..has the accent of command with her son...witty and perceptive about Polonius...she is not stupid at her job: there she gives out and reserves herself in good proportion." (Pennington 160) Gertrude's performance in the court shows Branagh makes a commitment as a director to giving the female characters of the play individualistic integrity beyond their ability to mirror different Oedipal aspects of the central protagonist's development. "There isn't an iota of sexual energy or tension in Hamlet's confrontation with his mother," unlike Oliver's version, where a bed is featured in the confrontation scene between Hamlet and his mother in Act IV, Scene 3. (Rosenberg, 1996) Julie Christie's Gertrude is morally conflicted about what she has done, and increasingly aware that she might have married a murderer after the confrontation of the closet scene. But Oliver's Gertrude is simply infatuated with her son. She is more physically demonstrative towards him than she ever is towards Claudius, even before the confrontation of Act IV.
Moreover, the guilt Gertrude expresses during Oliver version, when she says "Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;/And there I see such black and grained spots/As will not leave their tinct," results in a complete reversal of her sympathies towards Claudius. (IV.3) Julie Christie's Gertrude breaks from Claudius after Ophelia's death, and defiantly but innocently drinks the poisoned beverage. But in the Oliver version, Gertrude's love for her son is so overwhelming she is driven to suicide out of guilt. In Act V "Olivier also introduces what I believe is an innovation at the end -- the implication that Gertrude (the marvelous Eileen Herlie) realizes the wine is poisoned and purposely drinks it to rescue Hamlet," instead of merely pouring it to the side...
(Dashille, 1999) Out of guilt for what she has done, Gertrude, not Ophelia wishes to die -- yet another validation of Hamlet's perspective upon the world of the court in the Oliver version.
In
contrast, Ophelia's madness in the Oliver version and her clear dissociation from reality makes her suicide a likely accident, while Winslet's horrifically straight-jacketed young woman, who has clearly had
sex with Hamlet against her murdered father's wishes, is the only obvious suicide of the Branagh version. Ophelia is wracked with guilt -- still in love with the man who killed the father who controlled her and told her to stay away from Hamlet.
The more subtle female psychology of the Branagh version is not a simple feminist statement on the part of the director. It is
testimony to Branagh's more complete view of the Shakespearean tragedy, where each
character has his or her own psychological journey. By making the plays simply about a man who cannot make up his mind, Oliver does not just simplify the other characters, he also makes the play less Shakespearean, for what is timeless about Shakespeare is the balanced viewpoint that the Renaissance playwright showed to all of his characters, large and small, male and female.
Works Cited
Dashille, Chris. "Hamlet." 1999. Cinescene. [26 Nov 2006] http://www.cinescene.com/dash/flicks101999.html
Dawson, Andrew. Hamlet. Shakespeare in Performance Series. General Editors JR.
Mulryne and J.C. Bulman. New York: Manchester University Press, 1995.
Hamlet." Directed by Lawrence Oliver. 1948.
Hamlet." Directed by Kenneth Branagh. 1996.
Pennington, Michael. Hamlet: A User's Guide. New York: Limelight Editions, 1996.
Rosenberg, Scott. "Hamlet."
Movie Review. Salon.com. Jan 1997. [26 Nov 2006] http://www.salon.com/jan97/hamlet970120.html?CP=SAL&DN=110
Shakespeare, William. "Hamlet." Shakespeare Homepage. Complete E-text. [26 Nov 2006] http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/hamlet/
