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.