Page 142 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

I Know Not Seems I 131

out of control, ringing like the scream of a wounded animal. Instead,
Claudius appears as if drugged; Richardson directed Anthony Hop-
kins to hesitate before screaming. Perhaps intended as a pregnant
pause, this deflated any sense of mounting intensity.
Hamlet is Shakespeare's funniest tragedy, its hero a forerunner of
today's stand-up comics. Most unforgivable is Richardson's cutting
every bit of humor, resulting in a leaden, dull version. Polonius is no
fun to watch, while gags are missing from the Gravedigger's scene.
To compensate, Richardson added graphic sensuality. Rather than
play the Hamlet-Ophelia or Hamlet-Gertrude confrontations for
sexual intensity, however, Richardson suggested an incestuous rela-
tionship between Laertes and Ophelia. Gertrude-Claudius court dia-
logues were shifted to their bedchamber, which might have served to
heighten a sense of their "luxurious" relationship. Instead, Richard-
son has them call for a servant to bring food, attempting a redux of
his famous sex-while-eating scene from Tom Jones; sadly, he was
unable to match the earlier film's impact.
Richardson appears eager to destroy Shakespeare's richness of tex-
ture, reducing beautifully realized supporting characters to cardboard
caricatures. He did away with Shakespeare's appearance-reality
theme, which stands at the heart of the play—indeed, at the center
of the Bard's ongoing vision. In the text, Claudius and Gertrude go to
great lengths to appear honorable rulers, keeping up appearances to
hide their corruptness. Richardson's King and Queen proudly parade
their vulgarity. Judy Parfitt as Gertrude looks and acts like some
sort of madam and was directed to play a cackling villainess on the
order of the Wicked Queen in Walt Disney's Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs. Other films depict Ophelia as a simple innocent used
by her father or a confused girl trying to hang on to Hamlet.
Although we might have expected a 1969 film to offer Ophelia as a
wide-eyed hippie done in by the corrupt Establishment, Marianne
Faithful's Ophelia is a predecessor of punk, since she is corrupt,
snarling, and backbiting.
Williamson's interpretation is a reaction against Olivier's exalted
elocution. He delivers famous lines so matter-of-factly, the audience
could not later recall whether they had heard them or not. This
destroyed the most basic element of Hamlet's personality: the notion
that, whether effeminate or macho, he is a gifted individual, a true
prince among men. While Burton restored strength, Williamson ren-
dered Hamlet crude. Shakespeare's vision was of a sensitive talented
man tragically cast by life in the role of avenging prince rather than