(no subject)

Watched Branagh's 'Hamlet', although with much fastforwarding. I simple don't have the patience to sit through the whole four hours of it any longer, or at least not in front of a tv; the fascination has faded too much since.

But. Butbutbut.

'Hamlet' is one of those famous plays of which almost everyone has some kind image in his/her head, mostly, generalising from personal experience, one of the 'moody Dane', depressed, neurotic, oedipal; skull-in-hand recitation of 'to be or not to be'. Even if I'm more critical of the movie today than I was - how long has it been? six, seven years ago - Branagh's merit is that to me he made this often tossed about catch phrase real, gave it meaning, made me see it for what it was. Maybe at this point of my life I was ready to understand it, but I still think it has much to do with his interpretation of the part.

The choice to film the whole play without cuts whatsoever may have its disadvantages; there are lengths, especially noticeable with repeated viewing, but it has one main advantage - it draws the focus away from Hamlet a little. By fleshing out the other characters his actions and emotions can be explained not only by what he is, but as a reaction to what happens to him. And this I think is what Shakespeare had in mind.

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

These are not the words of a man who's depressed by nature, he's still acutely aware of how things used to be before the slide into darkness.

The play is one long confrontation with death, the story of a man coming to terms with it, as much as we ever can. Gertrud's 'Thou knowest 'tis common. All that lives must die...' and Claudius's rebuke of Hamlet's 'unseemly grief', the deliberation whether or not to kill himself, his hesitation to kill his uncle, all culminating in the graveyard scene where he is confronted with the ultimate reality of what it all comes down to. And Branagh makes this moment when the abstract concept of death suddenly assumes a face and becomes real entirely believable.

He stops to fight then, momentarily... there's acceptance in his 'the readiness is all', yet even in the end he wishes for more time and almost with his last breath he keeps Horatio from also killing himself. There's no resolution. Death remains a mystery. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / no traveller returns... That question none of us can escape, and I guess that's what draws people to this play. It's possible to relate to Hamlet, exactly because he doesn't go on a killing spree right away, because he reflects, he doubts, he fears.

The brief crucifixion image as his body is carried out is not entirely inappropriate.