Kozintsev seeks constantly to represent the content of the play in visual terms, and there are notable sequences which are constructed without the use of dialogue (e.g. the opening scene in which Hamlet arrives at Elsinore to join the court's mourning, and the vigil awaiting the appearance of the ghost).

The camera frequently looks through bars and grates, and one critic has suggested that the image of Ophelia in an iron farthingale symbolises the fate of the sensitive and intelligent in the film's tough political environment.

[3] The film also shows the presence of ordinary people in ragged clothes, who are like the grave digger: good-hearted and only wishing to live peacefully.

[4] Kozintsev cast some actors whose first language was not Russian (the Latvian Elza Radziņa as Gertrude, and Estonians Rein Aren, Ants Lauter and Aadu Krevald) so as to bring shades of other traditions into his film.

[5] Grigori Kozintsev had been a founder member of the Russian avant-garde artist group the Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS), whose ideas were closely related to Dadaism and Futurism.

[6] In an appendix entitled "Ten Years with Hamlet", he includes extracts from his diaries dealing with his experiences of the 1954 stage production and his 1964 film.

Although shot in black-and-white, this was the first film version of the play in a widescreen format (Sovscope, an anamorphic system similar to CinemaScope) and stereophonic sound (4-track stereo).

The camera is continually mobile and extended shots (average length 24 seconds)[7] enable the physical exploration of the spaces of the court and castle.

The New York Times reviewer took up this point: "But the lack of this aural stimulation - of Shakespeare's eloquent words - is recompensed in some measure by a splendid and stirring musical score by Dmitri Shostakovich.