Prelude to Mel Gibson’s Movie Version of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Kang Liao
Fade in:
It is dawn. The royal palace is veiled by mist. The atmosphere is secretive and
mysterious. Looking into the window of Gertrude’s chamber, the camera reveals
Gertrude and Claudius in bed. They both wear nightgowns and are half covered by
a huge embroidered quilt. Claudius leans against the pillows with a blank gaze
at the void, and his fingers playing absent-mindedly with a lock of hair of the
queen, who lies in Claudius’s arm and holds his neck looking at him
passionately. It is quiet, and birds’ singing can be vaguely heard.
Gertrude:
Listen, Claudius, yonder larks are singing,
Which I wish were still songs of nightingales
That gave our loving tune the counterpoint.
Claudius sits and looks up and speaks with anger waving his right arm:
Oh, cursed larks! Why do you leave your nests
So early to interrupt lovers’ night?
Oh, Night, my stallion, black and beautiful,
Gallop not so fast away with joy!
My joy that’s so enormous yet so rare
That only when he’s away can I find here.
Oh, why must he who only enjoys fighting
Occupy the battlefield of caressing,
And yet caressing he knows not how to give?
How I wish there would be more challengers
To draw him into combats oftener!
How I wish a stronger hand would him slay!
Gertrude also sits up, holds Claudius’s neck again and speaks tenderly:
No, talk not slaying, Claudius, he’s King,
Thy brother, the Protector of Denmark.
Be content, dear Claudius, don’t complain.
I fear complaint would ruin what we have.
Claudius looks down at Gertrude and says impatiently:
Content, how? When soon will drums and trumpets
Announce his triumphant return today,
When we again shall have to pass so many,
So many sleepless nights, and separately,
And thou in bed with an impotent man,
And I with no one that interests me,
And you the Queen, august and regal Queen,
And I, a humble subject, bow must I
Before you, rather than embrace my love.
Content, oh, how can I?
Gertrude speaks first in a soothing and then joking tone:
Be soothed, dear.
I understand thy suffering; for the same
I suffer too, and maybe more, a lot more,
For thou mayst go and find some substitute,
But I can only wait until he takes
A nap, and snatch some hungry snaps of thee
That never satisfy my starving love.
Claudius speaks defensively and reassuringly:
Oh, substitute, but I have none at all.
Thou art my only paradise on earth,
And nor can my starvation cease with snacks.
So long as naps not fall into a long sleep,
So long I long for thee and long wakes keep.
Gertrude is touched and speaks dearly:
Dear Claudius, how thy sweet words enchant me!
As thou didst twenty years ago, when King,
Old Hamlet, went to fight old Fortinbras,
And thou then tookst me into thine own arms,
And into raptures previously unknown,
In which our son, young Hamlet, was conceived.
They kiss.
Claudius gets up and walks back and forth between the bed and the wall, which
is mostly covered by the arras. Gertrude remains in bed leaning against the
pillows and watching Claudius, who speaks more to himself than to Gertrude:
Our son, to whom too I shall have to bow,
When he succeeds the throne of Kingdom Dane.
A father bows to his, his own son. God!
Is this thy cruel mock of lovers’ sin?
I have been forced to hide a father’s love,
To suffer being called “uncle” by my son,
To suffer hearing Hamlet calling him,
Not me, the endearing word, “father,” God!
Isn’t this enough for a lover’s punishment?
Do I one day to Hamlet have to bow?
Gertrude gets up, goes to Claudius, and hugs him consolingly:
Poor Claudius, question not almighty God.
I fear his powerful hand will inflict
More severe punishments upon us both.
Claudius pushes her away and speaks jealously and decisively:
Fear not! Thou, being a woman, knowst not
My pain as an illegitimate father,
Without a son’s respect and endearing love,
Which thou as mother hast received so much.
How I do envy thee! To gain my share
Perhaps there’s only one…but who’s o’erthere?
I think I heard some noise behind the arras.
They look at the arras and listen, but apparently there is nobody.
Gertrude:
‘Tis late, thou hast to go, my dear, adieu!
Claudius:
Adieu, dear Gertrude, soon I’ll be back for you.
Claudius exits. The scene fades out and into the funeral of King Hamlet at the
beginning of the movie.
Commentary
The Ghost in Hamlet tells the prince:
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts ---
O wicked wit and gifts that have the power
So to seduce --- won to his shameful lust
The will of my most
seeming virtuous queen.
(I. 5. 42-46)
Therefore, we know that Gertrude and Claudius have had sexual relations before,
not after, King Hamlet’s death, which is also how Hamlet understands the Ghost
because in Act V, Scene II, Hamlet says to Horatio that Claudius has “whored my
mother” (64). However, the Ghost does not mention when the adulterate
relationship begins or how long it has lasted. This unknown information allows
me to suppose that Gertrude and Claudius may, just may, have begun their
adultery even before Hamlet is born, that Hamlet may even be Claudius’s son.
Based on this possibility I wrote the prelude, which can readily fit into the
latest movie version of Hamlet, in which Mel Gibson plays the protagonist.
In Act I, Scene I, Horatio tells Barnardo and Marcellus that King Hamlet was
once challenged by Fortinbras of Norway to the combat, “in which our valiant
Hamlet --- / for so this side of our known world esteemed him --- / Did slay
this Fortinbras” (84-86). It is my intention to make this event more
significant than the explanation for “this same strict and most observant watch
/ So nightly toils the subject of the land” (I.
1. 71-72). I let Gertrude say:
when King,
Old Hamlet, went to fight old Fortinbras,
And thou then tookst me into thine own arms,
And into raptures previously unknown,
In which our son, young Hamlet, was conceived.
Thus, I suggest that King Hamlet’s slaying of Fortinbras is not so
consequential as his absence from home itself, because the latter gives
Claudius the opportunity to seduce Gertrude. This accords with Shakespeare’s
theme that the trouble and tragedy of Denmark start within rather than without,
as we learn from Act I, Scene II that Claudius sends Cornelius and Voltemand to
Norway to suppress young Fortinbras’s “further gait herein” (31), and from Act
II, Scene II that as soon as Claudius’s letter is presented to Norway, young
Fortinbras “receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine / Makes vow before his
uncle never more / To give th’ assay of arms against your majesty” (69-71). The
trouble without is thus easily pacified, but the trouble within is just
beginning.
I made the conception of Hamlet as a result of Claudius’s seduction of Gertrude
in order to intensify the tragic element of the play. I intend to let the
audience know from the very beginning that Prince Hamlet is taking an appalling
task, namely to avenge his legitimate father on his biological father, while he
himself does not know the whole truth for sure. Towards the end of the tragedy
when Hamlet finally takes the revenge, the audience should feel all the more
intensely the pity and terror that Hamlet is made to kill his own father, that
Claudius should be punished so severely for his crimes as to be killed by his
own son. Thus, Providence
can be shown all the more awe-inspiring, and the catharsis of the tragedy can
be achieved more thoroughly.
Many critics believe that Hamlet is a man of words and thoughts but not a man
of action, that he always hesitates and procrastinates in the course of taking
the revenge. This belief even gives rise to the publication of Earnest Jones’s
book Hamlet and Oedipus, which offers the Freudian explanation for Hamlet’s
hesitation and procrastination. I do not see exactly when and where Hamlet ever
hesitates, or procrastinates. My prelude, I hope, can provide a better
explanation for what may be going on in Hamlet’s mind, when he makes his famous
soliloquy, “To be or not to be…” that is often used to demonstrate his
hesitation. Hamlet is cautious and intelligent. If he does not completely
believe the Ghost’s words until he has trapped Claudius with the play within
the play, he can also deduce something beyond what the Ghost has told him and
ponder on the possibility that Claudius just may be his birth father. He is
tortured by this thought, by the frightening truth that is beyond this life, by
the dread of what his “opposing” may result in, and by the “rub,” the possible
eternal punishment that he would receive in the other life if he should kill
his biological father. It is not suicide that he is planning to commit, and it
is not death that he fears, but it is for what he will die that he meditates. It
is the aftermath of death that “puzzles the will” (III.
1. 80). This is why he decides “to be” and “to suffer.” Eventually, Claudius
commits new crimes by letting Hamlet and his mother be poisoned. These crimes
dispel all Hamlet’s misgivings, and immediately, he takes actions and kills his
uncle on the site of the crimes.
Claudius’s motives to murder King Hamlet are, of course, to mount the throne
and marry Gertrude. I have no intention to defend the murderer or to whitewash
the adultery, but I want to add two less important motives, which, I believe,
will help to portray Claudius more as a sinful criminal than an evil
incarnation.
The first motive is that Claudius wants to be loved, respected, and addressed
by Prince Hamlet as a father. The second motive is that Claudius has suffered
quite enough being treated as an uncle by his own son and seeing his birth
son’s love go to his older brother, and Claudius is further tortured by the
idea that the punishment will yet be even more severe if Prince Hamlet one day
succeeds the throne, and he, Claudius, will have to bow to his own son. He
cannot tolerate such a mock. Although he is aware that this is God’s
punishment, he still tries to evade it by murdering his older brother before
young Hamlet has reached majority, so that it is more likely that Claudius can
become King, even by election, to marry the queen, to be called father by
Hamlet, and to be loved as such. Actually, Claudius has achieved the first two
purposes, but Providence
mocks him on his second two purposes.
Claudius does try to win Hamlet’s love. One of the first announcements he makes
as King is to proclaim that “let the world take mote / You (Hamlet) are the
most immediate to our throne” (I. 2. 108-9).
His eagerness to claim Hamlet as his son is also shown in the same scene when
he says, “now my cousin Hamlet, and my son ---” (64). Moreover, I find in
Claudius’s claim a father’s sincere love: “with no less nobility of love / Than
that which dearest father bears his son, / Do I impart toward you” (110-12).
This is why he prays that Hamlet should “throw to earth / This unprevailing
woe, and think of us / As of a father” (106-8).
Hamlet’s rejection of Claudius’s fatherly love is so obvious that I do not need
to quote anything from the play to prove it. His rejection naturally hurts
Claudius’s feelings, and Claudius realizes that all his efforts to win over
Prince Hamlet’s love are to no avail. What is worse is that he senses danger
from Hamlet, who, he suspects, somehow knows about the murder and is trying to
revenge the old king. As soon as Claudius confirms his suspicion, as Hamlet
confirms his, after the play within the play, Claudius changes his mind and
decides to get rid of Hamlet. Thereafter, Claudius is going farther and farther
on the road of evil-doing.
It would be wonderful to write a soliloquy for Claudius to show how his
fatherly love changes to the filicidal determination, but it is equally
interesting and certainly more trusting to leave Claudius’s mental and
emotional transition to the imagination of the audience. Moreover, I just want
the prelude to remain in the audience’s mind as a predestinarian suggestion,
and I certainly do not want to interrupt Shakespeare’s masterpiece itself.
We know from the play within the play and from the closet scene that Claudius
alone is responsible for King Hamlet’s murder and Gertrude is innocent of this
crime. Therefore, in the prelude I give some hints to Claudius’s murderous
intention as well as to Gertrude’s innocence. Hence Claudius says, “How I wish
a stronger hand would him slay!”
Gertrude responds, “No, talk not slaying, Claudius, he’s King, / Your brother,
the Protector of Denmark.”
Then Claudius says, “So long as naps not fall into a long sleep, / So long I
long for thee and long wakes keep.”
Gertrude does not comprehend his double meaning of “a long sleep.” And that is
why Claudius does not finish his sentence “To gain my share / Perhaps there’s
only one…” he does not want Gertrude to sense his evil intention. So he
pretends to have heard some noise in order to cover up the intention implied in
the unfinished sentence.
As for Claudius’s words that King Hamlet is impotent, we, on the one hand, do
not have to believe him, but on the other hand, there may be some ring of
truth. Maybe that is partly why Gertrude can be seduced by Claudius. Maybe that
is exactly why the Ghost, without any explanation, forbids Hamlet to hurt
Gertrude. How can the Ghost explain to Hamlet that he has not quite fulfilled a
husband’s duty? If the prelude can initiate new interest in and imagination
about the play, make Claudius less two-dimensional and show more development in
his character, and if the prelude can offer more and different interpretations
of the tragedy, I shall be satisfied.
English 350
April 25, 1992