Prince of Jutland (1994)

Amled played by Christian Bale.
Directed by Gabriel Axel.

This is just one of those occasions when you really can’t believe quite what's unfolding in front of you. That someone wrote the thing, someone decided to direct it, a deal was struck, financing found and then the script was sent around and attracted this cast who then agreed to go on location for principal photography, the footage was edited, a score written, a prints struck then dvds and at no point did anyone notice that in fact they’d created a monster, the kind of entertainment which is unintentionally funny more than on purpose and deserves at least a cult audience just for the ludicrousness of it all. In other words, don’t get too excited. This is not a chance to see Christian Bale play Hamlet, at least not the Shakespearean iteration. You do, however, get to see him eat a tree branch, one leaf at a time. But more on that later.

In this, Axel who’d previously offered the wonderful Babette’s Feast attempts to film the ancient Danish legends that Shakespeare apparently based his play on. As the film opens a caption heralds that this is based on the original writing Saxo Grammaticus, whose Gesta Danorum was the source of the tales of Amled (isn’t the Wikipedia amazing?). The theory has it that, Shakespeare looked at this material at one remove via an earlier play, usually described as the Ur-Hamlet and actually what Axel seems to have done here is draw together elements of Grammaticus with that earlier play (or what’s known of it), Shakespeare and oddly Return of the Jedi (one or two scenes are oddly similar). In other words its about as authentic as Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur which was also reputed to be of some kind of ancient about Camelot but somehow still managed to feature a Druidic version of Merlin.

The story then, like the Kurosawa, Kaurismaki and Disney has many of the familiar elements in not quite the right order. It seems a bit pointless analysing how the two differ since it really is worth seeing both if you’re a Hamlet and film fan and to deny you the surprise of how the narrative plays out would rob you of one its few genuine pleasures. Lets just say that at about fifty minutes in you’ll be wondering what is going to happen for the remainder of the running time; the answer reminded me of the way that television theme tunes would be released as singles and the composer would be called upon to fill the gap and would simply add in some unexpected solo or wacky jazz version that was totally unlike the tune that everyone knows -- track down the long versions of Grandstand, Rainbow or The Archers to see what I mean. Let's just say is that Fortinbras is here in spirit and spoiling for a rumble. And played by Brian Glover.

Anyway back to Bale and his tree eating. I’m probably not spoiling too much by saying that when Amled discovers his uncle murdered his father that his only recourse is to fain madness. In Shakespeare that pretty much amounts to some shouting at Ophelia, calling her Dad a fish monger and all the talking to himself in between. Here the future Bruce Wayne, his floppy long hair has to bark like a dog, crow like a cock and eat wood (and leaves). But he does it with such conviction that you’re entirely convinced this is the best strategy under the circumstances. When he’s expectedly revealed to be sane (in the arms of a naked wench) Bale steps up his game and he becomes charismatic, noble and everything you’d want from a king, cunning too, and certainly not the ditherer that ‘our’ Hamlet is sometimes portrayed as. Bale is another reason to watch - he steals almost every scene that he’s in and like Welles in his radio version of the play, the actor suddenly presents the on-screen persona that we’d find later in everything from The Prestige to indeed Batman.

Elsewhere, it’s madder than a bag of spanners but gloriously so in that special way that these things often are. Much of the fun is obtained from seeing actors, like Bale who would go on to be known for far more illustrious projects doing some very unexpected things. Well, yes Mirren’s back as this show’s version of Gertrude, and goes naked again -- but by this time she was already film the Prime Suspects for television so this was a very curious career choice and she’s not all that bad. Gabriel Byrne hadn’t get gone stellar with The Usual Suspects, although he generally plays Fenge (Claudius) in the same mould as Dean Keaton and there’s even s moment when he does the finger pondering thing which crops up in the closing montage of Byran Singer’s film to make him look suspicious. Tom Wilkinson’s in here too as Hardvendel (Hamlet Snr) which should indicate that it’s not for long. Oh and Kate Beckinsale too as Ethel (Ophelia) but doesn’t do much other than look longingly at Bale.

Now take a look at this tableau:



That's Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting), Mark Williams (The Fast Show) and Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings & King Kong). Tony Haygarth (Bleak House) and David Bateson (The Hitman games). And some beards.

The music is by Per Nørgård. Per Nørgård is one of Denmark’s most famous composers -- his work is in the international repertory and what’s here is remarkable. Unfortunately at no time does it match the visuals and some of the more unintentionally funny moments are when the five above (in clothes) are striding purposefully around the village (they couldn’t afford a castle in those days) to a soundtrack which indicates that they might as well be attacking Norway. Fans of Murray Gold’s soundtrack to the first series of new Doctor Who would be well served here as the chords clash in at random moments. And the whole film is like that -- just as it settles into a rhythm, there’s always some bizarre bit of editing, fake wig action, wavering accent. extremely odd acting choice (see Byrne fake cry), piece of set design or crowd scene which breaks the drama. The closing shot, which might be entirely accurate, might have looked good on paper, is totally ludicrous, as a collection of extras and many of the principles are called upon to pat their chest in unison, the sound of fist on cloak being the final sound we hear.

18 Orson Welles

Hamlet played by Orson Welles.
Directed by Orson Welles.

Orson Welles was one of the great Shakespeareans of the 20th Century. His book Everybody’s Shakespeare examined the potential the bard had to reach the popular audience and he strove for much of his life to produce some great interpretations of the canon and sometimes succeeded. In the end, only his Macbeth would have a relatively unhindered passage to the screen but even that was compromised because it was produced for a tin-pan alley studio more used to producing westerns and unable to provide the budget his vision required.

He would go on to complete just two other screen adaptations -- Othello and Chimes At Midnight (a conflagration of Falstaff’s story from Henry IV parts one & two and sections of Merry Wives of Windsor) -- but on both occasions production spanned years, with shooting occurring only when financing was available from Welles own pocket as he provided voiceovers and performances in films he cared little for. Both of those films are messy curiosities, snatches of brilliance mixed with failure, but nevertheless inventive even as he had to recast parts in mid-flow. Desdemona is obviously portrayed by at least three actresses, two of which were overdubbed in the final mix.

On stage he found rather more success and his voodoo Macbeth at the Federal Theatre was considered a triumph and it was with some amazement I discovered that he did indeed also play Hamlet albeit in production of an hour’s duration for the Columbia Broadcasting Company’s Columbia Workshop, a series of experimental radio dramas broadcast in 1936 just two years before his own Mercury Theatre would receive a regular spot on the same network ( which is when the War of the World incident occurred). The production, such as it is was broadcast in two parts, firstly on September 19, 1936 and then after what must be the longest interval in theatrical history the second part appeared on November 14, 1936, two months later. Judging by the introduction to the first broadcast, the second was by no means certain:

“In deciding to present an abbreviated version of Hamlet the Columbia workshop found itself facing a considerable dilemma. Would it be feasible we wondered to give merely the plot in our short space of time, or should we concentrate on certain well-known passages, and let the story proceed confusingly. Our final decision was this: to present the first two acts of the play, presenting whenever possible, the most notable scenes in their entirety. And giving you, we hope a clear dramatic statement of the causes of Hamlet’s tragedy.”

The method utilised by Welles in his production is to have actors speak with rapidity and concentrate solely on those scenes featuring Hamlet, his adaptation being a psychological study in revenge. After presenting much of the opening scene on the battlements, the focus shifts almost totally the prince; once Hamlet agrees not to go to Wittenberg, Horatio is quick to advise him of the ghost who quickly appears minutes later to be followed by the fishmonger and the players closing with a delicious cliffhanger -- ‘The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.’ The only interruption is the introduction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, presumably because as I gather these plays where presented live it would have given Welles, who has the dramatic weight a moment to mop his brow and take a drink of water.

Brilliantly, Welles cuts Ophelia and Laertes altogether. For all we know, Polonius has no children and is merely Claudius’s adviser. This allows us to concentrate on Hamlet’s emotional state and Welles’s performance is a tour de force, despite being pretty much alike with every other performance Welles has given. It’s difficult throughout not to think of Charles Foster Kane or Harry Lime, but this isn’t because he lacks range -- he does generality and darkness particularly well, and indeed it’s amazing hear that five years before Kane brought him to a (slightly) wider audience his acting persona was already so clearly defined. The only disappointment is that without Ophelia there isn’t the nunnery scene and without the nunnery we do not get to here Welles’s version of ‘To Be Or Not To Be’; but these are supposed to be ‘experimental’ productions and cutting the play’s most famous speech is certainly that.

Then two months later, in the second half, and I can’t believe I’m criticising Orson Welles, it all goes horribly wrong. The pace is markedly even faster in the second segment and subtlety goes out of the window. Unlike the first broadcast, if you weren't already familiar with the plot, despite the more detailed expository voiceover you've little clue of how the narrative pieces fit together; it ultimately descends into a melodramatic soup and if I was someone who’d never heard Shakespeare’s work before I’d probably be of the opinion that this is exactly how I feared it would be like. It is perhaps unfair to criticize the second half as being part of the same production because Welles no doubt thought these broadcasts would have the same ephemeral quality as auditorium theatre living only in the memory of the listener and certainly wouldn’t have expected them to be unified one after the other. He might not even have been expecting that he would have to fit the last three acts when much of the meat of the play occurs into another half an hour.

But even considered on its own as a separate entity it fails, firstly by falling into the trap of doing exactly what was threatened in the introduction to the first part of giving ‘merely the plot in our short space of time’ and secondly because the sometimes subtle performance Welles gave in the opening segment which drew the audiences in gives way to pure ham as he desperately tries to give the character some psychological depth in such a short space of time. As adapter too he spends far too much time over The Mousetrap, perhaps because of its theatrical resonance which leads to the likes of the scenes in the bed chamber being skipped over lightly, the climax with the exception of ‘The readiness is all’ and Hamlet’s death speech being a generally incoherent mess.

The other problem is the sudden appearance of Ophelia and Laertes, unconvincingly knitted back into the story. The genius of losing them from the opening two acts creates a problem because they are so critical to the climax (Hamlet can hardly have duel with himself, although as the Coranado film demonstrates that is sometimes worth a try). Ophelia first drops in during a quick exchange before The Mousetrap and Laertes even later in the narration upon his return to Denmark looking for his father. There’s no emotional connection Polonius or Hamlet though and so when the prince desperately says that he loved Ophelia it comes out of the blue, in a way that’s not unlike soap opera. When Ophelia goes mad we haven’t enough time to grieve.

Such criticism should be taken lightly though when faced with the fact that this was Welles trying to frame Shakespeare’s tragedy for an undoubtedly intelligent audience that might never have heard Shakespeare before. As with all of the other attempts to produce a version of the play with at least three hours of the action missing there are bound to be compromises and the first half really is excellent. In addition, how marvelous to be able to listen to Welles’s adaptation seventy years after its broadcast; the version I listened to was obviously recorded onto LP during the original radio broadcast and so as well as the interference from what sounded like a shaky AM reception there’s also the pops and scratches of vinyl giving the recording an wonderfully atmospheric quality. The music, mostly fanfares, was produced by Bernard Hermann who would go on to provide a score for Kane as well as many of Alfred Hitchcock films. You can’t ignore the fact that this is a piece of radio, theatrical and to a degree film history and on that level it’s priceless [via Wellesnet where there is a link so that you can hear and enjoy this production yourself].

17 Tony Meyer

Hamlet played by David Meyer.
Hamlet played by Tony Meyer.
Directed by Celestino Coronada.

Balanced precariously between art piece and feature film, Celestino Coronada’s Hamlet is not for the faint hearted. Sometimes described as ‘The Naked Hamlet’, it cuts the poetry to ribbons has little regard for the story (Ophelia’s madness is shown even though Polonius’s death isn’t) and instead sets about emphasizing every shred of the apparent homoerotic and incestuous subtext present in the play almost to the point of parody -- no sorry -- crashing straight into parody and galloping even further. It’s one of the most difficult interpretations of the play I’ve had to deal with so far and between my shouts of ’Oh come on’ and ‘Oh for goodness sake’ (substituting the g-word for the f-word more often than not) it’s the first time since the abbreviated National Youth Theatre Production that I was happy to get to the end of it.

Obviously it’s of its time and that being the case I’m very pleased that was too young to notice what that time was like. The mood is set from the off when Hamlet is shown nude on a slab being visited by his father, also bollock naked, to deliver the story of his murder. It’s not clear whether the man is supposed to be a ghost or in his son’s dreams but what is clear is that implication is that something rotten was going on in the state of Denmark even before Hamlet Snr’s murder. From then on we’re greeted by an approach to the play which is on the one-hand sub-Jarman on the other sub-Passolini (the film is dedicated to Pier) and is mostly the kind of thing which would be shown late on Channel 4 when it first started, probably with a red-triangle slapped on the front and as a lead in to Naked Yoga.

Funded by the Royal College of Art in London and filmed on a shoe-string in a darkened studio with the acoustics of a community centre (throughout you can hear doors opening and closing and people chatting off camera) there isn’t much room for scenes changes and most of its costume design and presentation takes elements of the burlesque and camp, silk costumes in primary colours (when people are wearing them) and hair and make-up perhaps influenced by Restoration stage craft, mixed with the sensibilities of the seventies. Frankly, Quentin Crisp as Polonius looks like Batman’s Joker all green hair and white face paint and Barry Stanton's Claudius seems to have wandered in from Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax video.

There is a good idea at the centre of all this though. Coronado’s casting of the brothers Tony & David Meyer (which means I can add two Hamlets to the list this time) allows them to emphasize the dual nature of Hamlet’s character playing the obviously mad and feigning madness versions off against one another and sometimes they appear in a scene together, fighting each other for supremacy. In this production ’Now is the very witching time of night’ becomes a two-hander the two actors demonstrating that Hamlet is very much in two minds. Unfortunately this is all undermined because clearly one of the brothers (it’s difficult to tell which) is clearly a better actor than the other and they also both have the extra weight of having to portray Laertes and it all becomes desperately confusing.

Given the circumstances of the production, you can’t really blame the actors for being inconsistent and just plain bad but the the Emmy, Bafta and Oscar winning Helen Mirren saddled with playing both Ophelia and Gertrude (that duology again, hey) is just awful, blankly regarding the other actors and doubtless wondering what made her sign up to this. Quentin Crisp looks equally bored and it’s unfortunate that with all of the emphasis on symbolism and imagery that the director has forgotten to take care of his cast. Coronado is more orgasmic over the possibilities inherent in the then new video mixing technology with a montage sequence which resembles a Top of the Pops Pans People filler directed by Ken Russell and each and every scene features some kind of super imposing of one character over another. This was a year after the premiere of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody video and it shows.

Obviously this was not created as an exercise in drama -- like Stoppard’s fifteen minute distillation, the audience isn’t supposed to be able to follow the narrative in a traditional way. It’s the filmic equivalent of an academic essay written for the International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies and I'm sure just that kind of essay could even be written about the film explaining the emblematic relevance of everything. In the end though, the whole fancy leaves a nasty taste of misogyny in the mouth; the inference is that none of this craziness would have happened if Gertrude and Ophelia hadn’t been quite such tasty propositions and although the thing ends with the naked bodies of the two acting brothers (one playing Laertes this time not that it matters by then) writhing around one another as the duel is substituted for some Greco Roman Wrestling in one of the worst examples of confused homo-erotic testosterone since Kirk fought a shirtless clone of himself in the Star Trek episode The Enemy Within. Mirren is variously uncomfortably stroked, massaged and snuffed, her make-up smudged all over her face in some kind of ur-version (or more precisely ugh-version) of torture porn. Dreadful.

16 David Meyer

Hamlet played by David Meyer.
Hamlet played by Tony Meyer.
Directed by Celestino Coronada.

Balanced precariously between art piece and feature film, Celestino Coronada’s Hamlet is not for the faint hearted. Sometimes described as ‘The Naked Hamlet’, it cuts the poetry to ribbons has little regard for the story (Ophelia’s madness is shown even though Polonius’s death isn’t) and instead sets about emphasizing every shred of the apparent homoerotic and incestuous subtext present in the play almost to the point of parody -- no sorry -- crashing straight into parody and galloping even further. It’s one of the most difficult interpretations of the play I’ve had to deal with so far and between my shouts of ’Oh come on’ and ‘Oh for goodness sake’ (substituting the g-word for the f-word more often than not) it’s the first time since the abbreviated National Youth Theatre Production that I was happy to get to the end of it.

Obviously it’s of its time and that being the case I’m very pleased that was too young to notice what that time was like. The mood is set from the off when Hamlet is shown nude on a slab being visited by his father, also bollock naked, to deliver the story of his murder. It’s not clear whether the man is supposed to be a ghost or in his son’s dreams but what is clear is that implication is that something rotten was going on in the state of Denmark even before Hamlet Snr’s murder. From then on we’re greeted by an approach to the play which is on the one-hand sub-Jarman on the other sub-Passolini (the film is dedicated to Pier) and is mostly the kind of thing which would be shown late on Channel 4 when it first started, probably with a red-triangle slapped on the front and as a lead in to Naked Yoga.

Funded by the Royal College of Art in London and filmed on a shoe-string in a darkened studio with the acoustics of a community centre (throughout you can hear doors opening and closing and people chatting off camera) there isn’t much room for scenes changes and most of its costume design and presentation takes elements of the burlesque and camp, silk costumes in primary colours (when people are wearing them) and hair and make-up perhaps influenced by Restoration stage craft, mixed with the sensibilities of the seventies. Frankly, Quentin Crisp as Polonius looks like Batman’s Joker all green hair and white face paint and Barry Stanton's Claudius seems to have wandered in from Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax video.

There is a good idea at the centre of all this though. Coronado’s casting of the brothers Tony & David Meyer (which means I can add two Hamlets to the list this time) allows them to emphasize the dual nature of Hamlet’s character playing the obviously mad and feigning madness versions off against one another and sometimes they appear in a scene together, fighting each other for supremacy. In this production ’Now is the very witching time of night’ becomes a two-hander the two actors demonstrating that Hamlet is very much in two minds. Unfortunately this is all undermined because clearly one of the brothers (it’s difficult to tell which) is clearly a better actor than the other and they also both have the extra weight of having to portray Laertes and it all becomes desperately confusing.

Given the circumstances of the production, you can’t really blame the actors for being inconsistent and just plain bad but the the Emmy, Bafta and Oscar winning Helen Mirren saddled with playing both Ophelia and Gertrude (that duology again, hey) is just awful, blankly regarding the other actors and doubtless wondering what made her sign up to this. Quentin Crisp looks equally bored and it’s unfortunate that with all of the emphasis on symbolism and imagery that the director has forgotten to take care of his cast. Coronado is more orgasmic over the possibilities inherent in the then new video mixing technology with a montage sequence which resembles a Top of the Pops Pans People filler directed by Ken Russell and each and every scene features some kind of super imposing of one character over another. This was a year after the premiere of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody video and it shows.

Obviously this was not created as an exercise in drama -- like Stoppard’s fifteen minute distillation, the audience isn’t supposed to be able to follow the narrative in a traditional way. It’s the filmic equivalent of an academic essay written for the International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies and I'm sure just that kind of essay could even be written about the film explaining the emblematic relevance of everything. In the end though, the whole fancy leaves a nasty taste of misogyny in the mouth; the inference is that none of this craziness would have happened if Gertrude and Ophelia hadn’t been quite such tasty propositions and although the thing ends with the naked bodies of the two acting brothers (one playing Laertes this time not that it matters by then) writhing around one another as the duel is substituted for some Greco Roman Wrestling in one of the worst examples of confused homo-erotic testosterone since Kirk fought a shirtless clone of himself in the Star Trek episode The Enemy Within. Mirren is variously uncomfortably stroked, massaged and snuffed, her make-up smudged all over her face in some kind of ur-version (or more precisely ugh-version) of torture porn. Dreadful.

15 John Dougall

Hamlet played by John Dougall.
Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan.

So from Hamlet in an hour, to half an hour and now a production in half even than that time. Tom Stoppard’s Fifteen Minute Hamlet is excerpted from his longer 1976 play, Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, the former section of which is an intellectual exercise in demonstrating the schism between words and context. Three school children, speaking in a new language ‘Dogg’ attempt to put on a production of Hamlet, with this being their resulting production, a collection of excerpts from the major scenes and famous speeches mostly keeping the narrative sense of the piece. Unlike those other short forms though, this is played for laughs and no attempt has been made to construct a story lucid enough to be understandable a novice or someone approaching the play for the first time.

It would be pointless to list all of the omissions, except to say that The Players get but one line, there isn’t time to see Laertes off and that we hear more of mad Ophelia than Ophelia the sane. Rosencrantz and Guidenstern are only mentioned in Hamlet’s letter to Horatio reporting their death. Amazingly, he does manage to cram in Fortinbras though and spends a couple of minutes over the fight sequence, presumably because when staged this would still provide the thrilling conclusion on stage. It’s worth noting too that of the themes he chooses for his narrative through line (such as it is), the emphasis is on the quick marriage of Hamlet mother to his uncle -- many of the lines which aren’t ‘well known’ refer to that.

Then at close of the first run around (which actually lasts thirteen minutes), and after some appreciation from an audience, the play is repeated, in an encore lasting but a two minutes; a whirlwind, there’s scarcely time for anything but Hamlet gets most of the wordage and it only features the actors who would be on stage for the finale. I was reminded of The Last Night of the Proms, the ever quickening tempo during Pomp and Circumstance in which the conductor and orchestra are trying to catch the promenaders out.

This production was broadcast as part of BBC Radio's Three and Four’s Stoppard season in June and July 2007 and since it works so pacefully the radio, I can’t imagine how it might be accomplished on stage. Produced much in the same style as the BBC Millenium productions, weighted with atmospheric sound effects and orchestral music it’s certainly a passionate rendition and through Eoin O'Callaghan's direction importantly shows that in cutting, Stoppard still managed to give each of the characters and so the actors a moment to savour.

What that means is that amazingly it is possible to say that none of the actors embarrasses themselves and that John Dougal’s is a very lucid Hamlet, brooding when he needs to be, his delivery of what’s left of ‘The Readiness is all’ just perfect. It does have a touch of the Olivier’s, but with so little time and so few words to develop a psychological profile for his version of the prince he’s bound to pick a tried and tested model. The cast work so well together, that it’s a shame that all we’ll ever hear of them is in this fifteen minute fragment -- I certainly would have liked to have heard what Jasmine Callan would make of Ophelia over a longer period, Nitin Ganatra’s Horatio too.