Page 148 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

I Know Not Seems / 137

If she is his equal, then she deserves equal punishment. Twitchy,
neurotic, and mannered, Close's sexual predator rings shrill, a far
cry from the fleshy, foolish woman Gertrude must be if the Ghost's
decree is to make sense. This couldn't help but have an impact on
and ultimately alter Zeffirelli's perception of the Hamlet-Gertrude
relationship as well as his approach to staging their scenes together.
Zeffirelli extends the oedipal impulse to an almost obscene limit.
Hamlet speaks his famous lines to his mother not only while beside
her on the bed but literally mounting her. If he weren't sidetracked
by the realization that someone else is in the room, this Hamlet
would surely rape Gertrude.
He is, in fact, ready to do so when his orgasmic shrieks elicit a
scream of horror from hidden Polonius, whom Hamlet leaps up and
kills. Hamlet was, at a moment of crisis, about to come out of the
closet in terms of his true feelings for his mother. Instead, Hamlet
seizes his actual sword and, assuming that the interloper is Claudius,
redirects his insane anger, using it to kill as a means to avoid employ-
ing his sexual sword. Gertrude's room is precisely where Hamlet
would love to do in his competitor and secret sharer. Killing that
man would serve as a substitute for killing the perversity inside him-
self; in Shakespeare (or at least Zeffirelli's vision of Shakespeare), as
in Hitchcock, the victim turns out to be the wrong man.
When Hamlet leaves for England, he says his goodbyes to
Gertrude not as a dutiful son taking leave of a caring mother but as
a lover—in thought if not deed—parting with his mate. Other films
leave doubt as to why Hamlet rejects Ophelia; not here. She was the
easily available, socially acceptable woman he diverted sexual energy
toward in denial of coveting his mother. At his most bitter, Hamlet
hurls accusations at the stunned girl, misdirecting his anger for
Gertrude. Then he literally forgets Ophelia the moment that he and
Gertrude acknowledge their forbidden feelings.
Other interpretations are ambiguous as to Ophelia's motivation
for degenerating into madness,- here the reason is obvious. She has
seen the man she loves reject her for his own mother; this is more
horrific than her simple, sweet mind can bear. As in Olivier's film,
Hamlet here recites his famed "To be or not to be . . ." speech fol-
lowing his important confrontation with Ophelia, improving on
Shakespeare's placement of the scene. Important, too, is that Helena
Bonham Carter's none-too-bright girl-child is completely innocent,
unaware her father is spying when she insists Polonius went home,