What a Wounded Name: Three Hamlets on Film
None of three recent English-speaking film versions of Hamlet - directed by Laurence Olivier (1948), Tony Richardson (1969), and Franco Zeffirelli (1990) - manage to completely capture the spirit of Shakespeare's text in both the early scenes involving the ghost and the concluding duel scene.
I - Murder Most Foul
The depiction of the ghost of Hamlet's father in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film is textually accurate: armed and in armor, the towering apparition, photographed from low angles, is obscured in a foggy mist, striking fear and horror into Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus. Similarly, Shakespeare's textual ghost is a "dreaded sight," a "conqueror" in "war-like form," moving with a "martial stalk" "in complete steel," clad in the same armor "from head to foot" as he wore when he defeated his rival King Fortinbras in single combat. A "portentous figure" for the troubled Denmark, the warrior ghost with "an eye like Mars" wears its visor down and carries a truncheon. When Olivier/Hamlet confronts the ghost, he holds his sword before himself for protection, admitting aloud his uncertainty whether the vision is "a spirit of health or goblin damn'd." The ghost's low, rasping, muffled voice frightens Hamlet to his knees ("mark me") as it demands vengeance for the "murder most foul," and when it vanishes into the eerie mist, Hamlet collapses, drained, onto his back.
In Tony Richardson's 1969 film, twenty-one years later, the ghost of the elder Hamlet has lost most of its dominating textual detail, although it still strikes fear into Horatio and the watch. Richardson's "ghost" is merely a blinding, spectral light with an echoing voice. Not at all cinematic and hardly dramatic, the ghost is never shown directly, but only in reflection on its witnesses' faces. Nevertheless, the human reaction from the "sick at heart" watch is desperate fear, as the guards strike at it futilely with their swords, and Horatio vows, "I'll cross it, though it blast me." The eventual confrontation between the ghost and Hamlet (Nicol Williamson) is underwhelming in comparison with Olivier's version, partly due to the lack of visual authority and malevolence in the ghost, and partly from heavy editing of dialogue: the ghost's final speech is cut by nearly two-thirds, including the final words, "remember me." Further, the call to violent revenge is less forceful and repugnant due to the omission of the "murder most foul, as in the best it is" passage, in which the textual ghost - as well as Olivier's - subtly suggests Hamlet befoul himself through homicide.
In Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film, another twenty-one years later, the ghost of Hamlet's father has lost virtually all its spectral authority and awful malevolence, albeit none of its intensity of emotion. Zeffirelli's ghost is a rather weak and pathetic figure, portrayed as a slight, elderly victim by Paul Scofield. Far from the characterization of the textual ghost as a valiant conqueror, "rankly abus'd," who makes an unequivocal, angry demand for immediate justice and revenge, the hunched and robed, white-bearded and puffy-eyed Scofield provokes remorse and anguish, expressing little outrage and none of the dominating authority of Shakespeare's elder Hamlet. An elusive apparition, the ghost is pursued by Mel Gibson as Hamlet, his sword brandished in fear and wonder at the return of his father. Gibson portrays Hamlet with virility and strength, although textually his character is a fat*, thirtyish scholar who expresses "unmanly grief," a physical and emotional contrast to his deceased father, who had been a bold, courageous conqueror of kingdoms. Zeffirelli interprets the text quite differently: in his film, the defeated, seated ghost, when finally discovered by the quickly pursuing Gibson, holds out imploring hands sadly, and nearly whispers, "if thou didst ever thy dear father love," in direct contrast to the looming, fearsome warrior-king of the text and Olivier's film. In Zeffirelli's version, even the tone of the ghost's revelatory dialogue differs from the Olivier and Richardson films, although it is as dramatically charged as the former, and more powerfully wrought than the latter: spoken by Scofield in a broken voice, near tears, at one moment with his hands held in anguished exasperation atop his head, the emotional emphasis is on pity and sorrow, rather than on anger and revenge. Scofield describes the murder in the orchard as "o horrible, most horrible," words spoken in the previous films not by the ghost, but by Hamlet himself. The final image of Scofield is with tears running freely down his cheeks, as his parting words - "adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me" - move Gibson to tears as well. Zeffirelli's film locates Hamlet's motivation almost entirely in grief for a beloved father struck down by a "smiling, damned villain," whereas the text and Olivier's version, and much less effectively, Richardson's film, center the motivation for revenge primarily in the brutal demands of an angry, dominating monarch, and secondarily on the avenging of a wronged father. Further, Zeffirelli's film is the only one of the three to employ Shakespeare's description of limbo as the ghost's lonely doom in a fiery "prison-house," the sad tale the ghost believes will "harrow" the younger Hamlet's very soul, and increase his urgency to help, rather than just avenge, his father.
* Textually, and in the Richardson film, Hamlet is referred to by the Queen as "fat and scant of breath" during the duel with Laertes; in the Olivier film, however, he is "hot and scant of breath," and the athletic Gibson in the Zeffirelli version is merely "scant of breath."
II - What a Wounded Name
Laurence Olivier's 1948 film remains true to Shakespeare's text in its depiction of Hamlet's foil, Laertes, during the concluding duel scene. Like Hamlet, Laertes begins to lose his initial vengeful intensity when he realizes how ignoble his murderous actions are. Laertes admits aloud that striking the unexpecting Hamlet with the envenomed sword is "almost against my conscience," and after being wounded himself, Laertes confesses that he is "justly killed" with his own treachery, decries the "foul practice" of revenge, and exchanges forgiveness with the "noble Hamlet." Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 version is also true to the spirit of the text, although it only visually implies Laertes' change of heart, as he retreats from Hamlet, frightened and wide-eyed in shame and disgrace, scarcely defending himself until Hamlet wounds him in return. Conversely, in Tony Richardson's earlier 1969 film, Laertes is murderous and completely conscienceless - eagerly telling the King, "I'll hit him now," once Hamlet is defenseless - until he is mortally injured himself. Only when faced with his own death does he confess his and Claudius' plan to kill Hamlet, and in this version he even fails to mention "the foul practice" that has turned itself on him.
From the point when Hamlet is injured by Laertes, Olivier's film becomes something of a star vehicle, departing suddenly and radically from the text: now mortally wounded, Olivier's Hamlet takes on a mesmerizing, murderous intensity, dramatically disarming Laertes and then cold-bloodedly, with lightning skill and precision, returning the death-blow. When the Queen collapses Hamlet runs up a long flight of stone stairs - "Treachery! Seek it out" - and then makes the famous fourteen-foot leap onto Claudius, rising to stab the King three times with the poisoned sword. Textually, however, the shocked courtiers should cry out "treason," being completely unaware of Hamlet's motivation, and ostensibly still loyal to their King; in the Olivier film, on the other hand, the injured King is surrounded by a threatening circle of silent, looming guards who draw their swords against him, and after Claudius' death, the entire court kneels in allegiance to - and sorrow for - the dying Hamlet, and film star Laurence Olivier.
Similarly, Mel Gibson as Hamlet is clearly the Hollywood movie star in the duel scene of Zeffirelli's film, as he mugs, winks, and prances his way through the contest, at one point sneezing on Osric, and consistently goading the infuriated Laertes. Once wounded, however, and especially after the grotesque poisoning death of the Queen, Gibson becomes murderous, although not as dramatically as Olivier. Surprisingly, the duel scene in Richardson's version, with Nicol Williamson as Hamlet, is monotonous and dull, shot almost entirely from the same angle, and amid a claustrophobically crowded court. Only the death of Claudius, as enacted by Anthony Hopkins, is dramatic, with his outraged, painful cry when stabbed, and his horrific gurgling on the poisoned wine Williamson forces down his throat.
Olivier's departure from the text continues in the final moments of his film. With the people and the court already on his side, Hamlet has no need for his close friend Horatio to tell his story, and no need to fear for his name and reputation. On the other hand, the Richardson and Zeffirelli versions, like the text, depict the court as stunned and unaware, although sympathetic to Hamlet, and Hamlet is portrayed as especially concerned with his reputation of nobility, as he instructs Horatio to "report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied," and as fearing "what a wounded name . . . shall I leave behind me." The Richardson film best expresses the depth of the Hamlet/Horatio friendship, as it is the only version of the three to follow the text in Horatio's suicide attempt ("here's yet some [poisoned] liquor left") and to include the line which illustrates how well Horatio understands what Hamlet has suffered and endured: "now cracks a noble heart."
Although none of the three films includes the final entrance of Fortinbras, the Olivier film ironically ascribes some of the violent and vengeful Norwegian prince's lines to Horatio, Hamlet's only friend and confidant, in a decided misreading of the text. Olivier's "Horatio" instructs that Hamlet be borne away "like a soldier," and comments that "the soldier's music and the rite of war/Speak loudly for him." This martiality is precisely what Hamlet would not want for himself, as Horatio should know: Hamlet is a noble courtier ("the glass of fashion and the mold of form"), a romantic and a scholar, a poet and a playwright, an actor and a philosopher, whose nature - despite his initial impulse - does not involve violence and revenge. Textually, and in the Richardson and Zeffirelli films, Hamlet is tortured with fear for his reputation with "things standing thus unknown"; he needs Horatio to recount to the world his torment, his melancholy and indecision, as he struggles with the conflict between his feelings and his duty. The Richardson film displays a sense of trust and friendship between the two in its final scene, in which Horatio sadly closes the eyes of the dead Hamlet, who is then freeze-framed in profile and extreme close-up. Even truer to the spirit of the text is the ending of Zeffirelli's film, with Horatio seated on the floor beside the sprawled Hamlet; the camera lifts straight up and slowly away, visually evoking Horatio's (and the film's) final, poetic words - "and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" - an extreme emotional contrast to Horatio's bloodless final lines in Olivier's version, in which the courtiers are ordered to have the cannons fired for Hamlet: "go, bid the soldiers shoot."
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.11, No.1, Winter 1993.