I didn't happen. I refuse to believe that what I actually saw in a movie actually happen. I saw it happen in a movie. I visually saw it happen in a movie. And I refuse to believe that what I visually saw happen .. ACTUALLY.. happened. And I wonder - is this Hamlet?.. Does Hamlet see the ghost of his father.. and he is not sure if the ghost of his father that he has actually seen with his own eyes.. IS .. his father.. and that the Revenge.. is .. - real..?..
I refuse to believe that Kenneth Branagh sadistically, brutally physically assaulted actress Kate Winslet in one of her very first roles, the role of Ophelia.. even tho that's exactly what I saw.. when I saw the Kenneth Branagh-directed, "Hamlet" movie.. I saw Kenneth Branagh shove Kate Winslet's face brutally against a window and press her cheek against the window with a look of pure savage fury on his face.. as Hamlet.. against Kate Winslet's Ophelia.. but I refuse to believe that in reality Kenneth Branagh actually DID that... I believe the real prince Hamlet of elsinore would also refuse to believe the proof of his own eyes when he saw this in a movie.. and young, noble prince Hamlet of elsinore would say.. "Movie's .. can lie.. to our very eyes themselves... Movies can lie.."
I confess I don't focus much or at all on Hamlet's intellect when I read the play... to me, Hamlet is pure emotion, pure emotional intelligence (.. if I even know what emotional intelligence even is at all.. I can only imagine Hamlet as the master of it.. of an emotional intelligence that doubts the very avouchal of one's eyes... I know that's a quote from a Shakespeare play .. but I forget which one.. it may be Hamlet..)
Harold Bloom writes about the plays "Hamlet" and "As you like it".. like someone who has not read either play.. not even once.. but a feel something blood-chilling in reading Harold Bloom promote a Hamlet who is so brutal and deadly that if anyone played Harold Bloom's Hamlet or if their was a legal contract to make a Hamlet movie based on is Mr. Bloom's Hamlet.. we'd see a Hamlet who would and could only physically, sadistically brutalize Ophelia.. (.. sob sob.. A. C. Bradley's beautiful Ophelia)… once more... I think of Goethe.. and find myself agreeing with James Joyce in Goethe's understanding of Hamlet as a gentle, princely, compassionate soul.. but I balk at Goethe's suggestion of Hamlet lacking that trace or fibre or nerve of heroism.. for Hamlet has infinite heroism and infinite courage.. I'm going to talk like Harold Bloom right now.. and say that only Brutus and Macbeth have demonstrated the stalwart fearlessness in the face of a Ghost-visitation.. a Shakespeare critic of Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar".. and for Pete's sake.. I need to find the NAME of this Shakespeare critic.. he wrote of what a petrifying.. (.. perhaps... 'petrifying' is my word..).. how frightful an encounter with and 'honest ghost' actually is.. an encounter that the infinitely courageous heros Hamlet, Brutus and Macbeth have been chosen to experience.. only Brutus and Macbeth have had the encounters with honest ghosts that Hamlet has have.. perhaps only their souls would not be harrowed by the encounter.. except Iago.. where Othello may himself be such a frightful ghost incarnate.. and Iago so infinitely verbally parries with this honest ghost-Othello.. that I would count Iago as among those Shakespeare characters of Ghost-visitations.. would Rosalind endure a Ghost-visitation with infinite courage.. I daresay she would.. for Rosalind is pain.. and Rosalind truly is a female Hamelt… haunted and damned to the soul over her banished father, the Duke, a father under perpetual threat of assassination... whereas Rosalind pain her bestest girlfriend, Celia .. is a labyrinth.. and I'm going to have to refer to Harold Bloom's book, "Shakespeare- invention of the human".. to see what he writes about the lyrical, linguistic-female-wizardess, Celia.. I have finally arrived at the conclusion that Hamlet must be in his early forties.. that the "To be or not to be" monologue demonstrates the abyss of soul of a young man in his early forties.. finally.. it is too clear.. Jacques of Shakespeare's "As you like it".. and Hamlet.. Jacques and Hamlet are simply one and the same man, are one and the same person.. Jacques if the forty-year old Hamlet as a twenty-seven year old man who was once named Jacques.. but his Jacques is a pure-blooded Romeo possessed of the soul of Phoebus Apollo, the god of the eternal romantic..
Part one of my essay on "William Shakespeare's Hamlet".. is finished...
No comments:
Post a Comment