Denmark, Inc.

by Jon Reinsch

Hamlet
opens June 2, cinemas to be announced

My first encounter with Hamlet was via The Addams Family. The 60s TV show featured an occasional character who was invariably greeted with "how now, Ophelia?" Maybe that's why I'm not in the least troubled by loose interpretations of Shakespeare, and welcome Michael Almereyda's new Hamlet, set in present-day New York City.

Although Shakespeare would recognize his language and characters in this version, little else is left intact. Denmark is now a corporation, not a kingdom, but it's still rotten. Part of the fun is seeing how Almereyda fits the play into a modern setting, with modern technology. Thus, when Hamlet discovers the warrant for his execution, it's on a Mac laptop.

This is not the first time Almereyda has transplanted characters from an old story to today's New York. In 1994's Nadja--a remarkable film, in some ways--he pulled off the same trick. Like Hamlet, Nadja copes with the murder of a powerful father, a king of sorts-Dracula. Both films make New York an eerie place; this Hamlet takes place at Halloween. This makes sense, given the play's reference to skulls, graves, and ghosts. And in its own way, the corporate architecture is as icy and foreboding as a castle out of the dark ages.

Ethan Hawke (Gattaca) sleepwalks in the title role, and Julia Stiles (Ten Things I Hate About You) is the poutiest of Ophelias. Kyle MacLachlan, having temporarily escaped from the David Lynch zone, plays Claudius. Diane Venora may be going for some sort of record. Having previously played both Hamlet and Ophelia, she can now add the Queen to her resume. The casting of Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Rushmore) was inspired. His Polonius seems-almost-to have a glimmer of his own absurdity.

Julia Stiles with Ethan Hawke in Michael Almereyda's Hamlet

It is a commonplace--one to which even this version's makers subscribe--that the themes of Hamlet are eternal. But in fact some of those themes resonate less powerfully than they once did. Vengeance, for one, does not mean quite the same to us that it did to the Elizabethans. As for "what dreams may come," they hold no terror--unless we're talking about a Robin Williams flick. But Shakespeare films can provoke new thoughts on old plays. With all its flaws, this one succeeds on that score.

In Almereyda's conception, Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy is twice foreshadowed. Take note of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh on TV saying that it is "impossible to be, yourself, alone." Later, Hamlet points a gun at his head and mutters the opening, but goes no further. He finally delivers the full speech while pacing down the "Action" aisle of a Blockbuster Video store. (Who can blame him for feeling suicidal?) The setting mocks his paralysis.

In scene after scene, characters interact with multimedia technology. Almereyda explains: "Hamlet, after all, says 'Denmark is a prison.' If you think of this in terms of media and consumer culture, the bars of the prison are defined by advertising, by all the brand names, logos, and billboards, all the seductive color and noise that crowd our waking hours. In this atmosphere, it's all but impossible to find evidence of experiences and relationships that can be considered truly private or pure."

Hamlet himself may be complicit in the making of this prison. Perhaps he too is a poisoner--of the eye rather than the ear. One interpretation of the play holds that Hamlet hides behind wordplay as a way of avoiding action. Here, he's obsessed not with "words, words, words" but with images, images, images. The "rogue and peasant slave" monologue, inspired in the play by an actor's live performance, is now engendered by James Dean on video. When it's time to "catch the conscience of the King," Hamlet now has no need for a theatre troupe. Instead, he produces his own video. And when in his dying words he exhorts Horatio to "tell my story," he sees it as a black-and-white movie. The cinema's the thing.

Hamlet's digital video is an accusation of murder. What about the enclosing film--this Hamlet--is it an accusation as well? In Totally, Tenderly, Tragically, Phillip Lopate speculates that "chronic moviegoing often promotes a passivity before life, a detached tendency to aestheticise reality, and, I suppose, a narcissistic absorption that makes it harder to contact others." It may not qualify as "remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless," but in his susceptibility to beguiling images on a screen, Hamlet is not alone.