ) ...Hamlet
Yuri TOLUBEYEV (Юрий ТОЛУБЕЕВ) ...Polonius
Anastasia VERTINSKAIA (Анастасия ВЕРТИНСКАЯ) ...Ophélie
 
Cinematography : Ionas GRITSIUS (Ионас ГРИЦЮС)
Production design : Yevgeni ENEJ (Евгений ЕНЕЙ), Georgi KROPACHEV (Георгий КРОПАЧЕВ)
Music : Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH (Дмитрий ШОСТАКОВИЧ)
Sound : Boris KHUTORIANSKY (Борис ХУТОРЯНСКИЙ)
Companies : Lenfilm
Spectators : 21,1 millions of spectators
Release Date in Russia : 24/10/1964
 
Site : IMDb

Awards :
Special Jury prize Venice International Film Festival, Venice (Italy), 1964
Best actor Innokenti SMOKTUNOVSKY , Venice International Film Festival, Venice (Italy), 1964
Prix du meilleur film de l'année décerné par la British Academy of Film and Television Arts, 1964

DVD with subtitles
Editor : Bach Films
Editor : Ruscico

Plot synopsis
A screen adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy.
The somber Elsinore Castle that keeps secrets of many a crime is looming over the rocky coastline. Prince Hamlet once again puts the question: “To be, or not to be?” He is the first thinker in the line of warriors, a poet and a philosopher, a character so close to future generations. In the utterly corrupted kingdom, a lone hero is bound to take up arms to avenge his father’s death. This film became a champion among Lenfilm Studio’s prize-winning motion pictures – 23 awards in four years. The musical score was written by the great Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich.
Source : www.ruscico.com
 

commentaries
Vingt grandes réalisations des studios Lenfilm, Alexandra GOUZEVA, RUSSIA BEYOND, 2024
RUSSIA BEYOND : Dix chefs-d’œuvre d'adaptation cinématographique russo-soviétiques inspirés de romans européens, Boris EGOROV, RUSSIA BEYOND, 2019
Гамлет - фильм Козинцева, Yefim DOBIN, Искусство, 1967
 
Arguably the finest screen Hamlet of all time, even though the language barrier does somewhat moot comparisons between Smoktunovsky and Olivier, Kozintsev's film won a special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival and, in 1967, was nominated for a Best Foreign Picture Golden Globe. By no means a "filmed play," Kozintsev's HAMLET is profoundly cinematic; it is also swept clean of Freudian accoutrements and treated with somber fervor closer to Orson Welles' Macbeth. Boris Pasternak's modern-language translation is used for the dialogue. The tradition of the "active" (read: dissident) HAMLET, with his fixation on the imprisonment motif, would culminate 15 years later at the Taganka Theater, when national folk-singing icon Vladimir Vysotsky (see BRIEF ENCOUNTERS) displaced Smoktunovsky as the ultimate Russian embodiment of the part.
Source : www.seagullfilms.com

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- Thaw Films : 1953-1968, kinoglaz.fr (France), 2023
- Russian or Soviet films awarded at Berlin, Cannes or Venice, kinoglaz.fr (France), 2023
- Russian Resurrection Film Festival, Different cities (Australia), 2018
- International Film Festival of Kerala : IFFK, Kerala (India), 2012
- Pessac International History Film Festival, Pessac (France), 2011
- Festival "Vivat Kino Rossii", St Petersburg (Russia), 2010
- Russian Film Festival, Riga (Latvia), 2008
- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2008
- Russian films in the cinema Arlequin, Paris (France), 2006
- Europalia Russia 2005, Brussels (Belgium), 2005
- Venice International Film Festival, Venice (Italy), 1964