Revisiting Gibson

A day off from work gave me a good excuse to spend the day with Hamlet.  It was a return to the first performance that I had ever seen, Franco Zeffirelli's film starring Mel Gibson.  I forget when I saw it for the first time, but it was shortly after its theatrical release (and before I had read the text).  I recall watching it on a "new release" VHS copy rented from a video store.  I guess that dates me.  This time I watched it on DVD (a somewhat less obsolete format) as one more among many versions.

I discovered soon into the film that this is not Hamlet.  Rather, it is a film based on the Shakespearean play of that name.  That it is billed as "adapted from the play" says something.  It makes little sense to compare it to a stage production, as they are completely different beasts.  A film allows the luxury of numerous lush sets, novel camera work, cuts and dissolves.  This film is terrific in those aspects.  The production is visually stunning in cinematography and costuming.  The big-name cast is top-notch.

I found the screenplay to be a mess.  This is a function of having seen many stage productions and having a sense for what goes where in the play.  The film script is heavily edited to reduce it to a running time of 135 minutes, and as a result it is incredibly disjointed from Shakespeare's original.  While I could spend much time recounting this (and the Internet probably has much of this discussion already), one egregious example occurs in the middle of the film.  It begins with the nunnery scene.  The dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia does not include the word "nunnery," and Hamlet knows all along that they are being watched.  Following the interaction, it is decided that Hamlet must go to England.

Cut to a tomb, in which Hamlet speaks the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.  It is a great setting for what Mel Gibson calls "a speech about a Catch-22," and he delivers it exceedingly well.  The speech dissolves into Hamlet on horseback and then on a shore, sunbathing.  Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for their first appearance.  There had been no introductory conversation between them and Gertrude and Claudius.  They chat with Hamlet, he states that man delights not him and the players enter.  There is no discussion between the players and Hamlet, and there is no speech about "rugged Pyrrhus."  They are off-screen quickly and Hamlet dives into the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy with no introduction and no context.  The "Murder of Gonzago" scene likewise was rewritten.  Polonius' description of the actors' talents (tragical historical, etc.) moves there, as does the actual nunnery dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia.

Revisiting the film these many years later made for an interesting viewing experience.  More interesting at this point, though, were the two documentaries on the DVD.  Themes and questions that have surfaced in previous posts and in my own reflection on Hamlet were discussed by the cast and crew.  One such question is that of the problem of Hamlet.  As Gibson puts it, Hamlet's main problem is that no one understands him.  How is the problem solved?  There is no definite answer.  The actor just wanders in and goes crazy.  Ironically, though, Gibson calls Hamlet "the one voice of sanity throughout the play."  The character is very personal to the actor portraying him, which leaves the actor "pretty much on [his] own."  It's more than a part; it's an "assault on [the actor's] personality."

The contrast between Hamlet on stage on Hamlet on film is addressed by Mel Gibson.  As he states bluntly, "Film is not really the place for Hamlet."  To his mind, Hamlet is for the live stage.  It is a work to be redone night after night, "taking risks, getting it wrong, making it better."  While this film version is good in its own right, it made me appreciate a straightforward stage version even more.