ENTER OPHELIA MAD

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM – NIGHT

Ophelia sits on her chair making garlands of flowers. Her hands bleed from handling thorns. She is now wearing the wedding dress from the previous scene with Hamlet. It is still torn and hangs over her shoulder almost revealing her breast. Her make-up is overdone and grotesque. Her lipstick and mascara are smeared but she looks very calm. The trees outside her window have pushed through the bars and her books are scattered including the picture book which lies open. The dolls are now mostly cut open and piled randomly like corpses on the shelf. Flowers are strewn over the table and the entire floor. She is talking to herself.

OPHELIA
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. (Sings) At his head a grass green turf, at his heels a stone.

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM – NIGHT

Ophelia sits on her chair making garlands of flowers. Her hands bleed from handling thorns. She is now wearing the wedding dress from the previous scene with Hamlet. It is still torn and hangs over her shoulder almost revealing her breast. Her make-up is overdone and grotesque. Her lipstick and mascara are smeared but she looks very calm. The trees outside her window have pushed through the bars and her books are scattered including the picture book which lies open. The dolls are now mostly cut open and piled randomly like corpses on the shelf. Flowers are strewn over the table and the entire floor. She is talking to herself.

OPHELIA
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. (Sings) At his head a grass green turf, at his heels a stone.

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM – NIGHT

Ophelia sits on her chair making garlands of flowers. Her hands bleed from handling thorns. She is now wearing the wedding dress from the previous scene with Hamlet. It is still torn and hangs over her shoulder almost revealing her breast. Her make-up is overdone and grotesque. Her lipstick and mascara are smeared but she looks very calm. The trees outside her window have pushed through the bars and her books are scattered including the picture book which lies open. The dolls are now mostly cut open and piled randomly like corpses on the shelf. Flowers are strewn over the table and the entire floor. She is talking to herself.

OPHELIA
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. (Sings) At his head a grass green turf, at his heels a stone.

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM – NIGHT

Ophelia sits on her chair making garlands of flowers. Her hands bleed from handling thorns. She is now wearing the wedding dress from the previous scene with Hamlet. It is still torn and hangs over her shoulder almost revealing her breast. Her make-up is overdone and grotesque. Her lipstick and mascara are smeared but she looks very calm. The trees outside her window have pushed through the bars and her books are scattered including the picture book which lies open. The dolls are now mostly cut open and piled randomly like corpses on the shelf. Flowers are strewn over the table and the entire floor. She is talking to herself.

OPHELIA
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. (Sings) At his head a grass green turf, at his heels a stone.

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM – NIGHT

Ophelia sits on her chair making garlands of flowers. Her hands bleed from handling thorns. She is now wearing the wedding dress from the previous scene with Hamlet. It is still torn and hangs over her shoulder almost revealing her breast. Her make-up is overdone and grotesque. Her lipstick and mascara are smeared but she looks very calm. The trees outside her window have pushed through the bars and her books are scattered including the picture book which lies open. The dolls are now mostly cut open and piled randomly like corpses on the shelf. Flowers are strewn over the table and the entire floor. She is talking to herself.

OPHELIA
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. (Sings) At his head a grass green turf, at his heels a stone.

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM – NIGHT

Ophelia sits on her chair making garlands of flowers. Her hands bleed from handling thorns. She is now wearing the wedding dress from the previous scene with Hamlet. It is still torn and hangs over her shoulder almost revealing her breast. Her make-up is overdone and grotesque. Her lipstick and mascara are smeared but she looks very calm. The trees outside her window have pushed through the bars and her books are scattered including the picture book which lies open. The dolls are now mostly cut open and piled randomly like corpses on the shelf. Flowers are strewn over the table and the entire floor. She is talking to herself.

OPHELIA
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. (Sings) At his head a grass green turf, at his heels a stone.

PROVIDENCE IN THE FALL OF A SPARROW

Matthew 10:26-33 (King James Version)

 26Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.

 27What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.

 28And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

 29Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

 30But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

 31Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

 32Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

 33But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.


HAMLET
There is special providence inthe fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to
come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the
readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't
to leave betimes, let be.


USA TODAY 11/14/2005

Sparrow knocks over 23,000 dominoes before being shot
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world record attempt before it was shot to death Monday, the state news agency reported.

The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in the northern city of Leeuwarden where employees of television company Endemol NV have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official Guinness World Record for falling dominoes on Friday night.

Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule, "Domino Day" organizers were quoted as saying by the NOS news agency.

The bird was shot by an exterminator with an air rifle while cowering in a corner.

The organizers are out to break their own record of 3,992,397 dominoes set last year with a record of 4,321,000.

This story raised a simple question for me. Was this dominoes record worth the life of a bird? My answer was definitely "No". These people were so short-sighted and caught up in this childishly trivial "record" they were seeking that they actually destroyed an animal to protect it. Actually, a lot of people found this story very distasteful and a lot of criticism rained down on the guy who shot the bird and the whole group because for a lot of people,

"The sparrow was killed by an exterminator with an air rifle on Monday after it knocked down 23,000 dominoes. The killing was seen by many as an overreaction, and angered animal rights and bird protection groups." AP 11/22/10

Of course they got the record

There is just something sad in this story. Of course it involves lots of overreaction and media-fueled anger, but it brought a sadness to that line in Hamlet that will always remain with me.

THERE IS A WILLOW

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: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds 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: 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.

WHO SHOULD SCAPE WHIPPING?

Is there any more bitter or forgiving line than this is all of literature? Treat every person as they deserve and everybody would deserve a beating. What a plain, direct, honest view of human nature. Yet, Hamlet suggests that we should treat people as we want to be treated (Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.) Even if you accept in a very Walter Kaufmann kind of way that Shakespeare was no Christian, this is absolutely a Christian idea. Whatever else he may have thought about the words and ideas of Jesus, Shakespeare clearly expresses such Christian ideas as "Do unto others" and "Who has been forgiven little, loves little".He seems to have a deep sympathy for human beings at least as he expresses it through Hamlet.

DENMARK'S A PRISON

HAMLET

In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true! she is a strumpet. What news ?

ROSENCRANTZ

None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

HAMLET

Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN

Prison, my lord?

HAMLET

Denmark's a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ

Then is the world one.

HAMLET

A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.

ROSENCRANTZ

We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET

Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either Good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ

Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for Your mind.

HAMLET

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN

Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of ambition is merely the shadow of a dream.

THE UNCOVERED MEAT

"But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn't have snatched it."

"If you get a kilo of meat, and you don't put it in the fridge or in the pot or in the kitchen but you leave it on a plate in the backyard, and then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats eat the meat, you're crazy. Isn't this true?"

"If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn't roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won't get it."

Polonius stands looking at her for some time and then he hands her some clothes he is carrying.

POLONIUS
What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

Ophelia begins to remove her dress and to put on the dress that her father handed to her. She performs this task as though she has done it a million times. She stands nude for a moment before she puts on the dress knowing that she is not allowed to be shy in front of him. She is ashamed and quiet but she does not show her true feelings to her father. She behaves like an automaton.

OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

POLONIUS
Marry, well bethought! 'Tis told me he hath very oft of late Given private time to you, and you yourself Have of your audience been most free and bounteous. What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS
Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl, Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA
I do not know, my lord, what I should think

POLONIUS
Marry, I will teach you! Think yourself a baby That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay.

OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importun'd me with love In honourable fashion.

POLONIUS
Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to!

OPHELIA
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

POLONIUS
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know--

Polonius now walks around her enjoying the image he has created by putting her in this outfit. His words become more sensual and precise but he does not touch her.

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows. From this time Be something scanter of your maiden presence. For Lord Hamlet, believe so much in him, That with a larger tether may he walk Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, Do not believe his vows. I would not from this time forth Have you so slander any moment leisure As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Polonius puts his hand under her chin and lifts her head. They lock eyes for a few moments.

Look to't, I charge you.

OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord.

Polonius then kisses her gently on the mouth.

MAKE HER LAUGH AT THAT

Gertrude sits down at her table and drinks from a goblet. She then begins to put on make-up. She covers her face as though to hide some horrible stain. Claudius comes into the room.

KING CLAUDIUS
Where is your son?

GERTRUDE
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!

Gertrude reaches for some wine, but Claudius takes the goblet from her.

KING CLAUDIUS
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Gertrude speaks with a strange calm. She simply describes what she saw. She maintains clinical distance throughout.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend which is the mightier.

She tries to kiss Claudius who pushes her away. She barely acknowledges this.

In his lawless fit, Behind the arras hearing something stir, Whips out his rapier, cries, 'A rat, a rat!' And, in this brainish apprehension, kills The unseen good old man.

KING CLAUDIUS
It had been so with us, had we been there: His liberty is full of threats to all; To you yourself, to us, to every one. Where is he gone?

QUEEN GERTRUDE
To draw apart the body he hath kill'd: He weeps for what is done.

Gertrude again tries to kiss Claudius and she almost draws him in but he is suddenly disgusted by her and terrified by her. He leaves the room.

She is upset at first, but suddenly she becomes very calm and sits down again at the table and continues caking on the makeup.

HAMLET 
Let me see.

 

The gravedigger goes back to work singing in the background. Hamlet quietly peruses the skull for a time.

Hamlet repeats his line “Make her laugh at that” and then he laughs loudly. CU of the skull as Hamlet’s laughter rings and seems to come from the skull itself.

INT. GERTRUDE’S ROOM NIGHT

Gertrude stands in front of her mirror wearing a negligee. She studies her aging body with fear and concern (behind her a whisper “Make her laugh at that”). She puts on lipstick.

 

INT. MORGUE

CU of lipstick being applied to the dead body of Ophelia which lies on a slab. She is being dressed and made up for burial. Laertes enters the room and makes everyone leave. He touches Ophelia’s face.

INT. GETRUDE’S ROOM

Claudius moves into view in the mirror behind Gertrude. He begins to touch her gently but passionately and he slowly begins to remove her negligee. Gertrude is ashamed of herself, ashamed of her body, ashamed of her guilty flesh that cannot help but lust. Slowly, she gives in and finds herself in a passionate kiss.

EXT. GRAVEYARD

Hamlet sits in the graveyard dazed still holding the skull of Yorick. His ruminations on death have sunk him and he is beyond even his madness now in his powerless despair.

INT. GERTRUDE’S ROOM

Claudius is now fervently kissing Gertrude. He pushes her back on the bed and looks at her intensely as he puts his hand on her face and on her lips.

INT. MORGUE

Laertes caresses Ophelia’s dead face. He puts his fingers on her lips and his intense pain overwhelms him.

GRAVEYARD

Hamlet caresses the skull of the one friend he has ever trusted on the earth.

GERTRUDE’S ROOM

Claudius and Gertrude are passionately writhing on the bed in the middle of lovemaking.

MORGUE

Laertes now has his fingers around his sister’s neck as he did in the earlier scene where he half-threatened her and his entire body has tightened in anger.

GRAVEYARD

Hamlet’s face – self-loathing, ironic mockery of his own feelings. Too many emotions to chart or describe. Another explosion of his bitter laughter.

GERTRUDE’S ROOM

Laughter continues over the image of Gertrude and Claudius collapsing just at the end of orgasm. Gertrude’s face reveals the same self-loathing as Hamlet, but she also trembles with pleasure and need.

MORGUE

Laertes explodes in anger and runs out of the morgue.

A slashing guttural piece of music punctuates a quick fade to black.

EXT. GRAVEYARD DAY

At the ring of a church bell, a slow fade in on the grave that was being dug and the camera slowly moves to find Hamlet in the same position as before but with the tension and frustration turned to sadness and resignation and numbness. He is raised from his stupor by the sound of a procession bearing a dead body. He hears two male voices from a distance.

THE PLAYERS

INT. BACKSTAGE – NIGHT

Hamlet opens the door to the player’s dressing room. We see a beautiful naked female ass from Hamlet’s POV. When the actress turns around, we see that she has a cock. Hamlet is surprised. The other players laugh. Hamlet speaks to the players as though they are children. Throughout the speech, they react by over-enthusiastic head-nodding and overdone gestures. As he talks to them, the players change from their hospital type gowns into very tightly wrapped gauze and violent, strange clownish make-up.

HAMLET
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped ---

The players howl and moan in terror.

 HAMLET (CONT)
Pray you, avoid it. Hold the mirror up to nature, show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

Hamlet directs this part of the speech to the clown.

And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.

The clown is very nervous until Hamlet smiles and pats him on the head.

HAMLET
Go, make you ready.

INT. OPHELIA’S ROOM SAME

Ophelia is being encased in a metal bustier by servant women as Polonius supervises and attends to details.

INT. GERTRUDE’S ROOM SAME

Claudius looks worried and Gertrude kisses him very sensually.

INT. BACKSTAGE SAME

Hamlet demonstrates to the players how to put the poison in the ear of the King.

The montage speeds up

Servants apply make-up and work on Ophelia’s hands and details of her dress.

Claudius and Gertrude get wilder as Gertrude tries to calm him with sex.

Hamlet builds his poisoning demonstration to a point that frightens even the players by its intensity.

INT. THRONE ROOM - NIGHT

The stage where the play will take place seen from Hamlet’s POV as he makes sure that everything is all right. Claudius gets his attention.

KING CLAUDIUS 
How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET
Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING CLAUDIUS
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET
No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

LORD POLONIUS (To KING CLAUDIUS)
O, ho! Do you mark that?

HAMLET
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Lying down at Ophelia's feet

OPHELIA
No, my lord.

HAMLET
I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA 
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET 
Do you think I meant country matters?

 OPHELIA 
I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET 
That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

 Polonius looks at Hamlet. Ophelia pretends she does not understand.

 OPHELIA 
What is, my lord?

 HAMLET 
Nothing.

 OPHELIA 
You are merry, my lord.

 HAMLET 
Who, I?

OPHELIA 
Ay, my lord.

 HAMLET 
O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my
mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

 Claudius and Gertrude stare at him. Ophelia tries to cover for him.

 OPHELIA 
Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

 HAMLET 
So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?
Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.

 The dumb-show enters

 Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.

THE MURDER OF KING HAMLET

Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ear did pour
The leprous distillment.

I've always wondered if the murder of King Hamlet as described by Shakespeare would be possible. It seems a bit unlikely that pouring poison into the ear could cause death and modern crime TV shows like CSI have never (to my knowledge) exploited this possibility. However, research revealed that not only have several modern doctors taken up this question, they have concluded that it is indeed possible to murder someone in this manner.

"Ototoxicity is drug or chemical damage to the inner ear. This section of the ear contains both the hearing mechanism and the vestibulocochlear nerve, the nerve that sends hearing and balance information to the brain. Because of this, ototoxic drugs may cause lack of hearing, and loss of sense of balance.The extent of ototoxicity varies with the drug, the dose, and other conditions." Wikipedia

"In this article I attempt to analyze and discuss in the light of present medical information this scene of Hamlet. How did Shakespeare come to this singular idea? Could the venom extracted from a narcotic plant with beautiful leaves, a foul odor, yellow flowers above and purple below, have been responsible for the death of King Hamlet? If it is accepted that the extracted henbane was of good quality, could the manner chosen by the fratricide have been effective? I conclude that it was possible to accomplish the murder as it was written in the tragedy...It is hard, however, to accept that, in this way, such a quick poisoning would take place. On the other hand, the tympanic membrane can be perforated and the highly vascularized middle ear is connected to the pharynx by the eustachian tube. Something similar happens with intoxication by atropine contained in eyedrops, where the drug passes by way of the lacrimal duct toward the nose and is eventually swallowed. Chronic otorrhea was not uncommon in Shakespeare’s times and there are indications that physicians of that time might have known that fluids in the middle ear could pass into the pharynx and that a substance instilled into an ear with a tympanic perforation could find its way to the pharynx and be swallowed." Scopolamine and the Murder of King Hamlet, ARCH OTOLARYNGOL HEAD NECK SURG/VOL 128, JULY 2002 by Basilio Aristidis Kotsias, MD, PhD

So it seems that if the murderer was aware that King Hamlet had some kind of perforation in his ear drum and somehow caught him at a time when he was unlikely to wake up when having something poured into his ear, his strange plan might have succeeded. Maybe he saw this as the only way to deliver the poison or maybe there is symbolic significance for poisoning the ear in particular, but modern science shows us that what was probably just a cool idea to Shakespeare has a foundation in medical reality.

MY HAMLET

This version of Hamlet is not meant to be some kind of criticism of the play where I'm saying that the old way doesn't work anymore and everything needs to be changed. This is more of a re-imagining of the play in which certain elements are stressed at the expense of others. I have cut away a lot of the politics of the play because I've seen that angle done very well and I don't think I could add much to it. Jan Kott does an excellent job of covering that element in his book Shakespeare Our Contemporary and I recommend it highly for anyone who wants to take that approach. My approach is more of the existential approach.

The most important line in this interpretation is "Denmark's a prison" and that prison is "a goodly one with many confines, wards and dungeons." For me this prison is death and death-bound subjectivity and the mind that is created by such death-bound subjectivity. It is a world of cruelty and abuse and insanity in many, many forms. It is a world without friendship (which is why Horatio has been eliminated from this version). It is a world of betrayal and misery and desperation that is expressed in psychological subtleties and in images of tremendous need and passion. Hamlet needs to understand, Ophelia needs to be understood, Gertrude needs to be loved, Claudius needs power. Their needs are naked and sometimes violent and they are driven and tormented by these needs. Shakespeare has shown this in his own way and I have shown it in mine.

I have also severely cut the role of Hamlet because the play is simply too long for a movie (Branagh's attempt notwithstanding). I want 90 zippy minutes where the audience can get involved with the characters and the action and then go out for coffee afterwards and talk about it. The marathon of a four hour movie tends to discourage conversation. It seems to me to be more of a sledge-hammer directed at the audience's skull. Don't get me wrong. I believe it's possible to make a four hour Hamlet that would be very compelling and cool but I am not that film-maker. That person would need a concept that extended into every nook and cranny of the play and that could be translated into compelling images that somehow interacted in an exciting way with the words. My approach is more to cut the hell out of the words and add images that occurred to me viscerally in relation to the words. Even now, as I write this, I feel that my own version is a little word heavy and that I might cut more and use more images. That is my vision of film and I think that if you want the words, you can read the play or go to the theatre where it is almost surely playing somewhere.

Here is a version of Hamlet that comes from sensual reactions to the play and thoughts about the play and my own experience as an actor with the play and from my own sensibilities of what constitutes a good film. Like the million versions before this one, it will please a certain group, alienate another group and be met with profound indifference by most of the world. C'est la vie.

I ask for or expect no indulgence from anyone. I write what I want to write, make what I want to make and leave others to enjoy or hate or ignore as they please. This Hamlet comes from a deep fascination with and appreciation of the play over many years. I love this work and I love how it has made me feel and how it has changed for me over all these years. I have returned to it over and over almost always with great pleasure and I’m grateful to Shakespeare for giving it to us. I’m also grateful that it entered my mind in a way that wanted to be expressed as film and my only serious concern it to find the right people to make that film and create something close to my vision that can also have its own life and be a source of interest and inspiration for those audience members who see things in a similar way to me.

POISON

LUCIANUS

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears.

HAMLET

He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

MELANCHOLY MONTAGE

HAMLET 

Let me see.

The gravedigger goes back to work singing in the background. Hamlet quietly peruses the skull for a time.

Hamlet repeats his line “Make her laugh at that” and then he laughs loudly. CU of the skull as Hamlet’s laughter rings and seems to come from the skull itself.

INT. GERTRUDE’S ROOM NIGHT

Gertrude stands in front of her mirror wearing a negligee. She studies her aging body with fear and concern (behind her a whisper “Make her laugh at that”). She puts on lipstick.

INT. MORGUE

CU of lipstick being applied to the dead body of Ophelia which lies on a slab. She is being dressed and made up for burial. Laertes enters the room and makes everyone leave. He touches Ophelia’s face.

INT. GETRUDE’S ROOM

Claudius moves into view in the mirror behind Gertrude. He begins to touch her gently but passionately and he slowly begins to remove her negligee. Gertrude is ashamed of herself, ashamed of her body, ashamed of her guilty flesh that cannot help but lust. Slowly, she gives in and finds herself in a passionate kiss.

EXT. GRAVEYARD

Hamlet sits in the graveyard dazed still holding the skull of Yorick. His ruminations on death have sunk him and he is beyond even his madness now in his powerless despair.

INT. GERTRUDE’S ROOM

Claudius is now fervently kissing Gertrude. He pushes her back on the bed and looks at her intensely as he puts his hand on her face and on her lips.

INT. MORGUE

Laertes caresses Ophelia’s dead face. He puts his fingers on her lips and his intense pain overwhelms him.

GRAVEYARD

Hamlet caresses the skull of the one friend he has ever trusted on the earth.

GERTRUDE’S ROOM

Claudius and Gertrude are passionately writhing on the bed in the middle of lovemaking.

MORGUE

Laertes now has his fingers around his sister’s neck as he did in the earlier scene where he half-threatened her and his entire body has tightened in anger.

GRAVEYARD

Hamlet’s face – self-loathing, ironic mockery of his own feelings. Too many emotions to chart or describe. Another explosion of his bitter laughter.

GERTRUDE’S ROOM

Laughter continues over the image of Gertrude and Claudius collapsing just at the end of orgasm. Gertrude’s face reveals the same self-loathing as Hamlet, but she also trembles with pleasure and need.

MORGUE

Laertes explodes in anger and runs out of the morgue.

A slashing guttural piece of music punctuates a quick fade to black.

EXT. GRAVEYARD DAY

At the ring of a church bell, a slow fade in on the grave that was being dug and the camera slowly moves to find Hamlet in the same position as before but with the tension and frustration turned to sadness and resignation and numbness. He is raised from his stupor by the sound of a procession bearing a dead body. He hears two male voices from a distance.