V.ii. Duel and Deaths - Branagh '96

The duel is staged, as most things are in Branagh's version, in the great hall of mirrors. A long thin red carpet has been set up where the fencing action must occur. The color of blood, and the color of Hamlet's robe. Claudius usually wears red, but is here in green, as are all his attendants (not the fullest Court, but then, the country is in political upheaval), as a visual contrast. The most striking thing about the opening moments of this scene is that it is intercut with action outside Elsinore as Fortinbras' army sneaks into the palace and captures it. Poor Francisco is at the gate and is killed. Norway's army is coming. This is Branagh's device to justify Fortinbras' sudden and fortuitous arrival at the end of the play, and because it is the most ironic reading of the play (Claudius' diplomatic overtures to Norway failing and his never noticing), I've always accepted is as Shakespeare's intent, though it's not, I realize now, in the text per se.

But the way the editing underscores the invasion under Hamlet's lines of reconciliation with Laertes creates yet another irony - the arrow over his brother's house, and so on - to the point where one might get the feeling Hamlet made a deal with Fortinbras for the keys to the kingdom. Think about it. When we left him in exile, he was last seen in the company of Fortinbras' army. Fortinbras invades (why else send some war-like volleys at the English ambassador if he wasn't on a war footing), but is shocked and saddened by the royal massacre. He already knows his rights to Denmark, as does Hamlet because his final speech predicts his ascension to the throne. Did Hamlet, in fact, make Fortinbras his heir in exchange for liberating Denmark from Claudius the usurper? Is all the talk of inevitability more about Fortinbras' arrival than the English messenger's?

But returning to the duel... In any production, but in film especially, it may be important to make each of the three exchanges look and feel different. In Branagh's case, the participants, getting hot and sweaty, remove more and more protection, going from full fencing armor, then losing the mask, then the breastplate. The danger is heightened each time, while also affording us a look at the actors' faces as things get out of control. The last exchange isn't just protectionless, but gets off the carpet and uses the entire room. But this is also a skirmish of words. Hamlet in public is cocky and always trying to get laughs, no doubt part of why he's also been so popular with the people. Single-minded Laertes finds none of it funny of course, and takes everything as mockery and personal insult. And because it's all too personal for him, he's more reckless and aggressive in the fight, less strategic, and gets hit twice, then indeed, three times, and fatally. Osric, the nominal judge, takes delight in his duty - he really is just a foolish pawn, because the fact Hamlet is winning doesn't diminish his excitement - and continues even once the sword play goes out of bounds, craning his neck to get the results out to the Court.

After the second exchange, the Queen drinks the poison cup, grabbing it from Claudius who tries to tell her not to drink it, but can't reveal his treachery. She can't intuit his deceit because she offers a drink to Hamlet. She'll go back to her seat unaware, if a bit woozy. Laertes and Claudius are shocked, almost to the point of abandoning their scheme. They now share in the doubt Hamlet's been broadcasting for most of the play. By now, the army is inside the Elsinore, and the alarm cannot be given. Both outside and inside the hall, there is a sense that all is lost, but the concerned parties just don't know it. From the chaos of the last exchange, more chaos erupts. Laertes falls from the second level, the Queen swoons on the other side. Both know they have been poisoned. As attendants scurry, Osric sees the wind's direction turn, tries to take a secret door out of the hall, and is stabbed by a Norwegian soldier. His last line, spoken only a short while later, uses Robin Williams' talent for pathos, as the ridiculous man shows the "war-like volley" as blood on his hand, he too a victim of the tragedy, if not one killed by Shakespeare's own pen.

The climax's swashbuckling action is a little over the top. Hamlet throws the poisoned foil at the King and pins him to his throne, drops down from a rope while a massive chandelier swings down and smashes into Claudius. Hamlet then force-feeds him the last of the poison wine. It is important to the Prince that Claudius be killed by both his treacheries, and poison was always going to be the best poetic justice for him. It's how he killed Hamlet's father.

The usual staging for Hamlet's own death is to have Horatio holding him in his arms. Branagh's staging is a departure from that tradition. Hamlet dies alone on the floor, while Horatio stands shocked at a short distance. He can't help his friend now, and he can't share his fate. Hamlet won't let him. Because Hamlet's death, while something he expected and embraces, cannot mean the voiding of his existence. One of the things that made him delay his revenge was that he relished in his own intellect too much to risk it. So he must die, but someone must relate his story, and Horatio has been groomed to be that person. All is almost lost when he talks to sharing Hamlet's fate, and he must be shocked into dropping the cup. Hamlet will survive as a story, and in that final moment when he speaks his last through a strangled, cramped voice, it's Horatio who is the touching one, no small thanks to Nicholas Farrell's sympathetic performance.

Suddenly, Norway's soldiers crash through the glass on the second level and have the room surrounded. A cold, disaffected Fortinbras walks in, a strange performance from Rufus Sewell, rather ambiguous and unemotional. We saw him like this before, hugging his uncle Norway in a flash-sideways, where we just knew he wouldn't let Denmark go, no matter what he said. So are his words here simply platitudes, things he is expected to say in such circumstances? The English Ambassador, a cameo by Richard Attenborrough, may seem like a bit of over-casting, but the great actor lends the role weight and pathos. He seems genuinely sad that the King isn't alive to hear his macabre news. As Fortinbras takes the throne, England skulks away, lest he become the tragedy's next victim.

In the end, who rules in Denmark isn't really important. The "natural" order has already been upended (as perhaps heralded by the rise of the peasantry behind Laertes), and the last "unnatural act" of the play, as Horatio would put it, is Horatio himself taking center stage, essentially telling the new King what to do. And Fortinbras lets him command such attention. Horatio, the reluctant star, is pushed on stage by the promise he made to his friend, and that friend is carried out in a Messianic, crossed position, evoking his ascension to literary immortality.

In the film's final moments, Hamlet is given a state funeral - there was talk of also burying Gertrude and Claudius here, but the actors weren't available for it, so we get a celebrated Hamlet whose version of the story reigns victorious over the calumniated King and Queen instead - exposed and holding a sword, the action hero he never truly was. The statue of old Hamlet is taken down, shades of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, to be replaced either by Fortinbras, or by Hamlet himself, Denmark's new fallen hero. The ghost is symbolically destroyed without having to reappear to look on his works.

The credits roll under Placido Domingo singing from the Book of Proverbs, lines about the righteous man lying in peace, funereal but hopeful. This Hamlet will not walk the earth as a disturbed spirit.

V.ii. The Readiness Is All - Branagh '96

Elsinore, the next day, with Francisco on guard duty. This sets up Fortinbras' arrival, a means to jump in and out of the palace and expand the world of the play. Inside, Hamlet tells Horatio his tale, their walk keeping the momentum up until they reach what has been Hamlet's inner sanctum in this adaptation, his library. There, Branagh highlights various lines using the props at his disposal - the model theater when he mentions that the play has begun, and his writing station when he explains how he forged the King's letter. The latter's contents he intones in a theatrical voice, mocking courtly messages and the flattery he finds hypocritical, between heads of state as much as in fawning courtiers (which we'll get an example of shortly, but of course includes the now dead Rosencrantz & Guildenstern). Should we infer from the flattery Hamlet includes in his letter that Denmark is subservient to England? His own critique of his homeland may be undermining Denmark. The truth is that the Danish state IS in on the wane, its political fall imminent.

Enter Robin Williams as Osric, one of Branagh's more successful celebrity cameos. Williams plays Osric as a comedy figure, of course, sending up the character's praise of Laertes as a kind of man-crush, all the more obvious thanks to an effeminate lisp. It is obvious that Osric is out of his depth, and we should remember the text calls him "young Osric" even if Williams isn't particularly youthful, because it means he's an inexperienced courtier, and as Hamlet says, one not of noble birth. So he is naturally thrilled to have been asked to take part in this wager and duel, but is soon confused by Hamlet's attacks. He has no experience with rhetorical sparring, and many of the words he uses were prepared in advance to raise himself up to a level where he could indeed address a Prince. He uses French pronunciations - and indeed, Laertes' decadent Frenchness is one symptom of a failing Danish state - and is embarrassed when he's forced to drop the pretense at Hamlet's prodding. The gag where he salutes and knocks his sheathed sword into a chair heightens his awkwardness and lack of practice with courtly affairs. To his credit, he endures Hamlet's humiliations without, for the most part, letting his royalty-pleasing smile break, though probably out of fear.

The steely, intense Lord who follows him provides an interesting contrast. He's more experienced and closer to the King and Queen, delivering messages that are essentially royal commands or advice. One has to be able to look at a Prince in the eye unapologetically. I like to imagine behind the scenes action featuring Osric and this unnamed Lord, where Osric either isn't quite sure if Hamlet agreed to the duel, or understood that it was happening imminently, and someone else has to go in and make sure. The Lord's look of triumph here would fit this scenario. Certainly, the Lord is part of the final scene's urgency, allowing Hamlet no time to reflect or back out. You agreed to this, so let's get this show on the road. The irony is that Hamlet is ready, for once, but who would condemn anyone in this universe for thinking he would delay the action with lots of talking and other distractions?

Claudius is in such a hurry for this duel to take place that Hamlet and Horatio are immediately aware that something is wrong, and that Hamlet is unlikely to walk away from it. Horatio's reaction is to tell Hamlet not to go through with it, his love for his friend leading to tears and an embrace (I can't help but think Osric's show of love for Laertes is a parody of this relationship), but Hamlet, looking older than he ever had, his eyes wet, has come to terms with what must happen or at least could happen. Though they'll have a goodbye scene at the end of the duel, this also serves that purpose. On the commentary track, Branagh says something interesting about Hamlet's speech, calling it a possible answer to the question "To be or not to be?": "Let be." In essence, Hamlet must give in to Fate and meet it with aplomb rather than try to control it. You do not decide whether you live or die, God/circumstance/the author does.

V.i. Ophelia's Funeral - Branagh '96

Setting is important, and while the stage is limited, film is not. Branagh sets Ophelia's burial in a secluded wood, at night. This explains why Hamlet so quickly realizes the funeral isn't official. He essentially "catches" the Royal Family burying a suicide on the sly, away from prying eyes. And perhaps that bag of coins thrown at the Gravediggers is meant to buy their silence as much as a pay them for their labor. It certainly seems heavy enough. They seem to feel much less recompensed for having been right about the dubious nature of their "tenant's" death, befuddled and cowering as soon as nobility is present and the priest confirms the First Clown's suspicions.

A stunned Laertes eventually loses it and notably, grabs the Bible from the priest's hands, an object he'll later throw at Hamlet's head. There is an element of the profane in all this, one that mixes well with a secret burial attended by a compromised clergyman and in which a grieving brother leaps into his sister's grave and opens the casket to clutch the girl's cold corpse. If this isn't a holy rite, then nothing is sacred, and we already know Laertes the Libertine isn't above the heretical, willing to commit murder in a church. All signs point to the Church having left Denmark, in spirit if not in fact.

Between the melodrama and the action, it's easy to miss the reactions of the less vocal characters, but they are noteworthy. Hamlet's complete surprise at what has happened tells us Horatio has failed to tell him anything, including the fact Ophelia went insane. Gertrude's lack of surprise at seeing Hamlet means his letters to her arrived uncensored, while her motherliness towards Laertes emphasizes the mirror that already existed between this boy and her son. Finally, Claudius' coldness increases the divide between him and his wife.

At the center of the scene (as played) is an important irony. When Hamlet announces his presence and speaks of his great love for Ophelia, Claudius (and then Gertrude) is quick to say the Prince is mad, giving Polonius' theory weight for the first time. But it's also the first time this is true, if we decide that Hamlet is distraught (a temporary madness) because of love. However, it may be more true to say his madness derives from grief, just as before. Over-grief for a father, and now blinding grief for a lover. Blind in that he seems to forget his plans for a minute, forget himself, but also forget the wrongs he has committed against Laertes. Hamlet may have loved him as a brother, but he nevertheless killed his father an driven his sister into a desperate situation. As he regains his emotional footing, Hamlet gives up the fight and walks away. His new readiness seems to have returned, and in that context, the inevitability of the cat mewing, etc. is also that of the tragedy.

V.i. The Gravedigger Scene - Branagh '96

One of Branagh's tricks is to fill the smaller roles with big names to give them, and their words, more power and potency. Billy Crystal as the Gravedigger is one of the better examples of this. If there's a question as to whether this First Clown is foolishly dense (à la Dogberry) or pitting his wits against Hamlet, Crystal's performance and persona make it crystal clear that the latter is true. His Gravedigger is curious, thoughtful, witty, and used to being the smartest man in the room (in his circles anyway). And his incisive intelligence makes it clear as well that the text supports this interpretation better than the other. First, he has a reason to gently take down a nobleman, because he condemns them for having rights (in this case, suicide) the peasantry doesn't. There are nobles and there are noble professions. He sees the difference and it empowers him. Second, there comes a point when he wins the battle of wits, when Hamlet can't help but laugh, which in turn makes the Gravedigger smile. From then on, the Gravedigger answers questions straight, without word play or obfuscation. In other words, the first part of the exchange was a game, a character he was taking on, not unlike the madness assumed by Hamlet earlier. The Gravedigger twists words around and confounds Hamlet just as Hamlet had done to Polonius.

The other cameos are less obvious to American audiences, but still yield better performances than most. The Second Clown is played by Simon Russell Beale, for example, a famous stage Hamlet who gives his gravedigger a sweet innocence. The man is just happy to come up with an answer to the First Clown's joke, and so becomes the most basic of Shakespearean characters - one that hears and reacts to his own language. The dead clown in the scene, Yorick the jester, need not be played by anyone, but Branagh provides us with a flashback to Hamlet's youth - happier times - with Ken Dodd in Yorick's role. This has a few notable effects. It brings a reality to Hamlet's horror, as we too see the skull used to be a living, breathing, sparkling person. The flashbacks also give weight to the idea of Yorick as a surrogate father, though Hamlet Sr. is also in the flashbacks. The idea that Sr. is an idealized figure, while the real family had people like Yorick and Claudius in the actual, practical roles, is only slightly squelched by this. Finally, because Dodd's teeth are rather recognizable, it allows the production to create a similar skull, which is how the Gravedigger can tell who it is, and Hamlet can better recognize it as well.

Because we can tell the skulls apart, there seems to be some light satire to the idea that Hamlet at first identifies it as a lawyer's, and even absent any specific skull, could Shakespeare be doing the same in the text? Hamlet expounds on the decay of all these higher-class professions, but the revelation is that the one he's presented is a clown's. It's a subtle take-down of courtly life. Twisting it back on itself, the iconic image of Hamlet holding a clown's skull becomes a personal experience with death and decay, and turns a comedy scene into human drama again. Cutting to the Gravedigger who finds Hamlet's reaction rather deep and heavy provides some relief at least.

One of the lines that reached out for me in the performance is the one about Caesar's remains patching a wall to expel the winter's flaw. Perhaps it's the frozen-seeming, but winter and Denmark are necessarily connected in the play, and one might wonder if Hamlet is now seeing his own death as the required "patch" to fix a broken country. Everything he says from now on should be taken in the context of his readiness.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Branagh '96

Laertes already isn't the most voluble of characters, but learning of his sister's suicide has him react with a simple "oh", an example of Shakespeare showing he wasn't paid by the word, but actually fit word to emotion. What would you say in that situation? What is there to say? Michael Maloney's Laertes is stunned, can't process the information, and by the time Gertrude finishes her account, is still on "she's drowned". Did he even hear the story, need she have told it? Once he's cried, the woman will be out, not just his "female" nature, but he'll have exorcised Ophelia from his life as well. We might compare this image of grief to Hamlet's refusal to exorcise his dead father.

Julie Christie's performance as Gertrude has a lot to fawn over as well. The pace at which she tells the story tells us it's not a prepared speech, she's feeling herself through it, either reliving the experience herself (Branagh's take) or fabricating it out of whole cloth (a cynical take in which the truth might have Ophelia escaping her cell, getting pursued and falling accidentally into the brook). Either way, she couches her words to bring Laertes comfort, making it sound like Ophelia never suffered, her death a lyrical event filled with flowers and prettiness. Christie's hesitation is precisely what highlights Gertrude's word choice.

And if she means to console Laertes, Claudius' angry reaction is even more of a bad move. It shows his motives were self-interested, while hers were genuinely altruistic. She refuses to follow him when asked, and he realizes he's said the wrong thing, and that their relationship is no longer what it was. In effect, she not only refuses his protection, but condemns him for offering it.

Before moving on, we're given a single shot of Ophelia's face a watery surface. And then it's off to meet the clowns. Shakespeare's ironic editing.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - Branagh '96

It's always exciting when lines glossed over in the text are made more interesting and given more power when performed. This happens a couple times in Branagh's well-executed adaptation, featuring an intense but slightly dense Laertes and a devious, always thinking Claudius. They've met over drinks, a sign of their coming together, but also an echo of the poison drink Claudius will offer Hamlet. This whole conversation is also poisonous, meant to poison Laertes' mind, infect it with an idea he would not have thought up himself. In practical terms, the fact Claudius has a drink in hand serves as inspiration for this particular back-up plan. The way Branagh stages the opening part of the scene, Claudius keeps his distance while giving excuses, watching for Laertes' dangerous anger, gauging when best to approach. Laertes' weakness is Ophelia, and it's when he grieves for his sister that the King dares approach, even squeezing Laertes' shoulder in comfort. That's his opening gambit, the rest is all rhetoric to convince Laertes to help him murder Hamlet (by poison, of course, that's his modus operandi).

One line Jacobi gives a nice reading to is "for youth no less becomes / The light and careless livery that it wears / Than settled age his sables and his weeds, / Importing health and graveness." This contrasts, in Claudius' mind, youth and maturity, an opinion that partly explains why his plan will fail. A young man (Hamlet, but more accurately Laertes) is careless and carefree, while an older man is prosperous (a winner) and dignified. Thinking of Hamlet as a youth is a mistake (and part of the play's ambiguity about this 40-year-old "student"), one that underestimates him thoroughly.

The fannish enthusiasm for the Normand Lamond also attracts attention. I was previously unsure of the character's role in the drama except as a way to awe and recruit Laertes, but the description of his as a sort of beast-man, half-man, half-horse, is part of the accumulation of imagery that contrasts Hamlet's behavior with that of men of action. The way he's described, Lamond is all instinct, all action, and apparently something Hamlet aspired to at one point (and in a way, still does). The flattering comparison Claudius makes seduces Laertes, who is much closer to Lamond's instincts already, into becoming such a "beast", as only soulless animals would commit violent murder in a church.

IV.vi. Hamlet's Letter - Branagh '96

From all accounts, the production got lucky one day when, after spending the whole shoot applying fake snow, a blizzard started up. Wanting to shoot something right away to get that production value, Branagh grabbed Nick Farrell at the lunch wagon and had him do the one scene that doesn't require remembering very many lines (since you can essentially read them). This was matched to an equally snowy establishing shot, which speaks to time having gone by and a less and less hospitable Denmark. Horatio reads the letter with a puzzled tone, with a hint of interrogation at the end of every line, in what feels very naturalistic. Interestingly, as soon as he reads the part about the sailors also bringing letters to the King, he moves away from them, unwilling to let them gossip about whatever his own letter might contain if interrogated by Claudius.

A culture of hyper-surveillance is also present in a short, silent sequent introduced between the moment Horatio hears about the letters and the one in which he receives them. On the way, he stops to open a peep hole into Ophelia's padded cell where she is evidently getting hosed with cold water (all the more cruel when we know the current weather report, and of course, water is her element). Though he leaves with a sad expression on his face, we cut back to Ophelia, who, once the orderly has left, takes a key out of her mouth.

Evidently, she's been hosed for having attacked some guard or maid. The scene is necessary in this version to show how she escaped her cell, free to go out and commit suicide. Branagh smartly inserts a linking scene into what is one of Shakespeare's own necessary linking scenes.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Branagh '96

The gentleman's story (here, a female attendant's) is intercut with the racing feet of the rebels through the halls until the break down the doors and an angry Laertes confronts the king he thinks responsible for his father's death. From there, a long run up, sword drawn, to the throne, and only Gertrude's hold on the boy's arm stays his hand. The sequence starts with a flurry of energy, and for the actor playing Laertes, it's like returning from a very long tea break and still having to crank the performance up to eleven. A red-faced Claudius, perhaps holding back on the outrage he feels, stands up to the would-be deposer, his throat close to the sword's point, but not in back to the wall by any means. This is how he puts on a show of innocence. Through his dialog with Laertes, it's at Claudius that Gertrude looks at. Her worried, even fearful look, is aimed at her husband, not at the one holding a sword. And sure enough, the manipulation Claudius uses could refer to Hamlet Sr.'s death just as well as Polonius'. A good actress - and Julie Christie is one - will make the Queen notice the similarities here and wonder how much of his brotherly grief, referred to all the way back in Act I Scene 2, was real. In a sense, she's experiencing the confrontation her son never had with his stepfather.

And then Ophelia runs in and saps the rage out of Laertes.

Perhaps because she sees her brother there, Ophelia is giddy, giggling through her songs and playing with imaginary flowers. Note the staging. Not since "To be or not to be" have characters been reflected in a mirror for this long, linking Hamlet's suicidal thoughts to what could be called Ophelia's suicide note. Unlike Hamlet, the characters do not look at their reflections, however. There is a disconnect between their emotional and rational selves that prevents them from looking at themselves and adjusting their behavior. Ophelia in the throes of madness; Laertes in his rage and then sadness. Neither can make informed or reasoned decisions, such as the one Hamlet made after deconstructing the concept of suicide. During the last song, the reflections will disappear entirely due to body position and camera angle.

The gift of flowers seems not to follow the Elizabethan symbolism. She gives remembrance and thoughtfulness to Laertes, which is standard, and similarly, flattery, male adultery and ingratitude to the Royals. However, "adultery and genuine repentance of all transgressions for women and everlasting suffering" (rue), she gives to Laertes. In her songs, "stole the master's daughter" takes on a special meaning, because she looks towards the Royals and acts like it's a secret not to be repeated, but I'm unable to decipher that meaning, if any. The master can only be the King, and he has no daughter unless Claudius somehow bedded Ophelia's mother. If so, it gives the accusations of adultery a whole other bent, and makes Ophelia Hamlet's cousin. But while you could stage the play with this over-complication, Branagh's doesn't do attempt it. But it's a thought.

Ophelia's last song is heart-breaking, devastatingly beautiful, and imbued with a finality that's absent from the rest of her performance. Before this, there's rebellion in Ophelia. She's stubborn, inappropriately disrespectful to the Royals, and seeking escape. But in this last and prettiest of melodies, she seems more at peace, more accepting of her father's death. She accepts her fate, perhaps having transferred the responsibilities of her grief to Laertes, and emotionally spent (the energy at the top of the sequence moves from Laertes to her and runs itself out there), walks into her padded cell and just stands there, a figure haunting her brother through the rest of the scene.

Before she goes, she prays for her father's soul, but also all Christian souls, foreshadowing more sin and death. And once she walks off, that's it. She will never speak again. That's why this is akin to a suicide note, if only the other characters could understand it.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Branagh '96

In one of Branagh's few changes to the text, he reorders Claudius' end speech (starting with "When sorrows come") in this sequence to serve as a recap of the action to date as we return from intermission. It's a clever change that, using voice-over and a montage of previously seen (and some repurposed) images, gives urgency to what would normally be repeated information. The voice-over starts on the gates of Elsinore, which foreshadows, along with the lines about single spies and battalions, Laertes' revolutionaries, Hamlet's skulking back into the country, and Fortinbras' invasion. The montage also reminds us of who Laertes is - we haven't seen him since the first Act - reveals how all of this is weighing on Claudius, here seen pacing in the chapel, and reveals slightly ahead of time that Ophelia has gone mad, reusing the shot of her screaming after her father's corpse.

The better to prepare us for the next shot: Ophelia in a padded cell, being observed through a grate from above, straight-jacketed and wearing a gray cap, a creature more like the Tempest's Caliban than the lovely girl we met earlier in the play. She's ramming into each wall like a trapped animal. Gertrude's attitude then isn't annoyance, but fear. Caught between Horatio and the doctor (a black, female doctor, in line with Branagh's other anachronistic casting choices) who share the unnamed Gentleman's lines, she eventually relents and agrees to see Ophelia. Cut to the shot above, Ophelia all trussed up on her stomach, an inch worm asking to see the Queen. It's at once funny and pathetic, but also harks back to Hamlet's worm metaphor and to the abuse historically suffered by the mentally ill. In other versions and other Shakespeare plays, mad characters seem to have free reign of the locations, enjoying a sort of immunity to reprisal, perhaps through the mystical notion that madmen speak poetic truth. Often, these characters are allowed to rant and speak to power with insolence, without interruption (the mad queen in Richard III is another example). Madness makes people uncomfortable, unsure of what to say. We should note how differently mad Ophelia is being treated compared to mad Hamlet. Is this the effect of class or gender? Probably both.

The cell, you'll notice, is right adjacent to the throne room. As it's unlikely this is a normal feature of Elsinore, we might see it as a sign of changing times. Used to be the King and Queen were constantly attended, the Hall of Mirrors full of courtiers, but with Hamlet in exile, rumors abound and revolution brews. Claudius' Elsinore, like his Denmark, is changing. It's probably not safe to let the Prime Minister's mad daughter leave the castle, or even let it be known she's gone insane (it's a surprise to Laertes later). So a makeshift padded cell has been built into one of the secret compartments so she can be treated at home. This is an isolated Elsinore where visitors are no longer welcome. Halls made to look big and empty in wide shots. The Royals are small and vulnerable in their marble cocoon.

Before Ophelia can rant, she must be free, and Gertrude does her this kindness, untying her sleeves in an effort to comfort her. The rant takes the form of songs (many of them ribald), but that's probably the only things she knows. A young girl in a royal court wouldn't be trained in any useful skill. Her life would be songs and the meaning of flowers, skills to charm and impress a father and husband. That's all she has to try and express the inexpressible. Claudius comes in during one of the songs and tries to help her up, and the dynamic changes. Not that Ophelia can tell he's responsible (though she does throw the owl line at him), but he's a man, and men have been her undoing. At the mention of her father, she screams and stumbles off, and even the camera is kept at bay, suddenly uncertain and shaky. From Ophelia's point of view too, other characters seem far away. A distance in understanding. When she approaches them again, it's to rudely bump Claudius on the word "cock", and to disturbingly reenact her "tumbling" on the floor (with unnecessary but pointed flashbacks of Hamlet in bed with her).

In the middle of this, a moment of lucidity (from "I hope all will be well") and a realization that her brother will be coming. This moment is covered in a close-up of Ophelia, for the moment coming into focus, her cheeks and eyes ruined by too many tears. Her mind is broken, but she's still in there, and through those lines that are not "nonsense songs", we discover a certain self-awareness, one that she's trying to escape from. The metaphor echoes into reality as she struggles not to be tied up again, refusing Claudius' touch, avoiding him as she defiantly calls for her coach and runs off with Horatio and the doctor after her.

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, Scenes 1-3 - Branagh '96

Each of these three scenes is given its own unbroken shot, a technique Branagh says fostered a kind of anxiety in the actors that translated to their characters. It's a clever and subtle way to get across the instability and political (and personal!) upheaval caused by the Prince effectively killing the Prime Minister.

Scene 1

Most of Claudius' lines are played as an aside though Gertrude is present, usually off-screen, which creates the effect of her shock. She is obviously stunned, disconnected from the scene, their final embrace non-committal. Is she still clutching at him, wondering if she should betray him, or is he the one holding her close? Probably a bit of both. In this version, he does love her, and she is the principal reason for the murder he committed. All of which clashes with his feelings for Hamlet - fear and murderous anger - nevertheless Gertrude's reason for living. He's impatient with her contention that her son is somehow repentant, thinking her naive and foolish. Because no matter how important Gertrude is to him, Claudius can't ignore his own selfishness. On hearing of Polonius' murder, he thinks first of his own safety, and by the time the scene is resolved, he's put together a plan to make sure the Court knows who was really guilty of the crime lest the blame fall on him. During a crisis, Claudius falls to public relations mode.

Not content to believe Gertrude's interpretation, Claudius visits the crime scene himself, looks at the counterfeit presentment of two brothers on the bed, puts it all together. Between this scene and his next (Scene 3), not to mention the play within the play, there's every reason to believe he's understood what Hamlet is really on about. The Prince is gunning for him, possibly planning a coup, but at the very least trying to avenge his father's murder. He can no longer excuse the madness, nor does he particularly believe Hamlet's act.

Meanwhile, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, asked to wait in the hall outside the rooms, and are often seen in frame, connecting them to Polonius, another conspirator listening in at a remove. Can their own deaths be far ahead?

Scene 2

Then, action. Soldiers running through Elsinore, searching Ophelia's bed. R&G find Hamlet first, creeping about as if in a comedy routine. They don't lay a finger on him, nor do the soldiers that join his train every time he turns a corner. It's a last hurrah for the madcap Hamlet, a version of the character that won' exist after Scene 3, and as if in an encore of a previous scene, he even takes Rosencrantz hostage (pipeless, this time). Branagh invents a bit here where an awakened Ophelia comes down the stairs, face to face with Hamlet. Confronted by the woman he's just orphaned, the Prince makes a run for it, going through room after room, jumping over tables (the courtiers seem to be having a late dinner after the play). It's notable that he tries to avoid his fate, or perhaps he's trying to find a weapon and get to Claudius before the guards get him. In the end, he reaches his library/study, but it's been compromised (as has the rest of Elsinore; note how none of the guards are those shown loyal to him in Act 1). A rifle is leveled at his head and we cut to Claudius.

Scene 3

Claudius is in his own study, sealing letters bound for England and explaining, in a soliloquy, the politics behind his next action. I wonder if Derek Jacobi muddled the pronunciation of "distracted multitude" on purpose, because it sounds like "destructive multitude" to me. Certainly, that's how he thinks of Denmark's population, as rabble not only stupid (distract), but dangerous as well. He's interrupted by R&G who bring Hamlet to him. Horatio is also dragged in, either as a co-conspirator or to bear witness to Hamlet's fair treatment. There are two reasons to have him present even if the text does not mention him. One is to keep him in play the same way Ophelia has been brought into these scenes. Neither character has appeared since the play, and neither gets a farewell scene with Hamlet before he is exiled. Branagh manages to give each of them a wordless farewell, both given meaning through performance. The other reason to have him there is to cement his role as an objective witness in the final scene. If he is telling us this story, he needs to be present as much as possible.

Hamlet continues to be insolent, and Claudius has had enough. He's drinking more and more (one of his sins), and back-hands Hamlet quite hard when the Prince refuses to give him a straight answer. And yet, Hamlet doesn't break character or even lose his sense of humor. In fact, the scene becomes a kind of duel, both characters knowing full well the other's secrets, but daring the other to reveal themselves in front of witnesses. Hamlet even goes so far as kissing Claudius on the mouth when he calls him his mother. Claudius finally breaks when Hamlet is carted off and he gives his "do it, England" speech, barely containing the rage and anguish he feels at the discord in his heart. His wish is to kill his stepson, but politically, he needs to exile him instead, either move sure to hurt the woman he loves. Because the exile means death, there's also a measure of guilt there. This is a man who only a few scenes ago was suffering from having committed one murder, and here he is ordering another.  It all plays out in Jacobi's voice.

Before being taken away, Hamlet goes to Horatio and almost talks to him, leaving it at a silent look passing between the two friends. Nothing so good for Ophelia, clutching at the chapel's doors as her father's found body is brought in, screaming her head off, her sanity already slipping away. Those screams echo over the water in an exterior shot, extending the mad scream right to the girl's very death, the brook where she will take her own life.

III.iv. The Closet Scene - Branagh '96

Surprisingly for a production that features a lot of mirrors (in the hall, but at least two in the Queen's closet), Branagh does not use them on the "set you up a glass" line, completing an image from the Nunnery Scene and linking Ophelia's potential whoredom with Gertrude's proven one (all in Hamlet's mind, of course). The scene doesn't suffer as a result, however, since the line itself does some of the work. The backdrop surrounding the room is of particular interest, a painting of people and the occasional dog sitting on steps and balconies, like a makeshift audience. This is judgment day for the Queen, and all of Denmark metaphorically looks on, trying to force shame on her. The scene begins with some energy, as Polonius rushes in and Gertrude, ever impatient with him, pushes him behind a curtain. Hamlet's own entrance rides that momentum, motivated as he is by a mixture of elation from the success of his play, and anger at not having been able too kill Claudius. He goes for the Queen's throat, and she naturally cries "murder", though one might imagine he was merely looking for some locket with the King's picture in it... except that while other productions use such a prop, this one has bigger bedside framed pictures.

The accidental murder of Polonius is well-choreographed, as he falls wrapped in the thick curtain, keeping his identity hidden from Hamlet for the time it takes the prince to inquire if it's the King. Polonius' highly redundant "I am slain" is retained, making the character's last words completely unnecessary verbiage, the perfect epitaph for the character. Branagh makes it clear this changes Hamlet as a person, though it may take a few moments to truly sink in. He is now a murderer, the same sin he holds against Claudius, and worse, he has killed a father. His voice breaks when he gives Polonius his farewell,  and he drops the dagger in disgust. He gets back on track as soon as he sees his mother wringing her hands, however, as if she has no right to this shock when her own hands are stained with his own father's blood.

He throws her on the bed where much of the scene takes place, but thankfully, Branagh does not go down the Freudian route, at least not explicitly. He lets the words do the work of presenting a sexually immature Hamlet who, like a child in this part of the scene, is repulsed by the idea of his parents having sex. If the audience wants to read an Oedipal complex in the inappropriate way he talks about his mother's sexuality, they are free to do so, but the idea is not expressed in the staging. Violence and impertinence, yes, but the characters are not sexually inappropriate with one another. As the scene progresses, the life is sucked out of Gertrude by her son's revelations and/or reproaches. Shame or tiredness? Her expressions are ambiguous. It is perhaps important that Gertrude looks only at her former husband's picture and not Claudius', but again, it is ambiguous whether the memories evoked are good or bad, and whether she's evaluating the brothers against Hamlet's praise and slander.

The Ghost reappears, this time as a veritable "king of shreds and patches", kinder and sadder than his angry, armored self. The Queen's point-of-view omits him, leaving the audience to wonder if he is real and in control of who can see him, or if is he completely imaginary and as the Queen fears, an artifact of Hamlet's madness. Hamlet is, in fact, desperate for his mother to also see the Ghost, actively questioning his own sanity when she does not. The speech that follows about his sanity is in that sense as much for himself as it is for her. The Ghost, potentially a devil in the earlier scene, has a very different attitude, obviously tempered by his obvious love of Gertrude and his wish that no harm come to her. It's almost as if he regrets the fury with which he gave his earlier command, and wishes not only to sharpen his son's "blunted purpose", but to make up for the consequences his dread command incurred. It's all gone off the rails, as they say, and it's ultimately his fault. If Hamlet was impetuous before, in front of his father he is truly a child, and he cries like one.

Once the Ghost has left, he attempts to prove his sanity, a difficult feat given that he starts by pushing his mother onto a bench after she's seen him hallucinate. But this visitation, and the blood now on his hands, have changed him, even possibly awoken him from madness. He'll be far more in control of his words and actions from here on out. Moving away from the childish outrage of mere moments ago, he takes on a paternal attitude towards Gertrude, instructing her calmly on what to do about her situation. The fact that he's now a sinner too has leveled the playing field. He asks her to repent, but repents his own actions as well, as an equal partner should. He's gone too far and knows it, and if his assumed madness became real, he now reigns it in, turning it back into craft. As Hamlet takes responsibility for what he's done and for what he must do, he becomes a darker, even more fatalistic Hamlet. The resigned way he takes care of Polonius' body, calling it "guts" (previous speeches have been concerned with the state of the soul after death, but from here on out, the dead are decaying objects), is proof of that.

The final image of the scene, with a reflective puddle of blood dominating the foreground as Gertrude paces anxiously and tries to make a decision about who to trust, is symbolic of her part in Hamlet Sr.'s murder (she was its inspiration) AND of her son's madness which caused Polonius' death. She is torn between the two, and given how under-written Gertrude is, it will take some time to clear up just which side she takes.

III.iii. The Confessional - Branagh '96

There's some small shuffling of scenes in this section, as the first part of the scene - Claudius and his various sycophants - is placed before Hamlet's short soliloquy technically part of the previous scene, before resuming with the Claudius' confession, an edit that creates more tension by putting Hamlet's "I'm ready" speech right up close to his opportunity to show he is. In the sequence preceding, Claudius is seething from Hamlet's affront at the play, and is putting into motion Hamlet's exile to England. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are also assigned to this voyage, which immediately makes them worry that they're sharing in the punishment. This is the scene where they try to understand if they've fallen out of favor or not. At least, that's how it's played in this adaptation. As Claudius ignores the two gnats, R&G give each other looks and try to glean some kind of response from the King. There's a sense that they realize they are a "noyance", but can't get out of this conversation. When Claudius, lost in murderous thought, snaps back to reality, it's like they never said a thing. He's back on the question of the exile. Had he listened, he might have heard a warning about the relationship between King and State, his Denmark about to fall because he has. That general groan is merely delayed, the King and corrupted State's days prolonged while Hamlet and Fortinbras are made to wait in the wings a bit longer.

When Polonius walks in, Claudius is activated. He rises, enters a secret door, and walks to the chapel, his adviser in tow. This is where Polonius gave his advice to Laertes, a possible source of irony since Claudius is to himself true (unrepentant) which ultimately dooms him. It's also fiercely ironic that a dishonest plan to spy on Hamlet and his mother is laid out on the way to a church. The rapid fire sequence makes it seem like Claudius is getting all his sins out of the way before he goes to confession.
Jacobi's Claudius is clearly haunted by his fratricide, which is what makes him more sympathetic. While he cannot repent, he does feel guilty, and he doesn't ask the angels to forgive him, only for the strength to make amends and do what he must so he can be forgiven. He asks for a conscience. Repentance is a process with many steps, and in Hamlet's world, it seems much easier to go to Hell than it is to Heaven. Something to think about when we get to the ending. Time seems a great enemy in the play. Not only is it fluid and "out of joint", but it's a corrupting influence. The more Hamlet delays, the more death he causes. In Claudius' prayer, he asks to be given the supple knees of a new born babe, an image of innocence that translates not just to the physical. He wishes to return to a time when there was no taint on his soul. Alas, age breeds corruption as sins accumulate. The speech also highlights a certain futility in the plot. Claudius WILL be punished, and the punishment will fit the crime. He knows he's headed for Hell, which is "just" because that is the fate that greeted his victim. So the question is, does Hamlet have to kill him? God will sort it out, and in a sense, that's what Hamlet's delay tells us. Killing Claudius is just another regicide, one that may doom Hamlet's own soul. In Hamlet's highly religious world view, however, Claudius must be killed before he can be forgiven for his sins through confession or final rites. Of course, the fact that Claudius doesn't believe he can be forgiven means only the audience is aware of revenge's innate futility here.
Once Claudius takes on a praying position, Hamlet appears on the priest's side of the confessional, in a position to forgive or to dole out punishment. He dictates morality in the play. He slides his dagger through the window, his words heard in voice-over as to make the scene less theatrical, and the blade goes right into Claudius' ear, shockingly. It's a fantasy. The next shot shows the blade not quite there yet as Hamlet hesitates. We're on Hamlet's eyes, thinking, realizing, and remembering. Quick flashbacks take us to various points in the film where Claudius was a-sinning, which includes a shot of the King and Polonius getting behind an arras. A clue that Hamlet very much knew that they were behind the mirror during "To be or not to be"? Or an imagined moment based on what he later learned? Choosing to wait for a better moment, the blade passes before Hamlet's eyes and he is gone. Claudius' ironic last line is also in voice-over. A strange feeling comes over him and he looks to the priest's side, but there's no one there. I wonder, could there be a staging where Hamlet isn't there at all, but is instead Claudius' imagined Hamlet, first punishing him, then not, then resolving to do so at a different moment, fueling Claudius' paranoia and justifying the exile? Hamlet as guilt manifest.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Branagh '96

In the whirlwind of words and black comedy that follows, I had never really noticed before that Nick Farrell's Horatio doesn't actually confirm the King's guilt in Branagh's version. He looks for the right words before coming up with "I did very well note him" and is not particularly enthusiastic. Hamlet has a moment of doubt where he goes "ahhh" before other characters walk in. Not doubt that the King is guilty, but doubt in the trust he placed in his friend. But what should he expect? At the top of the sequence (which will be another one of those whirling one-shots), Horatio is calling him out on his bad poetry as if they relationship was always one where Horatio brought the prince down to earth with a dose of acerbic wit.

But the moment quickly passes as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern arrive and Branagh uses the line "Some music" to herald that arrival. Yes, he's about to be handed a recorder, but Hamlet is really announcing the music of words that's about to ensue. Their lies and his vicious mockeries - the music of repartee. Hamlet is still giddy from his perceived victory and continues to giggle, impishly overact, sing-song lines in a parody of meter, and openly mock their every word, speaking to them as if they were deaf or dumb, and making grandly theatrical gestures. He's still at the theater. For their part, R&G have grown bold enough to show their anger towards him. They know Hamlet has gone too far and fully throw their support to the King. This is a mistake, and as if to foreshadow their eventual fate, Hamlet becomes violent with them. The prince handles that pipe like a weapon, here choking Guildenstern, there slashing the air with it as if it were a rapier.
There is another sudden change of attitude in Hamlet when Polonius walks in, another fool who now thinks nothing of showing angry impatience at the mad prince. Hamlet basically gives the same performance twice here. He's impish and overly theatrical, and turns to bitterness and anger. He just does it all much more quickly. It's really a reaction to Polonius' tedious redundancy, repeating behavior more efficaciously. For once, Polonius doesn't want to drag things out either, so he agrees to every fantastical cloud in the ceiling just to get it over with. The sequence ends with Hamlet asking his "friends" to leave him, the word dripping with sarcasm.
One of the few changes made to the play's structure in Branagh's integral adaptation occurs here as we cut to Act III Scene 3 before the short soliloquy that usually ends Scene 2. In Scene 3, R&G play sycophants to Claudius, Polonius tells the King he'll hide behind an arras in the Queen's closet, and the King heads for the chapel. The function of the edit is to get Hamlet's "I'm now ready to do anything" speech closer to Claudius' confession. In fact, the soliloquy is dropped in just before the confession, and its last lines even juxtaposed to Claudius entering the confessional, so that "my soul, consent!" precedes Claudius' prayer, highlighting the thematic connection between the two. In both cases, what is done falls short of what is said. Hamlet will not kill Claudius, and Claudius does not repent. Neither man's conscience manages to become more like the other's, a failed osmosis.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Branagh '96

We enter the scene on a kiss between Claudius and Gertrude before the camera pans down to the stage even as a chandelier rises and the audience applauds. It doesn't applaud in the stage's direction, however, but in the royal couple's. What is actually the show, here? Even to the audience within the film, Hamlet's play is probably less important than the Courtly soap opera of the couple so quickly nuptialed after the death of the old King and the mad ravings of the Prince. Like Horatio, they'll be watching Claudius and Gertrude. In fact, Branagh cuts to Horatio and the gossiping Court often, reminding us of this public scrutiny. When Hamlet appears on stage, a spotlight is immediately lit. He is the country's beloved Prince - as Claudius mentions elsewhere in the context of not being able to easily dispose of him - and the audience laughs at all his jokes. At least until they become too cruel. Claudius' voice is strained when addressing Hamlet, while Gertrude is happy to see him in good spirits. It seems likely Claudius has not shared what he heard Hamlet say in the previous act. Ophelia, for her part, seems quietly sad, even embarrassed. She was no doubt the object of gossip even before this night, and Hamlet's public cruelties would make this a very difficult evening to bear. And then there's Polonius, who grits his teeth and takes Hamlet's humiliating him by dragging him on stage. Here, Branagh shows how showing the audience's reactions can influence our understanding of the play. The way people roll their eyes and smile when Polonius says he once played Julius Caesar resonates with them. The King's chief courtier playing an emperor? Perfect casting for someone the Court probably sees as a brown-nosing opportunist with too-elevated ambitions.

As Hamlet plonks himself down next to Ophelia, he mocks her and his mother openly, shouting his lines so that everyone can hear, letting his rising anger drive the scene. The Court actively ignores him, though he does set them to whispering. Hamlet even manages to make his mother blush at the shortness of her grieving period. Though Claudius may be guilty of murder, Gertrude is guilty of not loving her first husband enough, and she is just as caught in the "Mouse-Trap". Branagh continues to mix the play on stage and the play in the audience together, having these early mockeries end on applause. It sounds like they're applauding Hamlet's bit, but they're really cheering for the Players who have just come on stage. Eventually, Hamlet will be on stage too and it won't matter what's in or out of the play.

Hamlet's mischief gives way to the dumb show's, which is played so broadly and quickly that it doesn't give away the plot of the play. That's the advantage with doing the whole play - many versions will use the dumb show and nothing else to save time - as it allows for a more mysterious dumb show. Here, Ophelia doesn't seem stupid for asking whether the show contains the argument of the play, just as it's reasonable for Claudius not to see the image of his murder in the action as yet.
The Players' costumes set the play in the Middle Ages, contrasting well with the more Napoleonic look of the film's events while winking at the period in which Hamlet is actually set. The Players give an intimate and very emotional performance, in keeping with Hamlet's instructions and the First Player's qualities from his earlier monologue. It's powerful stuff that should connect with the Royals. But Hamlet is anxious because the King and Queen aren't always watching the play, instead feeding each other bits of Turkish Delight, kissing, or drinking (we're often reminded that it is Claudius' vice). Will Hamlet miss his chance to show the King's guilt? It helps explain why he later jumps on stage to draw their attention. When they do watch the play, they empathize with the wrong things. The love between the Player King and Player Queen, for example, makes Claudius and Gertrude get closer and publicly cuddle. Their reaction tells us they really are in love, no matter what has happened before. At the mention of the "second husband", however, the Court starts looking back at them. The play is suddenly quite scandalous, and the Royals' point of view heightens the paranoia.

The Player King is so kind and loving - an idealized Hamlet Sr. - that he gives the Player Queen permission to wed again, but it's her that swears she won't. It is in moments like these that Hamlet seems more intent to show his mother as an unfaithful whore, than his stepfather as a murderer. Or perhaps it's a feint, letting the Court (and the King) think he's going after his mother, to hit them with a surprising revelation about Claudius. In the play, the Player Queen does not betray the Player King, she betrays HERSELF. Is this at cross-purposes with Hamlet's intent and opinion? Or is betraying oneself worse than betraying others? Let's not forget the theme of the play can be found in the line "To thine own self be true". Hamlet's true self is not a murderer-avenger, which is what delays the action of the play and causes the tragedy. Here, he accuses Gertrude of not being true to herself, or to the image he has of her (the wife of his father). During all this, Ophelia seems quite taken by the play. Again, Branagh makes a lot of inferences through reaction shots. Is Ophelia seeing there the image of the relationship she wishes she had with Hamlet? Does she idealize, perhaps, the unseen relationship between her father and dead mother? Polonius may well tell his stories of suffering much for love around the house. As the scene runs its course, Hamlet slowly creeps down to the stage...
He gets the Royals' reactions to the play and starts to play the chorus. In another cruel exchange with Ophelia, he plays on her "better/worse" remark, linking it to wedding vows (for better or for worse). Does Branagh's pronunciation create an additional layer of pun? The line is "So you must take your husbands", but I hear "So you mistake your husbands", a potential dig at his mother's swinging allegiances. Savage with his own potential wife and with his parents, Hamlet, by osmosis, is the same with the Player Murderer on stage, an image of his stepfather. The accusation is not so much in the play as it is in Hamlet staring up at Claudius from the stage. It is implicit, verging on explicit, and people start to squirm in their seats. Slow zoom on Hamlet and the King as the editor cuts in with scenes from Hamlet Sr.'s murder. Are we seeing Hamlet's imagination, or Claudius' memory? The edit seems to infer the latter. If the King is moved to stand, it is likely not because the play holds a mirror to his own actions, but rather that Hamlet seems to know what happened. Claudius shows restraint however. "Give me some light" and his bitter "Away" are said in a low, menacing voice that communicate that he has been insulted, but not that he's been rumbled.

The Court leaves in a hurry, probably fearing for their lives if the King catches them in the wrong expression. Will the events of this evening spread like wild fire and cause the almost-revolution during which the rabble at the gates proclaim Laertes king? Quite possibly. Gertrude's reaction is of interest as well. She keeps her eyes on Claudius all the way through... in anger? Outrage? Hard to say. Later, she'll blame Hamlet for offending the King, but in this moment, she wonders if it's all true, and if the man she loves today killed the man she loved the day before. Ophelia holds her head, ever closer to a breakdown. Ophelia's story is one of disillusionment, of a young girl who probably saw the best in everyone finding out reality is a much more cynical and corrupt place.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Branagh '96

The front part of this scene is another of Branagh's oners, taking us around the upper balcony and into a small room that serves as the Players' dressing room. In so doing, we get to see the curtains and theatrical machinae, but also Hamlet at his sanest. We're behind the scenes for BOTH plays, in a sense. The Players are themselves, not yet made-up as their characters, and Hamlet is too, not yet "idle" as he is before the Court. The Players would do well to listen to his acting tips, because his method HAS convinced all of Elsinore that he is indeed mad. For the most part, the speech is spoken not to the First Player but to the Second (who plays the murderer). It works, especially after the reverence given Charlton Heston's character during "Aeneas' tale to Dido". Hamlet also singles out the clown, a boy, and has fun with him. Might we here see a mirror of Hamlet's own childhood relationships? As we discover later in the play, he was raised more by the Court jester Yorick than gone-to-wars Hamlet Sr. His affection for the clown here, both kissing and mock strangling him (read what ironies you will) may be typical of the father-son relationship between Hamlet and Yorick. Of course, as soon as Polonius walks in, Hamlet reverts to a manic disposition, sending Rosencrantz & Guildenstern on a useless errand (they do not obey him).

Branagh continues to upkeep Horatio's presence by inserting him in an invented moment before this scene, in which he stands outside reading the newspaper and news of Fortinbras' advance on Poland (dissolves into shots of Fortinbras himself also help to remind us he is in this play), and then in the scene proper, having brought Hamlet his coat in preparation for the play. Having just escaped R&G, Hamlet goes into his study where he makes a declaration of his love and friendship to Horatio. And the latter could not look more awkward, even in the staging of it.
As someone delivers a script to Hamlet, the prince uses it to underscore his point about insincere fawning to contrast his own true admiration of Horatio. It's also another indication that regardless of class, Hamlet does not view Horatio as a servant or anything less than an equal.

The Nunnery Scene - Branagh '96

Initially, Branagh's Hamlet is all smiles and teary eyes, soft-spoken and kind, which in turn makes Kate Winslet's Ophelia hopeful and just as teary. The meeting is imbued with a tenderness we have not seen in Hamlet since the events of the play began. After Ophelia's "How does your honor...", they both giggle at the formality, and he answers in kind, as if play-acting. We have to remember that in this adaptation, they've been intimate, so the courtly mannerisms are out of place (except that her father is watching, so Ophelia at least knows not to be too familiar). Hamlet's three "well"s are ever more tender and end in an embrace. He holds her close, kisses her deeply, but she pushes him away to get things back on track. Hamlet appears deeply insulted, red-faced and betrayed, and it's here that the staging seems to both ask and answer a question: Is Ophelia acting from a script? On the one hand, she's being particularly formal and one might say, out-of-character. Then she fails to adapt to the situation (Hamlet's surprise kindness) and reacts, perhaps as scripted, with a complete non sequitur, giving back Hamlet's gifts. Hamlet has just returned her affections, and now she's going on about "perfume lost"? But we WOULD expect Polonius to have given Ophelia a script. She's a girl with no control over her life, and a poor improviser besides, so she pushes her father's agenda no matter what Hamlet says or does. There are other clues that point to this being the case. She looks to the side when, as if by rote, saying the line about rich gifts waxing poor, which really sounds like one of her father's slogans. Is she remembering, or is the eye motion a "tell" that points to the spies in the room?

Does the prince react as he does because he realizes all this already (though the "Where is your father?" line is spoken only later), or is it more visceral than that, an immediate connection between her apparent changeability and his mother's? It's a connection that certainly fuels his anger, since much of the coming speech and violence is transferred from guilty Gertrude to innocent Ophelia. And in terms of changeability, the pots and kettles irony is that Hamlet himself will turn unkind and confuse his would-be princess all the more. He slaps the gifts away, among them the poetry we know he wrote, and denies ever having given them to her. His moving "I did love you once" sounds like he's imploring Ophelia not to go through with this charade. He gives her an out and hopes she'll take it. And then the spies make a noise, and Ophelia lies about where her father is with the guiltiest look in creation on her face. For Hamlet, it's the tipping point. He breaks down crying, hands on face and when Ophelia tries to reach out, he lashes out at her.
The scene would be comical if it weren't so cruel as Hamlet drags Ophelia behind him as he opens one mirrored door after another, in a rage-fueled game of hide and seek. He silences her and pushes her face against a mirror, for the drama's sake, the exact door behind which Polonius and Claudius are hiding. It is telling that neither comes to Ophelia's defense. Though visibly shocked, seeing this through to the end is all they really care about, and they let Ophelia be violated, both physically and psychologically. She has been thoroughly abandoned. It is a violent image, one that distorts her face as a way of evoking her own mind snapping, and perhaps foreshadowing her drowning, the mirror providing a watery distortion.

Hamlet guesses the spies are behind this door, or that they might move to that position during the assault, or can even hear them there at this range. We may assume then that while his anger is genuine, he still puts on a show, using Ophelia as a prop. Violence gives way to a strange kiss when he tells her there will be no more marriages (is he saying in this moment that they'll never be intimate again, marriage being equal to intercourse?) and speaks straight at them (at us!) when he threatens that all but one shall live. They run off before he can catch them, but it is clear they were there. Secret doors don't slam silently. He leaves Ophelia with one last kindness (now that they are gone?), as his last "To a nunnery, go" loses the tone that might connote a whorehouse. It's a plea for her to leave Elsinore before something bad happens, whether that be blood-letting or her own corruption.
Ophelia's speech ends with a strange dawning realization which I wish I had a good handle on. It remains one of this adaptation's mysteries for me (and considering how many times I've seen it, it's great to still be able to admit there are still some). "See what I see" has its own unique tone, and makes us wonder just what it is she suddenly sees. The rest of the speech makes her point of view rather naive. She believes Hamlet has gone mad. What is her epiphany at the end then? Does she see the bigger picture? That perhaps Hamlet's troubles with women begin and end with his mother? That his madness is all for show, perhaps even having her suspect foul play in the death of the previous king and/or the murder Hamlet is planning? Does she foresee her own doom, the only possible end for a dejected lady like her? Ambiguity reigns.
The return of the other men in her life is as traumatic for her as Hamlet's violence. The father who put her in harm's way and failed to rescue her holds her tight and comforts her, not allowing her to talk. Ophelia is emotionally rocked in every direction. As for the King, he completely ignores her and her pain, giving in to anger and brooding. His mood is not improved by Polonius's reiteration of his mad-for-love theory, and he furiously slams his hand against the wall. Polonius almost approaches fatherly kindness in this scene, putting his well-meaning but empty comforting of his daughter above playing the sycophant to the King's frustrations.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Branagh '96

Hamlet has been called to the Hall of Mirrors, but no one's there. He enters trepidatiously and ends up facing himself in a mirror, triggering a meditation on self-slaughter. Each of those mirrors is also a door, and at least some of those doors have a special feature that allows you to look through the mirror. It's a wonderful cinematic conceit that allows Hamlet to say the speech directly to Claudius and Polonius, giving it an additional layer of irony and meaning. Suddenly, the "sea of troubles" is right behind the door and Hamlet talks about taking arms against his uncle.He simultaneously would take arms against himself, as he is talking to his own reflection. In this one mise en scène, everything Hamlet is facing is represented. The enemies both without and within (for what if his madness is making him believe all this?). The scene's central ambiguity remains. Does Hamlet know he's being seen? We've seen him navigate Elsinore's various secret passages and priest holes, so it's possible he knows (or at least suspects) spies are on the other side of the mirror. We can't know if ALL the mirrors are two-way, or if Hamlet specifically chose one that was. The irony works whether Hamlet is aware of it or not, of course.

Taken as an address to Claudius, the words take on a different bent, in particular the enumeration of this world's evils one (he) must bear. The oppressor's wrong is most on the nose, but there's also law's delay (justice for his father's murder subverted) and insolence of office. Hamlet must also deal with despised love and at least one proud man. Reverse the idea and make Hamlet address himself. How much of what he says can apply to him? In the next sequence, he will admit to being proud, for example. If his talk of suicide is sincere, how much of it is motivated by an unwillingness to become the monster he knows he must become to enact his revenge? How much is to protect his loved ones from himself? Hamlet knows he's about to get a confession from Claudius, knows events are about to speed towards a dreadful resolution. One answer to why he would contemplate suicide at the turning point of the play is that it's his last chance to prevent the evils that must surely befall Elsinore if he goes through with his plan.
At the end of a slow advance towards the mirror, Hamlet pulls out a dagger (the "bare bodkin"), eliciting a startled reaction from the men watching on the other side. Claudius almost seems to grab at Polonius to make sure the man doesn't cry out or attempt to stop Hamlet. The frame (above) quotes an earlier moment in which Hamlet kisses the sword and swears revenge. The death of a father, the promised murder of a stepfather, the idea of self-annihilation. These ideas are interconnected. As Hamlet speaks the "safe words", making his plans "lose the name of action", he taps the point of the dagger on the mirror. The image is ambiguous, but full of possibilities. Hamlet might be killing himself symbolically, or at least his past self, finally shedding the man who would never commit murder, finally erasing the books in his mind as promised at the end of Act I. He points the dagger at Claudius, but really sees himself, so might the mirror create an osmosis between murderers past and future? He might be attacking unreality itself, the world of thoughts but not of deeds. Or it could be an interesting way to stage the impossibility of suicide, as the blade hits a barrier of self-preservation before it can ever reach Hamlet's self.

In this most astute piece of staging, Branagh manages to open the speech up to new and interesting interpretation.