Act IV Scene 4 - A Midwinter's Dream

Another IV.iv omission on my part because again, an adaptation chose to feature it out of order. The "how all occasions do inform me" scene comes after IV.v (Ophelia's madness and Laertes' return) rather than before it. While normally, this helps make Hamlet's journey a more involved one with a "meanwhile" transition, as it were, here it is more a question of balancing a montage's tone. In a Midwinter's Dream, the play goes by in less than four minutes - including some behind the scenes comedy - so after violence (Laertes' return) and laughs (behind the scenes), a few lines from IV.iv, with Hamlet wrapped in mist and an audience wrapped in silent attention, reminds us of the play's stakes, both on and off the stage.Though the oddballs putting on the play sometimes take it to a place of parody, here we're told that it does, nevertheless, WORK.

The lines are "What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more", a just reminder that culture - play-making, play-acting and play-going - is where Man distinguishes himself from the animals. That is protagonist Joe's belief and intent in the film, and in a way, it's also Shakespeare's, contrasting violence and intellectualism in Hamlet's world.

Act IV Scene 4 - Tennant (2009)

An omission on my part, because it was out of normal order and I'd lost track of it, is the scenes that includes the speech "How all occasions do inform against me". Doran introduces it later than usual, where Hamlet's letter would normally be read, as a way to juxtapose its final line "my thoughts be bloody" with Laertes' own bloody thoughts just before Claudius comes in to seduce him into murdering Hamlet.

The modernized staging is interesting, with the camera up above as if Fortinbras and then the Captain are looking up at a helicopter, either dropping men off or taking them in. We're still on the same black, mirrored stage most of the play is filmed in, but with snow on the ground, contrasting with black soil and black sky (once we change angles). Hamlet is out in the cold, in darkness, lost. It gives the scene an eerie, dream-like feel, as if these are spirits come to taunt him in the night. The Captain, with his wry barracks humor, smiling contemptuously at the meaningless war he's been asked to fight. Fortinbras, standing in for the ghost of Hamlet's father, a warlike action man throwing Hamlet's inaction back in his face. Fortinbras waging a war for no real reason is the anti-Hamlet, ALL action and no thought, and is meant to prompt the Danish prince TO action.

But look at what actually happens in the staging of it. Hamlet's first reaction is to sit down and talk! The video diary device introduced earlier is hear used to justify the soliloquy, in which Hamlet perhaps sarcastically calls Fortinbras "delicate and tender", and ends with the entirely ironic "my thoughts be bloody." My THOUGHTS. So while Hamlet seems to be telling us that NOW he will act, he does not actually move beyond thinking of acting.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Classics Illustrated

The original adaptation omits this scene entirely, but the Berkley version doesn't, though by staging the action just as Hamlet's party leaves Elsinore does have a variety of effects.

First, it puts Fortinbras' army very close to the Danish throne, and reinforces the idea that Claudius is a fool to trust Norway. We're looking at a huge army within a stone's throw of what looks like a largely undefended castle, overgrown with weeds and surrounded by crumbling walls. Denmark is on the wane, and artist Tom Mandrake represents this visually. Another change is that the Captain's lines seem to have been given to one of Hamlet's guards, which justifies the cursory information given when you cut most of the Captain's lines.

Removing the Captain's lines about the futility of this particular battle means Hamlet's condemnation of it as a "trick of fame" is really a condemnation of all war. He doesn't need to know the details of the Norway-Poland engagement to know many men will die and for what? Their leader's glory and some patch of land? This tells us something about Hamlet's relationship to his father, reputedly a great warrior. He's an academic and as the play has made clear to date, a man more of words than actions. He sees something of his father in Fortinbras, and that compels him to finally act, but he's also critical of the type of action. Even in a speech about finally committing to action, there is still a resistance, an attempt to justify why HE might act when others' violence is so distasteful to him. To become one's father, or to forge one's own way, is in many ways Hamlet's dilemma.

Mandrake's active pose in the last panel does a good job of visually representing that leap into a new mode of being for our Prince.

Act IV, Scene 4 - The Banquet

The Banquet (sold in America as Legend of the Black Scorpion) must be the only version of Hamlet that includes snow ninjas. While the story is often very different from the play's, the Prince's exile definitely evokes Hamlet's own, as he is escorted on horseback through a snowy plain. As in the play, he spies an army from afar, and it is a mirror of himself on that other road. No Fortinbras, but a fake Prince who will act as tribute to the country standing in for England while he is assassinated by his own escort, here, now. In other words, what if Claudius, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern were far more treacherous than they appeared? The Prince is rescued by the timely intervention of, yes, snow ninjas burrowing from beneath and killing the murderous escort with their crossbows. It is a wuxia film, after all.

The rescue party is led by the Laertes figure working on the orders of the Queen who, more villainous in this story than in the play, is holding his sister hostage. He is also ordered to then tell the King that the entire party was silenced, escort and all. This "Laertes" has no real love for "Hamlet" and in a scene that takes the place of the IV.4 soliloquy, he dares tell the Prince his course for revenge will cost many lives before it is over, and that he puts "Ophelia", "Polonius", everyone in danger so long as political machinations continue to center upon him. Better everyone believe he is dead. For the Prince, this acts as a wake-up call, that his readiness to die should not be his readiness that the people he loves die. When he returns, in spite of Laertes' admonitions, it will be to end it once and for all, but it will be too late for many of the characters.

What I find very interesting about these important changes made to the story is that they don't in any way diminish the drama, but rather give viable alternatives to the events and motivations found in the play. When one isn't tied down to the text (and a Chinese version - or any translation - wouldn't be), one can better experiment with the Bard's structure. It may even be possible to do it within the confines of the text as written. Imagine a Laertes who colludes with Hamlet during his exile. A Laertes that returns to Denmark to cause trouble and prepare the way for Hamlet, possibly depose Claudius in his name. One who believes Claudius responsible for Polonius' death (has Hamlet lied to him?). But it all goes wrong when Claudius denies the charges, when Ophelia walks in completely mad, and when finally, she commits suicide. Hamlet returns to find Ophelia dead and Laertes a surprise enemy. It could give the Hamlet/Laertes relationship an additional layer of complexity.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Slings & Arrows

In the play inside the show, Luke Kirby's Jack Crew is getting into the "home stretch", as this is the last of six soliloquies. What we see of it in the montage is a simple close-up, but it shows how Jack, an insecure Hollywood actor, has become much more confident by this point in the performance, which can also be said of Hamlet. Meta-textually, one might very well see how the actor on stage would get an energy boost from knowing his exile (long-over due break) was coming next. The story structure must play into the mood of the actor.

But that's not the only meta-textual trick Slings & Arrows plays on its audience. As Jack/Hamlet speaks his words, his director Geoffrey is reminded to get his mentor's skull for the Yorick scene, and has to make a mad dash for it. As he does, we stay in touch with Hamlet through the backstage P.A. system, and the mention of a "delicate and tender prince" seems to give Geoffrey that association. If Fortinbras is a mirror held up to Hamlet, and Hamlet is an actor/director, taking on various roles and instructing the Players on how to act, can Fortinbras be any different? And in that context, the futile enterprise, the "egg shell", of his war with Poland IS, in a sense, the act of putting on a play. So much goes into the endeavor, and yet, each performance is ephemeral.

The juxtaposition made here makes Hamlet chide himself for not giving his all when the actor who plays him obviously is. He is himself the First Player, able to conjure emotions out of thin air for a world imaginary. Hamlet keeps breaking the fourth wall and running into itself.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Hamlet 2000

You'd think this modern adaptation, with countries represented as corporations, would cut Fortinbras' "powers" and this scene altogether. You'd be wrong. Instead of a snowy plain, we're on an airplane. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are sniggering, reading Wired and eating peanuts in the aisle opposite Hamlet who is watching in-flight television and looking at postcards that symbolically represent his exile. A plane taking off, a nude painting, a stone mask. We're heading back in time, to parts unknown, to Hamlet's reptile brain, and away from the civilization and intellectualism that has plagued him to date. On the television is Fortinbras, or so a flight attendant says when Hamlet asks. At least, he looks like a flight attendant, until he puts the drink he's holding to his mouth. Is he then just an officer of some kind? In the play, it's Fortinbras' captain, but here, is he the plane's captain? If so, he shouldn't drinking or walking around the craft. It's an odd moment. If I were to give it purpose, I'd say it's a representation of Norway usurping Hamlet's Danish power. A steward approaches with a drink, but then doesn't give it to the passenger and drinks it himself. It foreshadows' Fortinbras' corporate takeover. Not that this is is any way clear.

One thing that is missing from the exchange is the idea that soldiers are about to die for a useless cause in Poland. Because we know the play, we might infer it ourselves. Fortinbras dismantles a Polish company for no other reason "than the name", costing untold numbers their jobs. But there's no way to show this with Shakespeare's text, so Hamlet's exhorting examples don't have anything to do with Fortinbras' war. This Hamlet lives in the modern world and is surrounded by "examples gross in nature", many of which he's used in his art films. We accept his growing determination without it needing a trigger. The staging is crucial. Hamlet heads for the bathroom at the other end of the plane, speaking his soliloquy as he walks down the aisle, an echo of "To be or not to be" in Blockbuster's aisles. This forces him to walk through economy class - largely empty, a sign of severe class divide? - and sees a woman holding a baby. The examples before him, though different than in the play, may still cause his personal call to arms. Seeing other children and other parents only reinforces the unnaturalness his own family relationships.

The plane seems incredibly long, and the dramatic vanishing point behind Hamlet makes him akin to a bullet in a cannon, about to be fired. In the bathroom, he speaks to himself in the mirror, gives himself a mission. Has he become the Ghost himself? He dares himself to act, nose to nose with his reflection, and he will take that dare.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Kline '90

Three things distinguish Kevin Kline's staging/acting of the scene from the other performances studied at Hyperion to a Satyr. First, proximity. This sticking quite close to the way they did it on stage, Hamlet is only a few few away from a young, dashing Fortinbras who has just walked off-screen/stage after giving his orders. Norway's army might be only 40 feet before Hamlet, and the drumbeat to which it walks is heard through the entire scene, practical music that spurs Hamlet on. In a sense, he becomes the army, though his cause is his alone.

The second difference is the sense of suspicion surrounding Hamlet. The Captain makes a face when Hamlet asks him about the army, as if deciding what exactly he will tell him. Is this a sign that the entire Polish campaign is a lie? Doubtful, as he gives too many details. Or perhaps it's all part of a cover story, since obviously, people (including Claudius) might question why Norway attacks this useless piece of land. And the Captain isn't just an officer, he's an ambassador, trusted to deliver a message to the Danish King. He could be skilled in the art of diplomatic deception. If Hamlet is lied to, it creates a layer of irony. Fortinbras, doubling back to attack Elsinore, is at once on the same mission he is - dethroning/killing Claudius - and mimicking Claudius' own actions - usurping Hamlet's rightful place on the throne. Claudius is the alternative to Hamlet Sr., and Fortinbras the alternative for Hamlet Jr. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern also treat Hamlet with suspicion, taking a long time to go "a little before", as if fearing Hamlet might escape their custody. This possibility is made entirely more possible by the army's proximity. He might easily lose himself in the crowd. But as usual, they get it wrong.

The third major difference in the performance is that tears stream down Hamlet's face during his speech. Kline's Hamlet is a rather weepy one, but why here? The scene is done mostly in tight close-up with a bitter Hamlet, getting louder only later as his anger and determination grow. But is he crying for the men who will lose their lives, for the Ghost of his father still trapped in limbo, or because he's disappointed in himself?

Act IV, Scene 4 - BBC '80

Though the studio-bound production is spare in its scope - the white plain a set, and Fortinbras' army a small collection of extras, reproducing the feel of a staged play - the scene is still well set, with flags and sound effects that evoke an army on a war-footing. A fairly soft war-footing, as it turns out. As part of the staging, Fortinbras' last line, "Go softly on", isn't spoken to the Captain, but to another soldier staying with the main of the army as if to evoke a sense of stealthy movement to Fortinbras' troops. They're asking for permission, but perhaps Claudius doesn't know exactly where the army is going, or how many men it represents. Fortinbras is hiding something.

The conversation between Hamlet and the Captain features some of the rare cuts in this adaptation of the play. The Danish Prince doesn't ask as many questions and doesn't react out loud to the futility of this war. Sending Rosencrantz & Guildenstern ahead, he turns to the camera/audience, as usual, to speak his soliloquy in quiet and intimate terms. The contrast with Branagh's bombastic call to arms is striking. Jacobi's Hamlet is bitter and rueful, at once angry and sad that he hasn't yet been able to take revenge and lay his father's ghost to rest. Where Branagh motivated his army of one, Jacobi explains and reasons, until only one conclusion can be drawn from it. His thoughts are now "bloody" as he looks over to R&G, an implied threat, and one the camera lingers on. We are slow to exit the scene and are meant to understand that these two men, Hamlet's untrustworthy escort, are to become his first victims. And there's a certain sadness in Hamlet that it must be so.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Branagh '96

The frozen lake near Elsinore dissolves into a frozen waste between Denmark's mountains, where figures on horseback appear from out of the mist. This is Fortinbras, followed by his Captain, on their way to Poland. Fortinbras, the so-called "tender and delicate prince" seems more like a jaded sociopath, with his cold, insincere eyes, and his Captain is so curt in his line deliveries, we might well believe he does not like his Prince, just as he does not like his plans. If Fortinbras notices, he does not care. Wide shots reveal a large marching army, and it's from a certain vantage point that Hamlet will meet the Captain and be able to survey the military force walking through his country. The way these shots are designed already evoke Hamlet's exile, small figures in panoramic, white landscapes, and the image will be taken to its extreme in the end.

Hamlet isn't grilling the Captain in this version, rather more puzzled than irate (except with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, flies buzzing at his ears), and he introspectively realizes that wealth and peace breed war by making men like Fortinbras restless to the point of launching capricious forays into other nations in search of glory. When we compare the two princes, we might see Hamlet as a man so preoccupied that he cannot choose the right course of action, whereas Fortinbras lacks any kind of preoccupation, and so must spring into action, ANY action, to chase the doldrums away.

In a presentational twist, Hamlet speaks softly with the Captain, but as the music swells behind him and the camera tracks back and back and back, he operatically shouts his soliloquy as if delivering it to an army. And he is, an army of one. Himself. He is, at this moment, convincing himself to finally commit to action. There's an interesting discussion between Branagh and his producer in the director's commentary about why so many adaptations cut this speech, that many directors see it as redundant. Branagh makes the case that unlike Hamlet's other calls to action, this one is a cooler, more intellectual, assessment of why he must do what he must do, and that as such, it is a more auto-convincing argument. It's one thing to feel something, but another to understand the logic of it.

And of course, the dramatic presentation of the speech makes for a better act break - leading to an intermission/disc change in bloody red letters - than a more intimate moment might otherwise have been. The music is big, the words are large, but the man himself is rendered small in the shot, a single individual defiant before his destiny, affairs of state, and a hostile world, the backdrop against which this drama is played. It is Hamlet in scale with the universe of the play, so to speak, and in being smaller becomes bigger.

Act IV, Scene 4

Despite its containing one of Hamlet's soliloquies, it's not uncommon to see this scene excised from any given adaptation. Obviously, those that remove Fortinbras entirely won't be able to justify Hamlet crossing paths with his army on his way to exile in England. And a director might legitimately ask if their adaptation needs another moment where Hamlet decides that NOW he must act. In many ways, this is a mirror of "O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I" (Act II, scene 2). There, he was shamed by the First Player whose ability to express a false passion was greater than his to express a true ambition. Here, Hamlet is shamed by Norway and Poland, who attack or defend a worthless patch of soil with more conviction and willful action than he went after his revenge. Fortinbras is, after all, Hamlet's opposite number, a princely man of action, perhaps far more like Hamlet Sr. than his scholarly son. In him, Hamlet finds a role model, and perhaps enough of the qualities he would like to see in himself to give the Norwegian prince his vote of confidence at the play's conclusion. But let's look at Shakespeare's text (in italics; my comments interrupting in normal script) before heading off into those adaptations that included the scene.

SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching
PRINCE FORTINBRAS: Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;

There is perhaps an early clue to Fortinbras' treachery. Expressing his duty "in his eye" might be something done for appearances only, since his plan is to invade Denmark after the invasion of Poland. This is Fortinbras' first appearance on stage, and it doesn't tell us much, only recaps the deal he has with Claudius as per the wedding banquet scene. But that's the point. Fortinbras is a plain-spoken man who deals in facts and not abstractions. A doer, not a thinker. At least, not beyond the tactics of the day.

And let him know so.
CAPTAIN: I will do't, my lord.
PRINCE FORTINBRAS: Go softly on.

Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers
Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

HAMLET: Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN: They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET: How purposed, sir, I pray you?
CAPTAIN: Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET: Who commands them, sir?
CAPTAIN: The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET: Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

I'm not sure I've ever seen it played that way, but Hamlet's questions could indicate a certain suspicion as to Fortinbras' intent. After all, he's just discovered a foreign army on Danish soil. The Captain's candor and sincerity (he is like his master, just as Hamlet is a product of his own deceptive Court) relieve him of his suspicions, however, as Shakespeare offers a tidy satire on the absurdity of war from the soldiers' point of view.

CAPTAIN: Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET: Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN: Yes, it is already garrison'd.
HAMLET: Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN: God be wi' you, sir.

Exit

ROSENCRANTZ: Wilt please you go, my lord?
HAMLET: I'll be with you straight go a little before.

Exeunt all except HAMLET

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Hamlet invokes his earlier "quintessence of dust" speech, but where earlier he condemned humanity, here he condemns how men abuse other men and render their existence meaningless. He's turned a corner. Where before, he saw humanity as a futile state of being, now he accepts that humanity is not necessarily futile, but one must overthrow the chains of that futility. Relative to the cannon fodder before him, he has power enough to make his life (and death) count, and resolves to do so. He even admits God's gift of free will and thus rejects predestination and nihilism:

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'

Hamlet counts himself lucky to still be alive, but can't believe he still hasn't done what he set out to do. Hamlet looks into himself and does not know exactly why he's delayed. Blaming "bestial oblivion", i.e. having forgotten his mission and Claudius' deeds, may not seem possible on the surface of it, but his confusion between blaming Claudius and blaming Gertrude might be what he's referring to. The question he asks himself is whether emotion (the realm of the unthinking beast) or reason (thinking himself into inaction) was to blame, not that it makes a difference.

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,

His admiration for Fortinbras takes root here, admiration for his ability to take risks and action. He hasn't met Fortinbras, of course, so one might suspect Hamlet seeing a bit of himself in him. Certainly, he's the more tender and delicate prince. Psychologically, Hamlet is turning himself into a Fortinbras, readying himself for his eventual return.

That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Exit

Hamlet's tried to convince himself to take action before, but this is the one that takes. By the time we see him again, he'll have arranged two deaths and will be ready to kill more. There really is no going back, though ironically, he's leaving Denmark and will have to literally go back.