The notion of a Hamlet overcome by the fatal flaw of indecisiveness may have started with the Romantics, but it remained to dominate our thought for most of the twentieth-century. What changed is the psychological understand that we applied to Hamlet's indecisiveness. Although he was an outspoken advocate of Freudian psychology, Laurence Olivier based his 1948 production Hamlet on this premise as he clearly states in the prologue given below.

One should be reminded that the speech Olivier uses for his prologue is the one given by Hamlet in Act I, Scene iv in which he comments on how Danish royal drinking habits sabotage the country's reputation to the outside world. By taking this speech out of context, Olivier, has clearly perverted its original intention for his own interpretive use.

He has also edited the text severely. To follow that editing, click on the "play" button below.