Grigori Kozintsev's adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet has received critical acclaim due to its fidelity to the architecture of the play which contributed to captivating the eye despite the lack of aural stimulation, as well as its added political and personal lens. One of the most iconic scenes from Kozintsev's production of Hamlet is the famous cemetery scene in which the Gravedigger and Hamlet engage in a battle of wits, and Laertes dramatizes his love for Ophelia. It is during this scene that Kozintsev strategically uses different camera angles and abridgements of the original script to produce a much more conservative and idealized Hamlet that makes the situation in Act 5 Scene 1 much less ambiguous, while still adding a political touch to the atmosphere via the background. details and accessories. The theatrical elements that Shakespeare employs in Act 5, Scene 1 are remarkable and serve to create an ambiguous atmosphere around Ophelia's death. This ambiguity is partly formulated by the Gravedigger's play on words, in which he reopens Ophelia's death, which the queen described as "drowning", as she fell into the water "like a mermaid... chanting snatches of old laudes Like someone incapable of her. her own distress” (4.7, 175-177), and transforms it into a terrible transgression, calling her death a suicide, affirming that she “voluntarily sought her own salvation” (5.1, 274). The controversy raised by the Gravedigger creates this problematic situation which gives Hamlet one of his unique characteristics; after all, Ophelia-the-suicide is much more complicated than an Ophelia of accidental death, not least because the corpse would be thrown into unholy ground with a steak in its heart. Furthermore, giving Ophelia's death a suicidal character...... middle of paper ...... f scenes from its production, as well as its use of camera angles removes this feeling of ambiguity and confusion, and opts for a more conservative approach to the scene. On top of that, we see that Ophelia's screen time is significantly reduced from her already minimal role in the cemetery scene to focus on Hamlet (32 seconds out of 9 minutes to be exact), and because Ophelia's lifeless body generates this controversy, the film presents a "recovery of Hamlet". Kozintsev's Hamlet is moved away from "buffoonery and parody" to create a character who is "always a hero" (Rutter), and he thus creates a much more idealized version of Hamlet than Shakespeare himself. Thus, Kozintsev cultivates a production of Hamlet that not only reduces ambiguity, but creates an idealized Hamlet and gives it a light political touch to represent past and current Soviet unrest..