Buy it... if you appreciate Patrick Doyle's consistent quality of orchestral respect, and seek one of his more varied and percussively creative scores.

Avoid it... if you are potentially disappointed by the curious lack of a strong character-centric thematic structure to the score.

Doyle

Hamlet (1996): (Patrick Doyle) While directing Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing, and co-starring in Othello, actor/screenwriter/director Kenneth Branagh had always dreamt of bringing an ultimate version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet to the big screen. Through history, actors such as John Gielgud, Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, and Mel Gibson had appeared in the title role, and Branagh was prepared to tackle the role with all the authenticity that the original story conveyed. Unlike the other interpretations of the story, Branagh's Hamlet would feature every word of dialogue from the play, causing a massive running time of over four hours that would necessitate an intermission. Despite this length, Branagh's idea worked, with the film providing a much more rounded and understandable tapestry than shorter interpretations. Also of note is that Branagh doesn't force the story to brood in despair, allowing for the more positive moments to shine clearly. Reception of the film by audiences was cool if only because of the huge running time, but an outstanding international cast led the film to critical success and several Oscar nominations for art direction, costumes, screenplay, and Patrick Doyle's score. In 1996, Doyle's career was almost inseparable from Branagh's works, with only Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility from the previous year standing out as a noteworthy exception. Doyle's music for Branagh's films had always been appropriately lyrical and romantic, although often restrained in scope out of respect for the constant overlying dialogue that was usually the purpose of the films. With Hamlet, the size of the picture, as well as several flashback scenes without original dialogue, would allow Doyle to unleash the full force of his orchestra in the fashion of Needful Things and his other horror works. At the same time, Doyle would be able to produce fanfares worthy of the monarchy of Denmark, with thematic resonance at levels we had not yet heard from the composer.

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The odd thing about Hamlet is, however, that despite this great opportunity, Doyle wrote one of the more disjointed and confused scores of his career. Even with this plethora of interesting characters, high drama, and ghostly politics, Doyle's end result is a whole lot of great ideas that start and die, leaving the score as a whole to be lacking in any overarching identity. The title theme, a "simple" one by Doyle's admission, is remarkably similar to thematic constructs for his much lesser scores, heard in the opening, finale, and closing cues of Hamlet. It interestingly shows little remorse or even beauty, for that matter, and it proves difficult to adapt to the contemplative moments of the lead character's soliloquies. Doyle also wrote themes for Claudius and Ophelia, however neither of these themes is realized beyond the tense string section and occasional woodwind fragment. There is more depth to Doyle's ensemble than in previous Shakeserean scores by the composer, with "The Ghost" (among other cues) providing outstanding rips of percussion and brass. At the very least, Doyle does accomplish the weight needed to anchor this level of drama, and because of his constant string layering, the score suffices. But we are always hearing fragments of themes and other motifs --one of which is surprisingly similar to what Basil Poledouris would write for Les Misérables not long after-- and disappointment sets in as those ideas never reach fruition. Only the title theme, with its grand choral finale, reaches back to the elegance of Henry V to close out the score. Placido Domingo's performance of that theme, "In Pace," is restrained also by the same lack of orchestral power and enthusiasm that haunts the rest of the score. In short, Hamlet, more than any other Shakespearean work (except Othello, maybe), needs strong musical identity for several characters, and the opportunities to weave those ideas together with obvious contempt and passion is sadly missed here. In the end, we get a score that, for much of its length, soothes the listener as did Sense and Sensibility, which speaks directly to the weakness in orchestration, performance, and overall realization of Hamlet. This score teases, but fails to deliver. ***

Bias Check:

For Patrick Doyle reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.71 (in 17 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.72 (in 16,270 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.