V.i. The Gravedigger Scene - BBC '80

Tim Wylton is a more overtly clownish Gravedigger, but one with no less personality. He is a self-important sort, whose jokes are geared to exalting his profession above that of others, and proving his superiority to his associate and to the two noblemen who stop by his grave. He is also a common sort, crass and gross, sleeping on a mound of freshly excavated earth and human remains, eating and drinking there as if unaware of how macabre it is. Because it isn't for him, and in the decaying Denmark metaphor, there is nowhere one can eat and rest that isn't a grave. Interesting staging on the suicide discussion: The Gravedigger uses a pail and a thigh bone to represent water and man. Even more interesting reading: The way he pronounces "will he, nill he", with the proper emphasis on the "h" sounds where many modern readings use "willy-nilly", recalls the original meaning of the expression - whether one wants to or not, as opposed to today's in haphazard fashion - but it also a sort of pun. The suicide wills their own annihilation; Ophelia "nilled" herself.

When Hamlet approaches, he seems tired and bitter. In the skulls flying from the grave, he sees a truth: That everyone, himself included, returns to that state. Everyone is the same in the end, even the noblest is on even terms with the lowest in society. And the Gravedigger represents this. He acts like he's the master of his realm, though others might consider him the lowest of the low, the unclean who touches the dead. Sleeping and eating at the grave, and later kissing Yorick's skull, his world is death and decay, and this is normal. Death and life are equated further in the way he tells Hamlet water is a "sore decayer of your whoreson dead body" as if it were a threat. It evokes the idea of Hamlet thinking of himself as a "whore's son", and that in dramatic (tragical) terms, he is already dead. And hasn't he just been to sea? Water is also associated with Ophelia and her death, which makes the comment even more twisted.

For Jacobi's Hamlet, Yorick's skull is truly repulsive and he does gag at it. He can't even bring himself to stroke it directly, but keeps his fingers at a short distance. His realization that we all return to dust goes from a tired melancholy, to anxious disgust, finally to accepting mockery. His thoughts on Alexander and Caesar see the black humor in it. When he smells his fingers at the very end, is it Yorick's deathly stench that stings his nostrils, or his own?

Through all this, Horatio seems sad and a little spooked by the scene. There certainly isn't the sense of camaraderie evident in Branagh's Hamlet, where the two fellow students team up to chuckle at the Clown. It feels like Horatio can sense what is about to happen and where the Prince's fatalistic dialog will take him. Everything he hears confirms this and he dare not give Hamlet his blessing. Not the most exciting performance, but the minimalism isn't out of character.

V.i. The Gravedigger Scene - Olivier '48

Olivier mercilessly cuts lines, but he also adds to the play through visuals. He dissolves straight from Ophelia's watery grave to her earthly one. We here singing (just as she was singing). A shovel comes into view. The Gravedigger is hard at work, the top of the scene with the Second Clown is missing. He finds a skull, smiles at it in fond remembrance; this is Yorick. He sets it outside the grave for Hamlet to find. And it's this skull that's in the perfect position to give Hamlet's shadow the terrifying face of a Grim Reaper. Hamlet has returned and he is Death, but he is also already dead, as far as Fortune is concerned.

Stanley Holloway makes a good Gravedigger, a simple man who straddles the line between truthsayer and knave. He is sometimes too literal, sometimes pokes fun and sometimes is serious, but in a way that seems consistent. For example, when he delivers the line about the grave being for one that WAS a woman, he goes from the teasing the gentlemen to earnestness. This is what he really believes, that after death, a person ceases to be one and becomes an object. This is the philosophical distance he puts between himself and the beneficiaries of his work. And yet, he can fondly remember them in life, as he does with Yorick, catching the skull's absent nose with affection more than mockery. It can also be seen as sign of how perverse the Ghost is, how contrary it is to the laws of nature better represented by the literally grounded Gravedigger.

Hamlet may say he's repulsed by his late jester's chopless skull, and a touch of macabre realism is inserted when earth spills out of it at one point, but a smile never leaves his lips. He even animates the skull, bringing it close and reenacting a scene from his childhood by whispering in its missing ear. Again, we're seeing a Hamlet who is so close to death, he is already interacting with the dead. And perhaps, this has been so from the very beginning, and the reason the Ghost could speak to him. Metaphorically, Hamlet died the day his father did (they do have the same name, as revealed in this very scene).

A word on Horatio: He shares some of Hamlet's lines in this, so he too can tease the Gravedigger, and Hamlet gives him a sidelong look through most of the scene as if to make sure he doesn't give away the game and blurt out who Hamlet really is. Otherwise, he's the usual sounding board, though Hamlet has less to say in this version. The funeral party interrupts the scene and Hamlet never talks of Caesar or Alexander. But perhaps the visuals achieve the same effect.

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.

V.i. The Gravedigger Scene

Shakespeare begins the final act with two clowns, literally comic relief for the audience when juxtaposed with Ophelia's suicide in the previous act. I have divided Scene 1 into two parts, the transition marked by the arrival of the burial party. In the first sequence, Hamlet enters, back from his trip abroad, and meditates on mortality, producing the most famous image from the play: Hamlet holding Yorick's skull. Reproducing this image on film is a necessary beat, and we'll see how different directors staged the action in the coming weeks. Before we begin our cinematic tour, however, let's look at the text itself. The Bard in italics, my comments interrupting in normal script, as usual.

SCENE I. A churchyard.
Enter two Clowns, with spades, & c

First Clown: Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?
Second Clown: I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.
First Clown: How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?
Second Clown: Why, 'tis found so.
First Clown: It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.
Second Clown: Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,--
First Clown: Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes,--mark you that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
Second Clown: But is this law?
First Clown: Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.
Second Clown: Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'Christian burial.
First Clown: Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession.

Though "clowns", the gravediggers nevertheless discuss a serious topic, and some of the themes of the play. One of these is religious law's relationship to suicide (also touched on in "To be or not to be"), and another is Denmark's corruption, embodied by Claudius and in this case turning a suicide into an accidental death through legal wrangling. A question hidden in plain sight is whether Fortune, as a force in the play, is like the water that might come to a man and drown him? In other words, if Fate (and in Hamlet's case, we can conceivably talk about the rules and necessities of Tragedy, since he is continually trying to subvert the genre in which he is trapped) is a willful entity, is any character's suicide their own fault? And yes, this extends to Hamlet's suicide-by-Laertes, his readiness to die as suicidal as Ophelia's mad dive into a muddy brook. In less metaphysical terms, we may ask whether any given person's suicide was actually set in motion by events exterior to them. Is Ophelia to blame for her own death, or is Hamlet? Is Hamlet responsible for his doom, or was it inevitable from the moment Claudius killed his father?

Second Clown: Was he a gentleman?
First Clown: He was the first that ever bore arms.
Second Clown: Why, he had none.
First Clown: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:' could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself--
Second Clown: Go to.
First Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
Second Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.
First Clown: I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.
Second Clown: 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?'
First Clown: Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
Second Clown: Marry, now I can tell.
First Clown: To't.
Second Clown: Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance

First Clown: Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are asked this question next, say 'agrave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a stoup of liquor.

Historical note: Apparently, Yaughan's was a tavern near the theater, an inside joke lost to the ages. As clowns, the gravediggers can break the fourth wall. This is sometimes done quite literally, with actors winking at the audience, but this is denied to film adaptations. In literary terms, clowns can still "break the fourth wall" by knowing more than the other characters do, often unconsciously, and they may have one foot in the real world (thus the reference to a local water hole; I'd be tempted to change the name to a nearby pub if I were to stage the play) and one in the fiction. This allows the clowns to tell truth to power because they are somehow disconnected from the nobler characters' authority. The First Clown's irreverent interactions with Hamlet are a good example.

Exit Second Clown
He digs and sings

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

HAMLET: Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?
HORATIO: Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

Did many heads roll during Claudius' reign, Hamlet Sr.'s, or the transition between them? Or in Hamlet Sr.'s case, did many Danish soldiers die to win his wars? We can ask because the gravemaker is accustomed to digging graves and makes jokes about the gallows' thousands of "residents". Something is rotten in Denmark both figuratively (corruption, vain wars, political executions) and literally (the ground is filled with corpses, so many, some escape to walk the night).

HAMLET: 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
First Clown: [Sings] But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.

Throws up a skull

The throwing of skulls is important, not only to set up the famous moment, but to show this is a common grave. Ophelia is not to be buried alone. The implication may be the forgettable denizens of Elsinore (and those it wants to forget) get such a treatment, but in the greater rotten Denmark metaphor, you're likely to find bodies wherever you dig.

HAMLET: That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Cain's first murder is invoked, bringing us back to Claudius' fratricide.

HORATIO: It might, my lord.
HAMLET: Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?
HORATIO: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

The "revolution" of the commoner fiddling with the bones of nobles repeats the image of the King working its way through the guts of a beggar from Act IV Scene iii.

First Clown: [Sings] A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

The gravedigger sings while digging Ophelia's grave. There's a certain poetic continuity to that. And like her, he sings of love and death.

Throws up another skull

HAMLET: There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
HORATIO: Not a jot more, my lord.
HAMLET: Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
HORATIO: Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLET: They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?
First Clown: Mine, sir.

Sings

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.
HAMLET: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.
First Clown: You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.
HAMLET: 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
First Clown: 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to you.
HAMLET: What man dost thou dig it for?
First Clown: For no man, sir.
HAMLET: What woman, then?
First Clown: For none, neither.
HAMLET: Who is to be buried in't?
First Clown: One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.
HAMLET: How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

One choice directors and actors must make is whether the gravedigger is actually a knave or if he's actually able to match wits with Hamlet. And whether Hamlet realizes this. Is "How absolute the knave is!" a compliment or a reproach? Part of the ambiguity is that the prince holds two simultaneous conversations, one with the gravedigger, the other with Horatio. Certainly, he responds to the Clown's audacity, and we may again see Claudius' reign at work. The present king is so base, the moral gap between peasant and courtier is abbreviated; respect for authority is undermined.

First Clown: Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
HAMLET: How long is that since?
First Clown: Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad, and sent into England.
HAMLET: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
First Clown: Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
HAMLET: Why?
First Clown: 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.
HAMLET: How came he mad?
First Clown: Very strangely, they say.
HAMLET: How strangely?
First Clown: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
HAMLET: Upon what ground?
First Clown: Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

The origin of one of the play's most famous "problems", Hamlet's age. If he is thirty, why is he still a student? We may once again invoke the line "Time is out of joint" and wonder if time didn't go by more quickly for those outside Elsinore than for those within. Was Hamlet gone for years? He returns changed and more resolved. That events in Elsinore seemed to speed by days or weeks after his exile may be an illusion. After all, Laertes has to return, a revolution has to spring up... How long was the Royal Family hiding in the castle before he broke down its doors? How long did Ophelia wanders its halls, a mad spirit, before she finally killed herself? All this to say, Hamlet may not have been anywhere near 30 at the beginning of the play, which would allow for his studies, general "teen angst" and for the Court to justify Claudius' usurpation of the throne as a kind of regency.

HAMLET: How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
First Clown: I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
HAMLET: Why he more than another?
First Clown: Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

A major element of this sequence is Hamlet's fixation on decay and on the transformation from person to base matter that occurs after death. He is already contemplating his own, inevitable death and will compare himself, in effect, to Alexander and Caesar, other great nobles and intellects who nevertheless have been converted to soil, as he will be.

HAMLET: Whose was it?
First Clown: A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
HAMLET: Nay, I know not.
First Clown: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
HAMLET: This?
First Clown: E'en that.
HAMLET: Let me see.

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO: What's that, my lord?
HAMLET: Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'the earth?
HORATIO: E'en so.
HAMLET: And smelt so? pah!

Puts down the skull

HORATIO: E'en so, my lord.
HAMLET: To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
HORATIO: 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
HAMLET: No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.

This is his metafictional anxiety. Hamlet is a character who knows himself to be a character in a tragedy, but in love with his own genius and language, tries to subvert that tragedy in various ways. He tries to make it a comedy with shows of madness. He tries to take control over through a proxy, The Mousetrap. And finds ways to delay his revenge so the tragic cycle never completes. All to keep his character alive. The play, once over, may or may not be a success. Will it become so much forgettable air, and its pages used to line some bird cage? Or will it transcend its "physical" existence and survive through words and reputation as Alexander and Caesar did? Hamlet is ever a mouthpiece for the author.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - French Rock Opera

Funereal and pretty, Johnny Hallyday's song plays the same role as Gertrude's speech, casting events in a fantastical light, as much in the lyrics as in the music, which is filled with angelic voices and fairy twinkles. Oddly, it ends on a piano solo that seems a song apart. These sad twinkles could be Laertes' reaction, or possibly, Ophelia's last song as she sinks below the waters, the truth behind Gertrude's grandiose lyrics. There is panic in neither piece of music, as if "incapable of her own distress" was taken literally. We'll discuss the lyrics after we listen to the song. Here are the original French lyrics, then a doggerel translation for those readers who may not be up on that language.

La mort d'Ophélie
Un saule penché sur le ruisseau
Pleure dans le cristal des eaux
Ses feuilles blanches

Ophélie tressant des guirlandes
Vient présenter comme une offrande
Des fleurs, des branches

Pour caresser ses boutons d’or
Pour respirer son jeune corps
Le saule se penche

Mais sous elle un rameau se brise
Le saule en pleurs la retient prise
De part sa manche

Ophélie lui dit «qu’il est bon»
Quand le ruisseau dans un frisson
Casse la branche

Ophélie file au fil de l’eau
Qui vient gonfler son blanc manteau
Contre ses hanches

Son cri s’éteint comme une joie
La boue immonde où elle se noie
Prend sa revanche

Un saule penché sur le ruisseau
Pleure dans le cristal des eaux
Ses feuilles blanches

Ophelia's Death
A willow leaning over a stream
Weeps into the crystal of the waters
Its white leaves

Ophelia tressing garlands
Comes to present, as an offering
Flowers, branches

To caress her buttercups
To breathe in her young body
The willow leans

But under her, a bow breaks
The weeping willow keeps her from falling
On its sleeve

Ophelia tells him "he is so good"
When the stream in a shiver
Breaks the branch

Ophelia goes by on the water
That just inflated her white coat
Against her hips

Her cry is extinguished like a joy
The foul mud in which she drowns
Takes it revenge

A willow leaning over the stream
Weeps into the crystal of the waters
Its white leaves

The song is told from the willow's perspective; it stands in for Gertrude in this instance, but may weep just as much. The image is the same in French where a weeping willow is a saule pleureur, its tears its own garlands of leaves. The willow becomes the last being to have contact with Ophelia, and in these last moments, she knows love and peace. It's the stream that's villainous, that breaks the branch, that drowns the girl. Hallyday doesn't seem to believe in her suicide, and links the gravedigger's story of animated water forcibly drowning a person to redeem Ophelia. "The mud takes its revenge." While the tree is "good", the rest of Nature seems bent on killing this young woman, possibly because she has taken flowers and branches from Her. Obviously, that wilfulness is mere personification, but is Nature personified as specific people? Revenge is Hamlet's affair, and his vengeful quest is the reason her life has been smothered this day. The stream may just be the course of events, or the destructive power of Claudius, more active than muddy Hamlet, who started the ball rolling. And so the tree must be her father, her lone and ultimately useless protector. At least in her mind. One could also take the willow to be Gertrude - and my mind immediately goes to Desdemona's song in Othello, another object of men's affections doomed by them - an off-stage protector grooming Ophelia to be her son's wife, and in this story, weeping for her death and her own inability to prevent it.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Classics Illustrated

Both comic book adaptations teach us about rushing through the play and its effects, though on stage, we would hardly get the same kind of superimposition caused by placing speech bubbles in the same panel/space.

The original
Gertrude is rather thrifty when it comes to telling Laertes his sister has drowned, the words coming out of her mouth even as she rushes through the door. Again, this is due to the way comics work, but keeping everything in the same speech bubble keeps pauses and hesitations out of the Queen's "voice". Her account of Ophelia's death is more detailed, taking up an entire page:

Pitched at a younger audience, Ophelia's death appears to be entirely accidental, albeit as result of her madness. In her poor judgment, she climbs up on a very slim branch, which breaks under her weight. An important lesson about safety, perhaps, but not a suicide. In the end, even her garlands desert her as she sinks to the bottom of the brook.

The Berkley version

The Grant/Mandrake adaptation is even more rushed, though it includes more dialog. Laertes is told not while he's kneeling (or did he just fall to his knees upon hearing the news?) in the cemetery. It's likely that is his father's grave. The next panel looks beautiful, though there seems to be some confusion as to who's crying eyes those are. The speech bubble pointing to the face means them to be the Queen's, but they rather look more like Laertes'. Regardless, the one shot of Ophelia is evocative of John Everett Millais' famous painting of Ophelia.

The cemetery setting underscores Laertes' loss of all family. Notably, his crying despite his announced restraint is cut, so this Laertes manages to hold it together. See also how Claudius' last lines, because they are included in a panel in which Laertes has not yet exited, plays like an aside. Does this Claudius actually fear Laertes' rage against HIM will start up again, or is it an unnecessary confusion resulting from the medium?

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Tennant (2009)

Penny Downie is a most vulnerable Gertrude, running in covered in a black shroud, with no make-up, as if having just been awakened with this news. She's actually caught out by Laertes' simple question "where?", hesitating as if she wasn't expecting him to ask. She reaches for the details, possibly inventing them based on the rough outline she's been given, perhaps hoping it actually happened as she tells it, and at times, regretting her choice of words. For example, she seems disturbed by her realization that long purples are also called dead men's fingers. The emphasis brings to the fore the idea that Ophelia is in a way in her dead father's grip, the flowery metaphor turning macabre and dragging her down to her death, in an echo of Hamlet Sr.'s ghostly manifestations. Ophelia, the female (and thus socially powerless) Hamlet, isn't visited by the specter of her father, except in this image.

Claudius seems stunned by the whole affair. Not just Gertrude's story, but Laertes' weepy reaction as well. It's true that he surprisingly lets them speak without ever interjecting, even though Ophelia's death may affect his plans. At most, he seems tired. When Gertrude reaches out for comfort, he fails to notice her gesture and instead rebukes her for what Laertes might now do. She's shaken by how little he cares about her or Ophelia, and how much he cares for his own safety.

One last note, about the director and cinematographer's intent. While Gertrude speaks, the camera moves to a slightly overhead angle so the black polished floor can take on the properties of a murky reflective pool, bringing the muddy brook into the room. It's a neat piece of staging, but not as obvious as the production would have liked it, I think. Still, an element to steal and realize better in future adaptations.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Fodor (2007)

The Ophelia in this adaptation is a junkie, now in withdrawal after her sister Polonia's death, as she was her "medicator". When she finds a syringe and tries to shoot up, she dies from an overdose. Her death is intercut with the previous sequence, increasing the tension, but also drawing a link between the talk of the poison and the girl accidentally poisoning herself. Because events are so different from the ones related by Gertrude, the Queen isn't needed here and does not appear. It's a small mercy, because the actress' handle on the English language is limited. It's not clear that she would have given the speech what it needed.

In contrast to Claudius and Laertes discussing Hamlet in a dark room, Ophelia's sequences are blown-out, a pure white bleaching the color out of the film. The sound design is just as extreme. We may be hearing and seeing her madness and her ecstasy, or we may be experiencing the scenes from the Ghost's limbo. He watches as Ophelia "drowns" in her narcotic bliss, chokes, convulses and finally stops moving. Suddenly, her body is on the beach in the same position. Were we there all along? Has the Ghost moved her? The latter is suggested. He continues to watch as Claudius and Laertes run to her silent (as per the sound design) and apparently unbidden.

One of Fodor's key ideas is keeping the Ghost in the play all the way through as an unseen observer, although here it is suggested he takes an active hand in Ophelia's death. She finds the heroin under mysterious and fortuitous (in a sense) circumstances, in a room filled with his signature white light. He moves her body where she might be found by the people upon whom he wants revenge. Or since this will arguably push Hamlet over the edge, perhaps he's engineering events so that his son finally kills Claudius like he promised. The more his tardy son waits, the more blood will be shed. Fodor's Ghost is a figure from horror stories whose agency is more direct.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Hamlet 2000

Because Gertrude's speech refers to things absent in the modern adaptation - the brook, the flowers, Ophelia's dress - it is completely cut from the play, as is Laertes' scripted reaction. Nothing after the multiple utterances of "drowned" can be heard from either of them, and the film instead opts for an image that contains information one would have gleaned from the text.

In Hamlet 2000, Ophelia is frequently seen flirting with the idea of drowning. She throws herself in a VIP pool with her clothes on, she walks the edge of a fountain in the lobby. It's in that fountain that she is found, drowned in barely a foot of water, and though these things happen, it is just askew enough an image to underline the madness of it. Ophelia simply let herself die. A security guard runs in to try and rescue her but is too late, which answers the question of whether Gertrude was witness to the events or not. Of course, she might have seen it happen from one of the lobby's high balconies and been unable to do anything about it, just as in an Elizabethan or Medieval setting, the Queen might have seen it all from a tower window. The shot ends on her box of letters from Hamlet, floating by her body in the fountain, telling us more definitively that her suicide was driven by lost love, though the letters are also a symbol of the tug of war between her father and her lover - the letter revealed to the Royals, the tokens returned to Hamlet as an excuse to spy on him, and so on - so does double duty.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Kline '90

As this production recreates the play as Kline crafted it on stage, the scene does not allow a flashback to the events Gertrude describes. It does, however, make sense of how wary Laertes is. His reaction to the news is to mistrust it, and his initial question (where?) drips with disbelief. Though he's just been "turned" by Claudius, the King has also shown him how devious and underhanded he could be (the convoluted murder conspiracy). Could Ophelia have been the victim of a similar plot, lest her madness reveal some hidden truths at Court? Because we don't see her suicide, we're allowed to be suspicious as well. Gertrude is certainly sincere, but did she actually witness those events (and thus is guilty of letting them happen), or was she told? And if told, how reliable was the witness? The problem with such an interpretation is that Claudius shouldn't be upset about this death affecting his plans for Hamlet (except with himself, but that's not the performance here).

Dana Ivey stresses the words "cold maid", which is an illuminating choice, as Ophelia is indeed the coldest of maids now. It's doubly interesting because this adaptation's Ophelia, Diane Venora, seems a little old for the part. Was she really a "maid", or is that part of Gertrude's tale to cushion the blow as much as the prettiness of the picture she paints?

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Zeffirelli '90

In Zeffirelli's restructuring of the play, Ophelia's last scene is immediately succeeded by her suicide. We see her outside Elsinore, skipping towards the brook while, in voice-over, Gertrude tells the tale. Before cutting to the Queen and the reactions of the court, we get a close-up of Ophelia on the small bridge staring into the water, obviously disturbed. There is no doubt here that this was a suicide and far from the lyrical portrait painted by Gertrude. One simply cannot imagine this Ophelia being "incapable of her own distress"; her pain is too raw.

Is Gertrude painting a pretty picture for Laertes' benefit? She may be. From all the wide shots, including one at the very end with the girl's body floating away, no one seems to have witnessed her death. Gertrude may be enacting a sort of reconstruction based on Ophelia's old habits, the state she was found in, and her own wishful imagination. Glenn Close's performance supports that idea, tearfully smiling through most of it (except for the "muddy death" line) even though women in black are grieving behind her. She's chosen to remember the girl's prettiness, not the ugly side of her madness, and she smiles as one might at a eulogy, in fond remembrance. Laertes is simply shocked, and his "drowned" lines cut back to the scene of Ophelia's death, the camera panning away from her. He can't bear to imagine it.

Now, there are some cuts here, mostly because Gertrude didn't interrupt a conspiracy. Laertes and Claudius will only discuss Hamlet's murder after the Prince's return and Ophelia's funeral. Laertes doesn't get to forbid his tears, nor can Claudius be angry at Gertrude for disturbing his plan.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - BBC '80

The staging here is fairly standard, with the scene playing on a stunned Gertrude, no flashbacks, etc. Interesting things about the performance include her looking straight at Claudius when opening on "woes" (though there's no sign of ironic intent from her), and a breathless delivery, as if she was fighting the urge to pass out.

David Robb's Laertes is slightly over the top at times, but he makes some interesting choices too. His "Oh", a line that can come off as risible, plays as a sigh as he sits down, the wind taken out of his sails. And at the end, he positively shouts the tears out of his eyes, his voice blazing with anger, giving Claudius' reproach to Gertrude the carp of truth. Since Laertes does look angry, Claudius could be setting up Hamlet's death in the duel. He did his best to calm the boy down, but in the end, that's why the duel went wrong. Laertes as willing patsy.

Second Quarto vs. Folio
The Folio, usually used as master text, has Ophelia singing snatches of old tunes. The BBC adaptation uses the Second Quarto's "snatches of old lauds" instead. "Lauds" in this context are hymns praising God, while "tunes" is a more generic term that would easily include the bawdy snippets heard earlier from Ophelia. Critics have been divided on the word choice, some finding contradiction in the sexual nature of the songs we do hear and Ophelia's Christian values in her final moments. Is there though? Her last lines on stage were a prayer for mercy for all Christian souls, and it's in that frame of mind that she went to her watery grave. Her fury, sexual/marital frustration and grief all spent, a calmer, more nihilistic madness came over her in the end. It's possible Gertrude is fudging the details to comfort Laertes, but her expression makes this unlikely.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - Olivier '48

Olivier opts for a very literal interpretation of the scene, done completely in voice-over, showing Gertrude's story as fact. In the restructuring of the play, we go directly from Ophelia's madness scene to the suicide, though the literalism turns it into an accident. The camera struggles to follow her out of doors, and turning the corner, finds she's gone. But the brook is in the background outside the next doorway. We then cut to a shot of the swampy stream under the weeping willow and, panning left, find Ophelia singing some songs normally in the previous scene. floating on a cushion of vines. She floats out of shot, vines trailing her for a while, and by the time the camera pans to where she would be, she's gone, swallowed up. As painless for the audience as it is for her. Fade to the next scene's tombstones.

A rather efficient and fairly unambiguous scene then, though one could make the claim that we're seeing a product of Gertrude's or Laertes' imagination.

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. Ophelia's Death

The tail end of Scene 7 is Gertrude's description of Ophelia's suicide, which immediately asks the question: Did Gertrude watch the girl die and do nothing? Is she instead recounting news as related to her, and who is the original witness who failed to intervene? Even more choices are open to film director who may, unlike stage productions, actually show the event, perhaps without even the benefit of Shakespeare's words supporting the images. This is why I've chosen to isolate such a short sequence. Before heading into the various adaptations, let's take a look at the language itself. As usual, the Bard is in italics, and I use normal script to break in.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

CLAUDIUS: How now, sweet queen!
QUEEN GERTRUDE: One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
LAERTES: Drown'd! O, where?

A strange question. Not "how", but "where". The "why" is self-evident, and so perhaps is the "how". Laertes may assume it's a suicide and not an accident, from what he's seen of his sister's madness, and only wants to go to her.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:

The vegetable imagery, already associated with Ophelia, is here distinctly melancholy. The scene takes place by a "weeping" willow, and dead men's fingers are at once a reference to her dead father and through their grosser name (usually dogstones, but there's a selection of testicular nicknames that might be appropriate), to the question of sexuality and whether or not she slept with Hamlet. The two ideas intermingled in her mad rants.

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

With "coronet" we get the image of a flowery crown, a parody of the crown she might have worn had she become Hamlet's queen. Like Hamlet, her royal destiny has been aborted by Court intrigue.

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

The mermaid image takes us to the sea on which Hamlet has recently sailed. Like her, his life has been saved by that sea, but only temporarily. For Ophelia, death comes swiftly. Hamlet gets another Act, but no more.

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES: Alas, then, she is drown'd?
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Drown'd, drown'd.
LAERTES: Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts it.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS: Let's follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let's follow.

Exeunt

In reality, Claudius fears Laertes' rage will be smothered by this new grief, though he says the opposite. We'll see how the acting and staging impacts the sequence in the weeks to come.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - Classics Illustrated

The original

One of the side-effects of converting Hamlet to a "boys' adventure" comic is that while many scenes are reduced to a single panel or even caption, the ones that feature ghosts or swordplay are expanded. This is how this scene, despite extensive cuts in the dialog, comes out to almost four pages. This is achieved by having the plotters both flash back to moments prior to the play or imagine their plot coming to fruition. So for example, the story of Lamond (though note the alternative spelling) is recounted and seen:

As gratuitous a panel as they come, though it presents the Normand's prowess on horseback without actually mentioning it. The next panel has Hamlet sparring with him and admitting his jealousy of Laertes, clumsily re-purposing Claudius' line into "I wish and beg Laertes sudden coming o'er to play with him." We then see Laertes' successfully getting his revenge; we're into fantasy.

And strangely, after Laertes gets his poison out, a caption tells us the King has his own poison, not making it clear Laertes is told this.
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As a staging idea, it's interesting. The King could speak those lines as an aside and let Laertes believe he is indeed the best swordsman in the land instead of impugning his abilities with his back-up plan.

The Berkley version
Taking the opposite tack, the more modern adaptation doesn't use the scene at all, which may turn out to be a mistake. In a film, moments and expression can make clear that props have been poisoned, that the plotters are working together, and so forth. In a comic, it is much more difficult given the space available. Meaningful cuts to a face, a weapon, a cup, may not come across the same way. We'll see.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - Tennant (2009)

This whole section is one of the biggest structural changes director Gregory Doran made to the play. By moving the "My thoughts be bloody" speech where Horatio usually receives the letters, and cutting the messengers entirely, he a jump cuts from Hamlet's bloody thoughts to Laertes' own. The young man is sitting in the straircase we associate with the Polonius household and Ophelia, playing with a sharp object. Claudius walks in and immediately asks if his father was dear to him, everything before - and a lot of what comes after - is cut. There's an interesting repurposing of the line "Hamlet comes back". Instead of acting as a premise for the next question, it's a statement of fact, an announcement as Claudius holds up the prince's letter. A change of venue brings the two of them to Claudius' domain, the dark throne room.

It's obvious Laertes has been told, off-stage, about Hamlet's participation in his father's murder, and he's already thinking about getting his revenge. He's quick to answer when the King tells him about his plan, though one should wonder, as Doran does on the commentary track, why Laertes already has the poison. What would this have been for? He came back to Denmark sword in hand, so it wasn't for the King. For himself, perhaps? For a sort of honorable suicide after committing regicide? Or is he just the kind of person who buys such things in case he ever needs it, and thus quite dishonorable? It's not clear. But though he has his own ideas about how to kill Hamlet, the cuts make the scene play out as less of a seduction. Claudius brings fewer arguments to bear, even assumes Laertes will participate and do what he's told. Laertes is eager. As usual, these cuts weaken Laertes' character, reducing him to a pawn. In his wrathful state, he doesn't even question the King's laugh as he thinks of his back-up plan.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - Fodor (2007)

Fodor actually intercuts this scene with Ophelia going to her death, making the two moments more overtly simultaneous and giving Fortune justification for killing a young girl. As Laertes plots against Hamlet for the loss of one sister (the feminized Polonia, so Claudius "loving" Laertes' sister has extra meaning), another is taken from him as payment for his sin. Ophelia's death we will discuss at a later date, but the editing does give the Claudius-Laertes scene more forward momentum and contrasts talk of death with death actually happening. This is largely the function of the darkness in this candle-lit scene, contrasting with the whiteness of Ophelia's ecstatic world (and this "Denmark" in general), though of course, it fits the mood of the conspiracy.

Notably, Laertes initially refuses a glass of wine from Claudius, which is how we might track the seduction (not that this psychotic Laertes needs much prodding, he must only be convinced of the specific plan). The idea of the rapier duel is made acceptable in a modern setting by the inclusion of the oft-cut Lamond, introducing Laertes' reputation for fencing into an era that would normally not feature swords, but Laertes grimaces at first. He'll do it, but it needs something more. He adds poison to the mix (meanwhile, Ophelia is poisoning herself with drugs), and cold, unblinking Claudius puts some in a wine cup as his plan B. Only then does Laertes accept a glass, and they drink together, not realizing this wine is poisoned too. Sealing this deal, they've put into motion the mechanism of their own deaths. They might as well have drunk the venom directly.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - Hamlet 2000

Though it does suffer some important cuts, the scene is well-played and well-staged, and features some interesting innovations. For example, there's a bodyguard in the room, which makes sense after Laertes tried to kill Claudius. They can't be left alone together. It also means Claudius has soldiers loyal to him - his power is still real - or else he wouldn't conspire to kill the Prince in front of a third party. The other interesting idea is to stage the scene so Gertrude is in the next room. Low voices, furtive glances, the tension is raised considerably and the conspirators made more conspiratorial as a result.

Laertes accepts Claudius' excuses and is shown the gun Hamlet used in an evidence bag, but his expression is clear. The Royal Family survives while his own pays the price. The State screws the People over (though obviously, the Polonius family wasn't exactly middle-class). He is otherwise cold towards the King, his mind elsewhere perhaps, as he fiddles with Ophelia's hair comb, but that gives a nice spin on the line about warming the sickness of his heart, which in turn highlights Claudius' own about an "ulcer". The only emotion Laertes will allow himself to have is that sickness, a need for revenge, a hate beyond all hate.

Among the many cuts, we of course find the Normand material, which doesn't fit the setting, but also the details of the assassination scheme. In fact, what the characters fear throughout actually happens and Gertrude walks in on them, earlier than in the play. She cuts them off just as Laertes was about to answer Claudius' question about what he would do to show himself his father's son.

A final note: The fax machine used to deliver Hamlet's message turns this "modern-day" version into a period piece after all.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - Kline '90

The scene suffers a number of cuts, starting slightly later, removing Lamond (as often happens), and any mention of the wick or snuff that could make Laertes hesitate. This Laertes is consequently all anger, and Claudius has no reason to challenge his commitment. One could almost believe Laertes had always held a certain malice against the prince who was wooing (if we're being tactful) his sister, who had more privileges than he did, who perhaps flaunted his wit and education around the castle. These events have just exacerbated an already tense relationship. One could also believe Laertes already has murder on his mind, and that he comes off thinking he's manipulated the King into giving him permission (which he does, in the sanctuary line). This might explain why his body language is so conspiratorial, giving Claudius a signal to keep quiet when a messenger comes in (after all, he has no reason to think Hamlet's already been sent to his death). Still, Claudius can't know the boy's mind, so does manipulate him a little bit, mostly by repeating the fact that Hamlet is returning, fueling that crucial anger.

This Claudius isn't as cold as some of the others, however, and Brian Murray lays fear into his performance. He's breathless, distracted, has to sit down. He almost shows his hand to the messenger, unwarrantably surprised and angry that the letter comes from Hamlet. It makes his plans sound more improvised and desperate. He's no mastermind, and we understand that it's all getting away from him. And Laertes is foolish to think it's a done deal, smiling like some psychopath and acting suspiciously when Gertrude comes in with some terrible news...