Our dear Prince of Denmark holds the most unique distinction of running away from his own creator. He is the only character in Shakespeare's oeuvre (or anyone's Western literary oeuvre, perhaps, other than maybe Sherlock Holmes) capable of writing the play that birthed him. After Act Two, he basically does. Hamlet the play is a Rorschach, a Sphinx, and everything, simultaneously. We are all wrong and right about the "Melancholy Dane." Hamlet is the most fully realized and intelligent character ever imagined on paper, and often escapes the page, so that upon every reading, he develops a new facet previously unmarked. He is as easily played by a woman as he is a man. By exhibiting the best and worst of humanity, and constantly contemplating existence, Hamlet is forever our patron saint of emo navel-gazing.
It certainly feels as if one cannot add anything to the endless conversation surrounding how we interpret Hamlet, because nihil sub sole novum. Therein lies the excitement! Whether you're an amateur hobbyist or a doctoral professor of English lit, you can throw in your two cents and nearly have an equal chance of contributing to the discussion surrounding this fucking formidable play. For being set in the nutshell of Denmark's palace a great percentage of the time, it feels infinite rather than claustrophobic, even with Hamlet's bad dreams.
Being most familiar with the main plot of Hamlet out of all the plays, I tackled it backwards; I begin this week with the films and will switch to the text next week, although I greatly anticipate discovering nuggets of insight soon as I wade through the scenes one by one. This week, I'll outline my thoughts on the six productions I chose to review, all of which except one I have seen at least once (if not multiple times) in the past.
Oh, Laurence. Our iconic and ballsy Shakespearean interpreter, Sir Laurence. He was the only actor to direct himself to a Oscar win until 1998 (when Roberto Benigni finally came in with his Life Is Beautiful). The award was well deserved, for Olivier's film is remarkably modern and avant-garde for the 40s (or any decade, actually). It drips with German Expressionism and film noir imagery, with truly evocative moments of uniquely framed compositions at the cavernous castle and its precipitous ramparts. The action appears to float within an empty universe that contains only this corner of Denmark and its confused occupants. Olivier's screenplay presents almost a CliffsNotes edition of the text (a mere 155 minutes long!) that excises entire characters and scenes, and yet still conveys the heart of the action at hand.
This film is a good place to start illustrating how Hamlet is like Schrodinger's Cat--once you start making choices as to how to portray him, every other possibility collapses into life or death. He is everything to all people until the actor opens the box. In this case, Olivier chooses to go the vaguely Freudian/suicidal/effeminate route (which is as legitimate a route as any, really), which makes for the most emo overgrown teenager momma's boy that you don't actually hate. Laurence has this way of always doing that. He acts as if he knows he's above everything, but he actually is, so I don't blame him (at least until Othello happened... oh gosh). His haircut is terrible. The costumes are fab. WATCH IT NOW.
Side note at the top: Look at how young those three are. Goddamn. I barely recognized Iain Glen without him kissing Khaleesi's ass every spare moment. He makes a cute Hamlet for sure. I'll move on.
Everyone knows Stoppard most for his 1998 Oscar darling Shakespeare in Love but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is the superior Shakespearean turn for him. It's been described as Waiting For Godot for the Bardolater set (waiting For Hamlet if you please). But it's far more than that. The premise is deceptively simple: what are Hamlet's childhood flunkies up to when they are not in the Dane's presence? Instead of plying a trade or drinking deep or doing whatever else you believe Danish people did 400 years ago, they're surprisingly well-adjusted to the idea that they have no idea where they came from or what they're really supposed to be doing until the King and Queen tell them to spy on this Hamlet bloke. One may conclude that these ancillary characters have popped into existence like antiparticles, and only live a mayfly life (and death) until perhaps they do it all over again when Hamlet is staged again somewhere in the universe. It's actual genius, and playful at that.
Roth and Oldman are perfectly cast and complete naturals at roles that might bemuse lesser actors. When not reciting lines from the play, they engage in debate and play little mind games with the aim to determine their purpose in this rarified space they've been plopped into for Shakespeare's sake. After Rosencrantz (or is it Guildenstern... they don't even know who is whom LOL) creates a few recognizable inventions (e.g. a steam engine, Newton's cradle) and has Archimedes' "Eureka!" moment in a bathtub, it appears that the spacetime bubble they inhabit for the period of the play's performance is so suffused with genius energy that even the most doltish of the characters cannot help but make STEM discoveries on a whim. I love the implication that Hamlet the play and its titular character were birthed from a such a place in Shakespeare's mind, and whenever it is produced on stage or screen or recited in the comfort of home, a miraculous ether of profound insight and intelligence must bubble out and envelop us for a while.
Even though it's not a true adaptation, and it's not nearly as TRAGIC as our favorite Dane's story, The Lion King has just enough parallels to Hamlet that it's at least worth mentioning, if only to blow some people's minds.
Let's boil it down: evil uncle murders brother King, son knows about it but gets exiled, son has two dumb friends and a girlfriend, sees ghost of dad who gives him the motivation to avenge his death, son kills uncle. The End.
The creators admit that Hamlet inspired them for this original Disney animated film, and it's easy to see it. Thank goodness they left out the madness and all the poisoning at the end or else the kiddos would be SCARRED for life. HAHAHA.
Kenneth Branagh's four-hour marathon is the grandaddy of all Shakespeare adaptations. It's the first and only film version of Hamlet that contains the unabridged text of the play. It's my favorite, and not only because Kenny Branny cuts a nice figure in his tight-fitting suits of woe. The casting is nothing if not EPIC: Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie, Brian Blessed, Richard Briers, Kate Winslet, Jack Lemmon, Judi Dench, Charlton Heston, Gérard Depardieu, Billy Crystal, Simon Russell Beale, Rufus Sewell, Robin Williams, John Gielgud and even Richard Attenborough shows up at the end to recite that most essential line ("Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead"). Woohoo!
Sir Ken's Prince Hamlet is a tour-de-force of antic disposition and cunning intelligence (any Oedipal facets are dashed by pure rage and passion). His masterful delivery always brings vivacity to every Shakespearean project, and Hamlet is no exception. It's one of the last dramatic motion pictures to be filmed entirely with beautiful 70mm stock, which has only happened once since then (The Master in 2012). It's set in a slightly more modern Victorian era, which lends a convincing timelessness to the atmosphere.
The sprawling, palatial setting allows us to witness a wider and deeper sense of the politics and personalities surrounding Hamlet, a special something you don't get from abridged productions. We can better appreciate Shakespeare's intention when presented with ALL THE LINES. I absolutely adore it. At least once a year, at Christmastime, I settle in to enjoy its vasty fields of awesomeness.
P.S. Nicholas Farrell's Horatio, for my money, is the most underrated and wonderful Horatio I've ever encountered. Horatio is meant to bring a quiet wisdom and stable guiding hand to his friendship with the wild and whirling Hamlet and Farrell does this exquisitely, even in moments when he has no lines. I ship them so hard.
Gregory Doran (same guy who directed that awesome Julius Caesar!) brings us another perfect piece of casting with HELLO David Tennant and Sir Patrick Stewart (in a dual role as both Claudius and Hamlet's Ghost, which puts an interesting twist on the whole "Hyperion to a satyr" comparisons Hamlet makes about his dad and uncle). Now, our beloved TENnant is born for antic dispositions, and he sloshes it at us in buckets. But he begins as emo as they come, and witnessing Sir Patty Stew's Ghost turns Hamlet's intensity up to eleven. Luckily, there's Peter De Jersey's superb Horatio to temper him (sort of).
The one thing that vexes me about this is how Tennant leaves out a significant middle section of THE SOLILOQUY. Like, why the hell do that? The most famous speech in all of English literature and you ABRIDGE it? It was filmed in one take, so it was either left out of the script of Tennant had a brain fart. I hate this.
Other than that, this is a riveting production. Costuming cues us that it is apparently a modern-day setting but no so much that it's easily dated (gotta love that muscle shirt and jeans, right?). Security camera footage punctuated throughout is a clever means of enhancing the pall of claustrophobic paranoia in the play. Hamlet knows he's being watched and even runs up to yank the wire out of a camera at one point, breaking the fourth wall a bit. It's totally worth the few bucks it cost me on Amazon Prime video.
I cannot say enough about Haider. It's on Netflix and it's BOLLYWOOD and it's EVERYTHING. It's a hyper-relevant, impeccably acted, thrilling adaptation, set during the 1995 Kasmir insurgencies (which is ripe for tragedy, and if you don't know anything about India's border disputes, OH BOY go watch some more Bollywood movies). It's a shrewd blend of Hamlet and Basharat Peer's memoir Curfewed Night that brings to the fore just how entrenched this ecumenical and political conflict is in the region.
The handsome young Shahid Kapoor is Haider, the son of Hilal, a doctor who secretly operates on an insurgent leader, and as soon as the military finds out, his home is burned, he is arrested, and essentially disappears, leaving his wife Ghazala to the comforting arms of her husband's brother, whom Haider and his girlfriend Arshia begin to realize had something to do with Hilal's disappearance. One day, Roodhar (Irrfan fricken Khan, yo!), dressed in white robes, shows up and says he's "the soul of the doctor" and tells the story of what Haider's uncle did to Hilal. Haider finds his dad's grave, starts to act like he has PTSD, puts on a vibrant dance number in which to catch the conscience of his uncle, dispatches the two hapless dudes hired to kill him, comes back and ends up in a tense and bloody shootout after he kills Arshia's brother at her burial.
It is intense. It's notably more graphic and violent than every other Hindi film I've ever seen. The director, Vishal Bhardwaj, previously made modern-day Hindi adaptations of Othello (Omkara), and Macbeth (Maqbool), which we shall definitely get to at a later date. Haider is visceral Shakespeare, and it warms my heart and excites my brains to see Shakespeare revived with strong ties to current events and recent history. What's not to love about the legendary Irrfan (who sadly died in April of this year damnit) as "the Ghost" or even the ill-fated video-store-owning Salmans in the R&G role, who have an adorable obsession with Salman Khan. Poor guys!
Please do check this one out. It's not merely great Shakespeare; it's great Bollywood! Who doesn't love a good long Hindi film to escape from the world every so often, even if it is to be thrust headfirst into a war-torn world about which most people in the West are woefully uneducated.
One last bonus mention goes to the 2015 National Theatre Live Hamlet starring that oddly sexy British mascot, Benedict Cumberbatch. Needless to say, he was great. It was great. I wish it were available for download. I was lucky enough to see it with my mom and friend at the Straz Center in 2016, as it was simulcast into theatres around the world. That was amazeballs :)
Alrighty then! Next week, we continue with Hamlet and I shall analyze it more thematically and tackle the outline of this hefty plot we love so much.
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