Lecture: "Intertextuality and the Classical Text: Hamlet as High and Popular Culture"

Shakespeare has often been presented to students through dull, BBC television adaptations of his plays. This is something of a problem, because Shakespeare’s plays were thoroughly popular at the time of their first performances, more akin to television sitcoms and Quentin Tarantino action films than to "Masterpiece Theatre."   Thus, I propose that we examine both popular culture as well as high culture that resonates with the theatre that we are studying, in this case Shakespeare's Hamlet.

To pursue this method of analysis, let's consider what is otherwise a throw-away moment in Clueless, a 1995 teenpic that itself is an adaptation of Jane Austen's early 19th century novel, Emma. 

CLIP #1: Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995): Cher knows Hamlet better than snobby Harvard woman

First and foremost, what emerges from this moment is that the popular is being thoroughly defended, as the girl who spends all of her time shopping turns out to be right, while the college educated snob is mistaken.  However, the moment raises an interesting problem: Cher doesn't necessarily understand Hamlet in high cultural terms any better than the snob, as Cher does not chide the snob for not seeing the irony of Polonius' advice of "to thine own self be true."  That is to say, in Shakespeare, Polonius is a bit of a doddering old fool, and his advice to Laertes is seemingly going in one ear and out the other of his hormonally-driven teenage son.

Without reading the play, there is very little way that Cher could possibly know this.   "That Polonius guy" in the Mel Gibson film is ambiguously played: he is certainly not a doddering old fool but the moment does involve some use of irony (as we see from the smirk on Laertes' face as Polonius gives him this cliche-ridden advice).

CLIP #2: Hamlet (Franco Zefferelli, 1990): Polonius gives advice to Laertes before he leaves

The positioning of Polonius as something of a doddering old fool is a typical way of mounting Hamlet.  However, in his film, Kenneth Branagh takes a different tack, showing that Polonius is a skillful schemer who is able to plot evil as well as anyone else in the castle.  In a scene that usually conveys Polonius' senility (in which he forgets what he was saying as he sends his servant, Reynaldo, off to spy on Laertes in Paris), Branagh has Polonius pretend to forget only to try to trick Reynaldo, to expose the fact that he was not paying attention.

CLIP #3: Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh, 1997): Polonius sends Reynaldo off to spy on Laertes in Paris

The Branagh version of Hamlet is our best example of what a high culture Hamlet might look like on film.  In the Reynaldo scene, a Shakespearean-like irony is added to the play, as we see the girl in Polonius' bed.  Thus, the man giving Laertes moral advice, and who is sending a spy to make sure Laertes is not "drabbing" (whoring), is in fact drabbing himself!  Thus, the larger intellectual ideas of the play--that the rotten state of Denmark is the result of corrupt politicos--is something that Branagh's film is very much interested in establishing at all opportune moments.

Branagh's film is of interest because it decides to not cut any of Hamlet, to instead take the full 4 1/2 hours to mount the production.  This decision produces the film's genius.  Branagh's film allows us to see the play anew, focusing our attention not on the conventionally filmed scenes (like "To be or not to be") but instead on those scenes often ignored.  The film has two strategies for changing this focus:

1.  Branagh uses bravura film style to deploy the "How all occasions do inform against me" (Iv.iv.32) soliloquoy, when Hamlet murmurs over the futility of all the Norwegian and Polish soldiers that are about to die fighting over the worthless plot of land.  The artificial looking set and the lengthy, distracting zoom shot shows us how insignificant Hamlet is compared to the desolate, natural world which surrounds him.  The full text version which allows the incorporation of this typically-cut soliloquoy allows the film to privilege and explore the political dimensions of the play which are ignored in most film adaptations.

CLIP #4: Hamlet (Branagh): "How all occasions do inform against me" (IV.iv.32)

2.  As in the Reynaldo scene, where Reynaldo is portrayed by Gerard Depardieu, the great French actor, the Branagh films focuses our attention on the ignored aspects of the play via its ecclectic casting.  While some great actors play major roles (Derek Jacobi is Claudius), all of the really famous people cast in the film find themselves in extremely minor roles.  Charlton Heston plays The First Player and Robin Williams is Osric, the suitor who does not appear until Act V.

For example, while the gravedigging scene is one of the centerpieces of Hamlet, it is a lengthy scene which is usually cut until the moment when Hamlet shows up.   Branagh's film uses Billy Crystal as the First Clown to re-focus our attention on the political components of the earlier sections of the gravediggers scene.

CLIP #5: Hamlet (Branagh): The two gravediggers argue over Ophelia’s burial

Here, the gravedigger exposes the class-based corruption that allows a rich person who killed herself to be properly buried, while someone like himself would have been thrown out to rot on unsacred ground.

The notoriety of the gravediggers scene can be seen throughout popular culture:

CLIP #6: L.A. Story (Mick Jackson, 1991): Parody of the gravedigger scene from Hamlet

What do traditional Hamlet adaptations focus on?:  The individual story of Hamlet's delay in seeking revenge against Claudius.  There are two reasons usually offered for this delay.

1.  Renaissance religious beliefs suggested that someone praying would be sent to Heaven because his sins would have been atoned for.  This is the reason Hamlet gives in his speech, as he decides not to kill Claudius at this particular moment.

CLIP #7: Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948): Hamlet delays killing Claudius

This decision not to kill Claudius for moral reasons is parodied in The Last Action Hero, as a kid raised on Road Runner cartoons and Arnold Schwartzenegger movies finds such moralizing ridiculous.

CLIP #8: The Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993): Parody of Hamlet starring Arnold Schwartzenegger

2.  A more modern interpretation of Hamlet's delay has to do with the Oedipal crisis that the plot of Hamlet describes.  A guy has enacted what Hamlet is purportedly repressing: the desire to kill the father and marry the mother.  Thus, the interpretation goes, Hamlet cannot kill Claudius because he has a secret affinity with his evil actions.  The Zefferelli film plays up this interpretation significantly:

CLIP #9: Hamlet (Zefferelli): Hamlet molests Gertrude in her bed

Such Oedipal relations abound in popular culture.  Tim Burton, perhaps the most Oedipal filmmaker in the New Hollywood, uses Oedipal imagery to absurd ends in Batman:

CLIP #10: Batman (Tim Burton, 1988): Batman can’t kill the Joker

Conclusion

So, is Hamlet an example of High or Popular culture?  Both, I argue.   The Mel Gibson film is in fact a crucial pivot point in this matter.  For, the film has both affinities with High Culture (directed by one of the great opera set designers of the 20th Century) and Popular Culture (it features a very popular Hollywood star, one famous for action-adventure films like Mad Max and Lethal Weapon).   In fact, during the end swordfight, Gibson seems to revert to his role from Lethal Weapon, in which he plays a guy who uses comic madness to frighten his enemies:

CLIP #11: Hamlet (Zefferelli): Hamlet and Laertes swordfight

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This page was last updated on June 16, 2001

Questions or comments? Please phone me at (406) 994-6403 or send an e-mail to:  metz@montana.edu

Walter Metz, Department of Media and Theatre Arts, Montana State University–Bozeman