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Hugo Santander |
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Hamlet Unbound
A
screenplay based on «Hamlet» by William Shakespeare
by Hugo Santander |
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PENNSYLVANIA'S PENITENTIARY. EXT. NIGHT. BERNARDO, wearing a suit, walks along a street. He encounters a dark figure. BERNARDO Who's there? HORATIO Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. HORATIO comes out from darkness; he wears another suit.. Bernardo smiles. BERNARDO Long live our State. HORATIO (serious) Bernardo? BERNARDO A piece of him. You come most carefully upon your hour HORATIO For this relief much thanks: The cold is bitter. I am sick at heart. BERNARDO Have you had quiet guard? Horatio looks behind him. The street is empty. HORATIO Not a mouse stirring. BERNARDO Let me once again assail your ears. HORATIO My honor is still fortified against your greed. Horatio looks at the other side of the street. He steps back and screams. Horatio stares at that direction. ACTOR 1, a young man wearing a suit, looks at them back. He remains still. HORATIO (continuing) Ah! Hamlet! BERNARDO Doesn't it look like our buried Protector? With his generous mien, his violent figure? HORATIO (skeptical; to Bernardo) Usurper of the night. By heaven I charge you speak! The actor crosses the street and approaches Horatio. Before arriving Horatio kneels down on the floor and Horatio indicates with a gesture that he can explain the fact. BERNARDO He's offended. HORATIO He trembles, he looks pale. BERNARDO What think you on it, Horatio? Is it not like the dead? HORATIO Before my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of my own eyes. Bernardo gives an envelope to the actor. The actor opens it: cash in dollars. BERNARDO (to the actor) Now get to bed. (to Horatio) And let us impart what we have seen tonight unto young Hamlet. This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. They leave the actor counting the money on the street. BERNARDO (continuing; to Horatio) Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, as needful in our safety, fitting our duty HORATIO (with pain) In the gross and scope of my opinion, Hamlet's behavior embodies a strange eruption to our State. BERNARDO I do not know from what part of the world we should be greeted, if not from young Hamlet. HORATIO Not from this mouth! After his uncle Claudius took over Elsinor Incorporated, something has become rotten in our state. BERNARDO Horatio! Horatio! Give your acts no tongue, nor any unmeasured thought his act. They walked on the street. The actor 1's face jumps into the image and speaks while Bernardo and Horatio go away: ACTOR 1 The purpose of our playing: to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show scorn her own image, and the very age and body of our time, his form and pressure.... He examines each one of the spectators of the film. CUT TO: CLAUDIUS' OFFICE. INT/ DAY. In a dark space, Claudius addresses the camera 27-year old LAERTES looks at the scene from the background. CLAUDIUS Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death , the memory be green; and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief and the entire members of our companies, to be contracted in one brow of woe; yet so far has discretion fought with nature that we with wisest sorrow think on him, together with remembrance of ourselves. Now follows, that--you know, Fortinbras Investment Company, holding a weak supposal of our worth, or thinking by our late dear brother's death our state to be Colleagued with the dream of his advantage, they had not failed to pester us with message, importing the surrender of our profits--those vast countries gained by all bonds of law by my dear brother... (pause) So much for him... Now our business is: Mr. Laertes has sued Fortinbras Company unrighteous strategy, and we shall demand a fair retribution for their attempt to take over our investments in Colombian oil companies and Bolivian mines of coal. He gives a paper to the man behind the camera. CLAUDIUS (continuing) We await for your signature, young Hamlet. The camera focusses on the paper... DISSOLVE TO: PHILADELPHIA STREET--WALT WHITMAN BRIDGE. DAY. The same paper, with some wrinkles, is squeezed by a hand and thrown on the Delaware river. 29-year old Hamlet wearing dark clothing, looks at the piece of paper floating on the water. He expresses frustration. He walks while he talks. HAMLET O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the law had not fixed his cannon against self-slaughter! O wealth! wealth! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on it! O, fie! This is an unweeded garden, that grows to seed; things rank and gross, and only nature posses them. That it should come to this! But two months dead!--nay, not so much, not two: so excellent a man; that was to my uncle, what Gandhi and King to Hitler: so human, so loving to my mother. Must I remember? Why? She would hang on him; and yet within a month, a little month... (pause) --why she--even she? O, God-- married to my uncle; that beast, that lacks discourse of reason. And now the salt of her most hypocritical tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes. My mother married--O, most wicked speed, to post which such dexterity to incestuous sheets. LAERTES (O.S.) No drug in the world can do you good, Hamlet Hamlet turns around and looks at Laertes, who smiles at him. He breaths with anger. HAMLET Your semblance is your mirror. LAERTES You are an ignorant of my excellence... Laertes casts to Hamlet, the wet paper Hamlet dropped moments ago into the water. HAMLET Give me your pardon, sir; I've done you wrong. LAERTES Your will is not your own. Hamlet looks at Claudius, who comes walking to him escorted by ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, a couple. CLAUDIUS And now, Laertes, what's the news with you? Tell us about your suit. You cannot speak of reason to the trustees and loose your voice. Pause. Claudius looks at the piece of paper over the floor, and picks it up. POLONIUS arrives accompanied by 45-year old GERTRUDE. Claudius gives the sheet to her. CLAUDIUS (continuing) What would you beg, Laertes, that shall not be my offer, not your asking? The head is not more native to the heart, than is the profit of our investments to your father's work. Why did you ask us to come here Laertes? LAERTES To quit this business, and return to Bogota, from whence I willingly came to the United States to renovate my contract under your company's reorganization. Now, I must confess, my duty is done, and my thoughts and wishes bend again towards Colombia. CLAUDIUS It was not me, but Polonius, who called you here. What does your father say? POLONIUS He had, my lord, wrung from me my slow signature. By laboursome petition, and at last upon his will I sealed my hard consent: I do beseech you, accept to place him back in Bogota. CLAUDIUS My will is yours, Laertes. (to Hamlet) But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son... HAMLET (loud and rude) A little more than kin, and less than kind. CLAUDIUS (impatient) This is not a loving and fair reply. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? HAMLET Not so, my lord; my swarthy skin tells you I am too much under the sun. Gertrude pads Hamlet's head. GERTRUDE Some days he walks four hours together along this bridge. (pause; didactic) Cast thy nighted color off, and let your eye look like a friend to these employees of our company, and don't seek with your vailed lids for your father's dust. Like me, you must accept everyone on earth must die, passing through nature to nothing. HAMLET Nothingness is our fashion, Mother. GERTRUDE If it is, why does it seem so particular with you? HAMLET It doesn't seem, Mother! it is! I don't know "seems". It's not only my inky cloak, nor mourning suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiring of forced breath. No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected behavior of the visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly: these indeed seem, for they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which has passed is shown; these but the trappings and the suits of woe. CLAUDIUS It is so sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, to give these customary duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; that father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound, in filial obligation, for some term to do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere in obstinate condolence is a course of impious stubbornness; it's unmanly grief; it shows a will most incorrect to the interests of your relatives still alive, a heart unfortified, an impatient mind; a simple and childish understanding. Because death must be, and that is as common knowledge as to realize that these words were recorded on tape. Why should we, in our peevish opposition, take it to heart? Fie! This is heaven's fault, dead's fault, nature's fault. To reason most absurd; whose common theme is dead of fathers. We pray you, throw to earth this unprevailing woe; and think of us as of... CLAUDIUS (continuing; pause) a father; for let the company take note, without your consent, you will be replace and our profits will continue. So I impart you, change your mind. Claudius comes back to his car. CLAUDIUS (continuing; pause) And for your intent in going back to school in Bucaramanga, it is most retrograde to our desire: and we beseech you, bend you to remain here, in the cheer and comfort of Philadelphia, increasing our income, your father's legacy. GERTRUDE I know what is best for you, Hamlet. Let not your mother waste her time, and stay with us. Hamlet looks at Laertes, and smiling, while looking at him, he answers: HAMLET I shall in all my best obey you, Mother. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA STREET. EXT/DAY. Hamlet, Bernardo and Horatio walk through the old city. HORATIO Your poor servant ever. HAMLET Poverty makes best friends than servants. What brought you here from Slovenia, Horatio? HORATIO A truant disposition, good my Lord. HAMLET I know you are not truant. What is your affair in the United States? HORATIO I came to see your father's funeral. HAMLET I pray you, do not mock me, fellow- student; I think it was to see my mother's wedding. HORATIO Indeed my lord, it followed hard upon. HAMLET Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. Would I have met my dearest enemy in heaven or ever I had seen that day, Horatio--My father,--methinks I see my father. HORATIO Where? HAMLET Here, in my mind's eye. HORATIO My lord, I think I saw him yesterday night. HAMLET Saw? Who? HORATIO My lord, Mr. Hamlet, your father. HAMLET (sad) The president, my father? HORATIO Season your admiration for a while with an attent ear, till I may deliver this marvel to you. HAMLET Let me hear. HORATIO In the dead vast and middle of the night, two of my friends were encountered by a figure like your father, wearing at point exactly. He appears before them, and with solemn march goes slowly and stately by them: thrice he walked by their oppressed and fear- surprised eyes. Almost to jelly with the act of fear, my friends stand dumb and speak not to him. And I with them the third night kept the watch; where, as they had delivered, both in time, form of the thing, each word made true and good, the apparition comes: I knew your father; these hands are not more like. HAMLET But were was this? BERNARDO My lord, upon the platform of the graves. HAMLET Did you not speak to it? HORATIO I did; but answer made it none. Yet once methought it lifted up its head and did address itself to motion, like as it would speak; but even then the morning cock crew loud, and at the sound it shrunk in haste away, and vanished from our sight. HAMLET It's very strange. HORATIO As I do live, my honoured lord, it's true; and we did think it written down in our duty to let you know of it. HAMLET Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Are you going there again tonight? BERNARDO I warrant I will. HAMLET (sad) Whether that ghost assumes my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, and bid me hold my peace. (anxious) I pray you both, if you have hitherto concealed this sight, let it be tenable in your silence still; and whatsoever else shall happen tonight, give it an understanding, but no tongue: I will requite your loves. So, fare you well: upon the graves, between eleven and twelve, I'll visit you. Horatio and Bernardo are left by Hamlet. HAMLET (continuing; to himself) My father's spirit errands! All is not well; I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S TRAIN STATION. INT/AFTERNOON. Laertes--handling a luggage case, and 7-month pregnant OPHELIA, walk. LAERTES My necessaries are embark'd: farewell: And, sister, as the winds give benefit and convoy is assistant, do not sleep, But let me hear from you. OPHELIA Do you doubt that? LAERTES (without answering Ophelia's question) For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more. OPHELIA You offence is rank, it smells to heaven. LAERTES Our native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of Hamlet's thought; and the company's enterprises of great pith and moment, with his regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. (pause) Perhaps he loves you now, and now no soil nor cautel do besmirch the virtue of his will: but you and your offspring must fear him. For he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself; for on his choice depends the safety and increment of his own state. We are but employees, and if he says he loves you, it fits your wisdom so far to believe it. Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister, your heart is frail, and the canker galls the infants of the spring, too oft before their buttons be disclosed. Keep your love in the rear of your affection. OPHELIA (ironic) I will the effect of this good lesson keep, as watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious republicans do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, and recks not his own red. Laertes nervously laughs. Polonius enters. POLONIUS A double blessing is a double grace. Now you must go to Bogota, Laertes. But before your leaving keep these few precepts in your memory. Polonius gives a gift to Laertes. Laertes opens it and he finds an edition of the Complete Works by William Shakespeare. LAERTES (reading) Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. Laertes gives the book to Ophelia. LAERTES (continuing) Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well what I have said to you. OPHELIA It's in my memory lock'd, and you yourself keep those precepts in your mind.. POLONIUS Aboard, aboard, for shame! The servants tend, the train invites. Laertes comes into an elevator. He leaves. CUT TO: TOP OF A BUILDING. EXT/DAY. Ophelia drives her car. Polonius is seated down besides her. OPHELIA He had of late made many tenders of his affection to me. POLONIUS Affection! pooh! OPHELIA I don't speak like a green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstance. I do believe his tenders. POLONIUS I do not know what I should think. OPHELIA Father, we have decided to marry in honorable fashion. POLONIUS Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. OPHELIA I know, when the blood burns, how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows; these blazes, father, give more light than heat, indeed. I haven't taken them for fire. From this time, I will be scanter to Hamlet in our nigthly parting. His entreatments will be place at a higher rate than a command to parley. For Hamlet, believe so much in him, that he is so young, that desire alone can unfold his promises. I don't believe his vows; for they are brokers. Mere beggars of unholy suits. But I will be better to beguile. This is for all: I would not, in plain, give more favours to Hamlet, until the purpose of my memory be assured by his demand. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S CEMETERY. EXT/NIGHT. Hamlet, Horatio and Bernardo are seated on a grave. HAMLET The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. HORATIO It is a nipping and an eager air. HAMLET What hour now? HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve. HAMLET No, it is struck. BERNARDO Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season wherein the spirit holds his wont to walk. An explotion is heard, and fireworks on the sky. BERNARDO (continuing) What does this mean? HAMLET My uncle do wake up to-night, and takes his rouse, keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; and, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, the kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge. HORATIO Is it a custom? & |