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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? HAMLET Ay, marry, it is: but to my mind, though I am alien here, and not to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance. This heavy-head spinning east and west makes us target and comment of other nations: they clap us drunkers, and with swinish phrase they accuse of drugadiction; and indeed it takes from our income, though performed at height, the pith and marrow of our taxes. HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes! Actor 1 is seen over a grave. HAMLET Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet, the man, the father, the trustee, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell why thy canonized bones have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, had oped his ponderous and marble jaws, to cast thee up again. What may this mean, that thou, dead corpse, again in complete cotton, revisits thus the glimses of the moon, making night hideous; and we fools of nature so horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our minds? Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do? Actor 1 beckons Hamlet HORATIO It beckons you to go away--to you alone. BERNARDO Look, with what courteous action it waves you to a more removed ground: but do not go with it. HORATIO No, by no means. HAMLET It will not speak; then I will follow it. HORATIO Do not, my lord HAMLET Why? What should be the fear? I do not set my life in a pin's fee; and for my soul, what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again: I'll follow it. BERNARDO What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles over his face into the sea, and there assume some other horrible form, which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness? think of it: the very place puts toys of desperation, without more motive, into every brain that looks so many fathoms to the sea, and hears it roar beneath. HAMLET It waves me still. Go on; I'll follow thee. Hamlet disappears into the graveyard. CUT TO: CEMETERY. EXT/NIGHT. Actor 1 moves. Hamlet follows him. HAMLET Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further. ACTOR 1 Mark me. HAMLET I will. ACTOR 1 My hour is almost come, when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself. HAMLET Alas, poor ghost! ACTOR 1 Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold. HAMLET Speak; I'm bound to hear. ACTOR 1 So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. HAMLET What? ACTOR 1 I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires, till the foul crimes done in my days of exploitation are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison- house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres and each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine: but this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List,list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love-- HAMLET O God! ACTOR 1 Revenge this foul and most unnatural murder. HAMLET Murder? ACTOR 1 Murder most foul, as in the best it is; but this most foul, strange and unnatural. HAMLET Haste me to know it, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge. ACTOR 1 I find thee apt; and duller shoulds thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on lethe wharf, wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear: It's given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me; so the whole ear of the company is by a forged process of my death rankly abused. The serpent that did sting thy father's life now seats on his throne. HAMLET O my prophetic soul! My uncle! ACTOR 1 Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power so to seduce!-- won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen: O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decline upon a wretch, whose masculine gifts were poorer than those of mine! But virtue, as it never will be moved, though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, so lust, though to a radiant angel link'd, will sate itself in a celestial bed, and prey on garbage. But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air; brief let me be... CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S CEMENTER. EXT/NIGHT. Horatio and Bernardo look at Hamlet from the distance. BERNARDO There is never a villain dwelling in Elsinor, but Claudius, that arrant knave. HORATIO Hamlet didn't need a ghost coming from the grave to tell him this. BERNARDO His coward hesitating soul will deem him an honest ghost. Here he comes; let's swear we shall never make known what we have seen to-night. From the distance, Hamlet arrives approaching Horatio and Bernardo. Actors 1's face covers the screen. ACTOR 1 What so poor a man as Hamlet is. His time is disjointed--out of frame. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S RESTAURANT. EXT/NIGHT. Ophelia, seated on a chair, waits alone. Hamlet arrives with ironic face and sits down. He has a three-day bear and wears dirty clothing. HAMLET Ophelia, in thy pleasures be all my lacks remembered. (pause; Hamlet laughs) When can I lie again in your lap? OPHELIA Your head upon my lap? HAMLET I don't mean country matters. My fair thought is to lie between your legs. People look at them. Ophelia stands up offended. OPHELIA What is this? You are too merry today, Hamlet. HAMLET Who, I? Your only jig-maker? What should a man do, but be merry? Ophelia looks at him. His voice over continues over the image of Hamlet taking her face; changing from surprise to shame and pity. OPHELIA (V.O.) With his doublet all unbraced; his stockings foul'd, ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle; pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; and with a look so piteous in purport, as if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors... CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S PUBLIC PARK. EXT/DAY. Ophelia and Polonius walk in circles. POLONIUS Mad for thy love? OPHELIA I do not know; but truly, I do fear it. POLONIUS What said he? OPHELIA He took me by the wrist and held me hard; then goes he to the length of all his arm; and, with his other hand thus o'er his brow, he falls to such perusal of my face as he would draw it. Long stay'd he so; at last, a little and thrice his head thus waving up and down, he raised a sigh so piteous and profound as it did seem to shatter all his bulk and end his being: that done, he lets me go: and, with his head over his shoulder turn'd, he seem'd to find his way without his eyes; for on the street he went without their help, and, to the last, bended their light on me. POLONIUS This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property fordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings, as often as any passion on earth that does afflict our desire. I am glad you gave him hard words of late. OPHELIA I only repelled his messages and denied his access to me. Could the denial of love make so mad a man? I am sorry that with better heed and judgment I had not quoted him: I feared he did but trifle, and meant to wreck our likeness. POLONIUS Beshrew your jealousy! By heaven, it is as proper to our age to cast beyond ourselves in our opinions as it is common for the younger sort to lack discretion. OPHELIA This must be known by the trustees; which, being kept close, might move more grief to hide than hate to utter love. CUT TO: CLAUDIUS OFFICE. INT/DAY. Gertrude signs a pile of checks. Meanwhile, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter to Claudius' office. Polonius keeps guard of the entrance of the hall. CLAUDIUS Dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern! Moreover that we much did long to see you, the need we have to use you did provoke our hasty sending. Gertrude handles a check to Guilderstern. GERTRUDE Something have you heard of Hamlet's transformation... ROSENCRANTZ So call it, since nor the exterior nor the inward man resembles what it was. GERTRUDE What it should be, more than his father's death, that thus has put him so much from the understanding of himself, I cannot dream of: I entreat you both, that, being of so young days brought up with him, and sit so neighborhood to his youth and behavior, that you vouchsafe your rest here in Philadelphia some little time: so by your companies to draw him on to pleasures, and to gather, so much as from occasion you may glean, whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus, that, opened, lies within our remedy. CLAUDIUS Good ladies, he has much talked of you; and sure I am, two women there are not living to whom he more adheres. If it will please you to show us so much gentry and good will as to expend your time with us awhile, for the supply and profit of our company. Guildenstern approaches Claudius and shows the check to him. GUILDENSTERN I hope our visitation will receive such thanks as fits a tycoon's remembrance. GERTRUDE (handling another check to Rosencrantz) Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern. CLAUDIUS I beseech you instantly to visit my too-much changed son. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern leave. Claudius lies his head on his hand. Gertrude approaches him and kisses him. Both are very sad and worry. GERTRUDE (almost crying) Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; where little fears grow great, great love grows there. They hold each other. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S ACADEMY OF MUSIC. EXT/NIGHT. People leave the Academy of Music. Amongst them Claudius and Gertrude. Polonius is seen amongst the crowd. He handles a small tape recorder. He follows them. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S STREET. EXT/NIGHT. Gertrude and Claudius are reached by Polonius. POLONIUS (breathless) I do think, or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it has used to do, that I have found the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy. GERTRUDE You are still the father of good news. CLAUDIUS O, speak of that; that do I long to hear. POLONIUS First, let me inform you of our suit against Fortinbras Investments. Hamlet's news shall be the fruit to that great feast. GERTRUDE (to Claudius) How has he found the head and source of all my son's distemper? CLAUDIUS I doubt it is no other but the main; his father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage. POLONIUS The government has suppressed Fortinbras Co.'s interests in Bolivia and Colombia; which to our minister of businesses appeared to be a preparation against Greek multinational companies. But, better looked into, he truly found it was against Elsinor Investments. Fortinbras trustees, in brief, received an order to pay us 800,000,000.00 dollars in fines, and to make a bow before the court never more to attempt undermine our interests in those lucrative countries by suborning their variable lawyers. CLAUDIUS It likes us well. POLONIUS A well ended business, indeed. My liege, and madam, to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is, why day is day, night night and time is time, were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: your noble son is mad. GERTRUDE More matter, with less art. POLONIUS That he is mad, it's true: it's true it's pity; And pity it's it's true: a foolish figure; But farewell it for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains that we find out the cause of this effect, or rather say, the cause of this defect, for this effect defective comes by cause: thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend. I have a daughter--a psychologist of this enterprise, who, in her duty has given me this: He raises his recorder. His finger pushes the "play" button. HAMLET (V.O.) To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia,' POLONIUS That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is a vile phrase: but you should hear. Thus: HAMLET (V.O.) In her excellent white bosom, these, &c. GERTRUDE Came this from Hamlet to her? POLONIUS Good madam, stay awhile; machines are faithful. He plays the tape. HAMLET (V.O.) 'Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun do move; Do But never doubt I love, O dear Ophelia, I'm ill at this numbers; I have no art to reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, HAMLET. POLONIUS This has my daughter shown me, according to her professional duty. And she has more tapes of his soliciting, as they fell out by psychiatric appointments, all given to her ear. CLAUDIUS But how she had received his love? POLONIUS What do you think of me? I would fain prove I'm your more faithful and constant laborer. GERTRUDE But what can we think, when you have seen this hot love on the wing-- As I perceived it, I must tell you that. POLONIUS What might you, or my dear Claudius here, think, if I had giving my heart a winking, mute and dumb, Or look'd upon this love with idle sight; what might you think? No, I went straight to work, And Ophelia deemed 'Hamlet is out of his star'; This must not be: ' and she decided to lock herself from his resort, date but other men, receive no calls from him. Which done, he, repulsed--a short tale to make--fell into a sadness, then into a fast, thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, and by this declension, into the madness wherein now he raves, and all we mourn for. CLAUDIUS Do you think of this? GERTRUDE It may be, very like. POLONIUS Have there been such a time--I'd fain know, that Ophelia has positively diagnosed schizophrenia, when it proved otherwise? CLAUDIUS Not that I know. POLONIUS (pointing to his head and shoulder) Take this from this, if this be otherwise: If circumstances lead me, I will find where within the centre. CLAUDIUS How may we try it further? POLONIUS Mark the encounter: if he loves her not. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S PARK. CHURCH AS BACKGROUND. EXT/DAY. Hamlet, seated on the floor, reads a book. On the background Rosencrantz and Guilderstern chat. Polonius, laughing, approaches Hamlet. POLONIUS How sadly you look reading. HAMLET (laughing) You are a fishmonger. POLONIUS Not I, my lord. HAMLET Then I would you were so honest a man. POLONIUS Honest! HAMLET Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. POLONIUS That's very true, Sir! HAMLET For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,-- Hamlet looks to 5 dogs who play in front of him. HAMLET (continuing; to Polonius) Have you a daughter? POLONIUS Yes, I have! HAMLET Let her not walk in the sun: conception is a blessing: but not as your daughter may conceive. Hamlet stands up and reads his book. POLONIUS (to Rosencrantz) How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter... truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. (to Hamlet) What do you read, boy? HAMLET Words, words, words. POLONIUS What is the matter? HAMLET Between who? POLONIUS I mean, the matter that you read upon a dead dog. HAMLET Slanders, sir; for matter says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. POLONIUS (to Rosencrantz) Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. (to Hamlet) Will you walk along our river, with us my lord? HAMLET Into my grave. POLONIUS Indeed, that is... (to Guilderstern) How pregnant sometimes his replies are! ROSENCRANTZ A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. Hamlet steps into a car. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern follow him. HAMLET (loud) You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life. Guilderstern starts the car, and it goes into the city. Hamlet looks at Rosencrantz and Guilderstern. HAMLET (continuing; loud) These tedious old fools! Good lads, how do ye both? ROSENCRANTZ As the indifferent children of the earth. GUILDENSTERN Happy, in that we are not over- happy; o fortune's cap we are not the very button. HAMLET Nor the soles of her shoe? ROSENCRANTZ Neither. HAMLET Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours. GUILDENSTERN Sure! Her privates we. HAMLET In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a whore. What news? ROSENCRANTZ None, my lord, the world grows honest. HAMLET Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the lands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither. GUILDENSTERN Prison? HAMLET Pennsylvania is a prison. ROSENCRANTZ Then is the world one. HAMLET A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Pennsylvania being one of the worst. ROSENCRANTZ We think not so. The car stops and Hamlet runs away, but Rosencrantz & Guilderstern follow him. HAMLET Why, then, this is none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. ROSENCRANTZ Your bitterness makes it one; this is too narrow for your mind. HAMLET O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. GUILDENSTERN Which dreams indeed are greed; for the very substance of greed is merely the shadow of a dream. HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow. ROSENCRANTZ Truly, and I hold greed of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow. HAMLET Then are our beggars bodies, and our judges and outstretched investors the beggars' shadows. Hamlet tastes the wind. HAMLET (continuing; loud) Shall we to the bank? for, by my faith, I cannot reason. ROSENCRANTZ We'll wait upon you. HAMLET No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my guards, for to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully cared. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Philadelphia? ROSENCRANTZ To visit you. HAMLET (still loud) Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. They look at him with pity. HAMLET (continuing) Why, any thing, but to the purpose. You whose modesties have not craft enough to color: I know the owners of the company and it was the President, my uncle, who sent for you. Rosencrantz and Guildersternlook at each other. ROSENCRANTZ (furious) To what end? HAMLET (drunk by the danger) That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? ROSENCRANTZ (to Guilderstern) What say you? HAMLET Nay, then, I have an eye of you.-- If you love me, hold not off. GUILDENSTERN My lord, we were sent for. HAMLET I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to my stepparents won't be stained with treason. I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Woman delights not me... Rosencrantz laughs and stops walking. Hamlet stops as well and approaches her. HAMLET (continuing) No, nor men neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. ROSENCRANTZ There was no such stuff in my thoughts. HAMLET What did you laugh then, when I said, "Man delights not me"? ROSENCRANTZ To think if you delight not in women, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. They have answered your demands to perform one of your poems. Hamlet smiles and contemplates Rosencrantz'face: HAMLET After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than my poetic ill report while you live. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S BROAD STREET. EXT.DAY. Hamlet turns on the camera and talks to the lens. HAMLET He that plays the old-white-- straight-male character shall be welcome--his beauty shall have tribute of me; the adulterer shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled over the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely. (pause) I know the players. CUT TO: VALLEY FORGE. EXT/DAY. A monitor plays the last words of Hamlet conversation: HAMLET (VIDEO-IMAGE) Their need comes by means of the decline of theater... (pause) Their endeavour keeps them in the wonted pace. The camera tracks backwards and actors are disclosed. Crew members cross the frame, measuring lighting, and setting up the camera for the shouting of a play. HAMLET (to the camera, briefly) My uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. I am but mad north- north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. Polonius approaches smiling. He pads Hamlet. Hamlet avoids him and addresses Rosencrantz, who is in the way. HAMLET (continuing) This great baby you see here is not yet out of his swaddling- clouts. ROSENCRANTZ Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child. HAMLET I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it. POLONIUS I have news to tell you. HAMLET (imitating him) I have news to tell you. When Grace was an actress in LA. POLONIUS All the actors have been paid. HAMLET Buzz, buzz... POLONIUS Upon my honor-- HAMLET Each actor will be gone on his ass... POLONIUS The best actors in the east coast, either for action, comedy, horror, erotic or melodramatic film. Welles cannot be too heavy, nor Chaplin too light. HAMLET O Jephthah, father of Israel, what a treasure you have. POLONIUS Who was Jephthah? What treasure? HAMLET A judge who sacrificed his daughter. "One fair daughter and no more, the which he loved passing well". POLONIUS Still on my daughter? HAMLET Am I not in the right, old Jephthah? Hamlet leaves him alone and approaches the troupe. HAMLET (continuing) You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! your face is harry since I saw you last: Do you come to beard me in Valley Forge? Fly at anything you see. We'll have a speech straight. (pause) 'With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus... Old grandsire Priam seeks.' So, proceed you. POLONIUS (clapping) For God, Hamlet! Well spoken, with good accent and good discretion! Other actors clasp as well. Hamlet goes to the camera and pushes "play". The player will have three actors representing what he says. Hecuba looks at Priam. ACTOR 1 'Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks; Priam fights against the wind. ACTOR 1 (continuing) his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command: Actor 1 points out at Pyrrhus. ACTOR 1 (continuing) Unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide; but with the whiff and wind of his fell sword the unnerved father falls. Priam lies on the floor awaiting death. ACTOR 1 (continuing) Then senseless Ilium, seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword, Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seemed in the air to stick. So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, and like a neutral to his will and matter, Did nothing. Priam and Pyrrhus look at each other. ACTOR 1 (continuing) But, as we often see, against some storm, a silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, the bold winds speechless and the orb below as hush as death--anon the dreadful thunder doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause, aroused vengeance sets him new a- work; and never did the Cyclops' hammers fall On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne with less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword now falls on Priam. (pause) Out! out! But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen, run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames with sightless rheum; in the alarm of fear caught up; (pause) but if the gods themselves did see her then, when she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport, (sobbing) In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs, the instant burst of clamor that she made, unless things mortal move them not at all, would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven and passion in the gods. The actor 1 cries. POLONIUS Pray you, no more. SOUND RECORDER (dramatic; to Hamlet) I do hear. POLONIUS Our multimedia agency should use them according to their desert. HAMLET Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. (to the actor) Can we stage "The Murder of Gonzago". ACTOR 1 Yes, my Lord. HAMLET Well, next week we'll start rehearsals. You could for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in it. Could you not? ACTOR 1 If our pay is reasonable, of course. HAMLET Mr. Polonius will persuade you indeed. DISSOLVE TO: VALLEY FORGE. EXT/NIGHT. Hamlet, alone amid the forest, addresses the camera. Actor 1 is there, like a statue representing the most painful gesture. HAMLET What a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit, that from her working all his visage wann', tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, a broken voice, and his whole body suits with forms to his conceit? And all for nothing! For Hecuba! He sees Hecuba on the floor. HAMLET (continuing) What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her? What would he do, had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have? He would unbound the screen with sadness and cleave the ear of the indolent audience with horrid speech, make mad the guilty and appeal the free, confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, and can say nothing; no, not for a father, upon whose property and most dear life a damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie in the throat as deep as to the lungs? who does me this? Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it... (pause) Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, that I, the son of a dear father murder'd, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, and fall a-cursing like unpaid drag- queen! My uncle's employee! Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! CUT TO: EXTERIOR. PARK'S ROAD. DAY. Hamlet opens his eyes and skates towards Horatio. Horatio listens to him while running. HAMLET I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a screening, have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaim'd their malefactions; for murder, though it has no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ. I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks. The spirit that I have seen may be a devil; for any man has power to assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps out of my weakness and melancholy, my friends oppress me with spirits to try my sanity: I'll have grounds more relative than this: the play will be the time wherein I'll catch the conscience of this crime. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART BACKYARD. EXT/DAY. Rosencrantz, Guilderstern shoot their guns against puppets. Polonius, Claudius and Gertrude stand near by. CLAUDIUS Get from him why he puts on this confusion, grating so harshly all his days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy. ROSENCRANTZ He does confess he feels himself distracted; but from what cause he will by no means confess. GUILDENSTERN With a crafty madness, he keeps aloof, when we would bring him on to some confession of his true state. GERTRUDE Did he receive you well? ROSENCRANTZ Most like a gentleman. GUILDENSTERN But with much forcing of his disposition. Although once we told him of certain players, he spoke well of cinema, and there did seem in him a kind of joy. GERTRUDE (to Claudius) I beseech'd you; we should hear and see the matter. CLAUDIUS With all my heart; and it doth much content me to hear him so inclined to a harmless enterprise.... (to Rosencrantz) Drive his purpose on to those delights. Gertrude and Claudius walk towards Polonius. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are left behind. GERTRUDE I do wish Ophelia's will be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness. POLONIUS Ophelia will approach Hamlet in his affliction. With a lonely countenance she will tape his wishes. GERTRUDE So? POLONIUS (dramatic) Seeing unseen, we may of their encounter frankly judged. She'll color her words with loneliness, that this is too much proved--that with devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself CLAUDIUS (sad) O, 'tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it than is my deed to my most painted word: O heavy burden! He faints; Gertrude helps him to walk towards a car. CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S BRIDGE. EXT/NIGHT. HAMLET To be, or not to be: that is the question: wether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When I have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give me pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For would I bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When I myself might my quietus make With a single blade? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus this conscience makes a coward of myself. CUT TO: NURSING HOME. INT/DAY. Ophelia, taking notes, listens at Hamlet, who, lying on a sofa, talks to her A hidden camera is placed somewhere. Hamlet stands up ready to leave. HAMLET I humbly thank you; well, well, well. OPHELIA I have remembrances of yours, that I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them. HAMLET No, not I; I never gave you aught. OPHELIA (looking at her pregnant belly) My honoured.... you know right well you did. And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed As made the things more rich: their perfume lost, HAMLET Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. (he laughs) Are you honest? Are you a mother? OPHELIA What do you mean? HAMLET That if you are an honest mother, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. OPHELIA Could beauty alone have better commerce than with motherhood? HAMLET Honesty? Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. OPHELIA Indeed, you made me believe so. HAMLET You should not have believed me; I did love you not. OPHELIA I was the more deceived. HAMLET Get that bastard to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious... (Hamlet has discovered the camera, and taking it amongst his hands talk to it) With more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. (ha leaves the camera on a table and takes Ophelia's face amongst his hands) Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? OPHELIA (crying) At home. HAMLET Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in his own house. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern enter and grasp Hamlet. The latter one shoot him with a needle. ROSENCRANTZ Farewell. OPHELIA O, help him, you sweet heavens. HAMLET (pointing out Ophelia's belly) If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get him to a nunnery, go! GUILDENSTERN (to Ophelia) Farewell. HAMLET Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell. OPHELIA O heavenly powers, restore him! They take Hamlet out, while he faints. HAMLET I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; nature has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name nature's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go! CUT TO: PHILADELPHIA'S MUSEUM OF ART. EXT/DAY. Seated on a chair, with the river as background, Ophelia speaks. She will change her analytic speech for sorrowful one. At the end she will wear sunglasses. OPHELIA O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The smartest sportsman, soulmate, father, hard- worker, student, eye, tongue, figure; The expectancy and rose of this family company. The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers, quite, quite down! And I, of human beings most deject and wretched, That shared the honey of musical vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me, (she bursts into tears; a zoom out shows Gertrude, Polonius and Claudius listening to hear. In the middle of the table there is a VHS tape) To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! CLAUDIUS Love! his affections do not that way tend; nor what he spoke, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. POLONIUS There's something in his soul, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood. CLAUDIUS And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose Will be some danger: which for to prevent, I have in quick determination Thus set it down: he shall with speed to Colombia, For the demand of our neglected tribute. Haply the seas and countries different With variable objects shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart, Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. (to Gertrude) What think you on't? POLONIUS (fast) Do as you please; (to Gertrude) But, if you hold it fit, entreat him first to show his own grief to you.If you find him not, To Bucaramanga send him, or confine him where our doctors best shall think It. Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. CUT TO: TOMLINSON THEATER. EXT/NIGHT. Wearing suits and night-dresses, people walk and talk. Hamlet moves from one group to another. He talks first, with two actors. HAMLET (to ACTOR 2) You spoke the speech as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: were you mouthing it, as many privileged actors do, I'd have had to hire a pop-singer to perform my lines. ACTOR 1 Didn't I saw the air too much with my hand? HAMLET Not at all; in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you acquired and begot a temperance that gave smoothness to your movement. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robusteous model tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable special effects and persecutions. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern approach Hamlet. Hamlet shuns them. HAMLET (continuing) Be not too tame neither. ACTOR 1 I let my own discretion be my tutor, suiting the action to the word, the word to the action. HAMLET With this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; Horacio crosses the frame. HAMLET (continuing; to Horatio) to show virtue her own feature, (pointing out Rosencrantz) scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Guilderstern laughs, Rosencrantz follows Hamlet. HAMLET (continuing) Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious commentator grieve; the censure of the which one must in your career o'erweigh a whole theatre of uneducated fellows. The actor 1 and 2 join a group of actors. HAMLET (continuing; looking at Horatio;) Horatio! Here, sweet friend, at your service. Thou art e'en as just a man as e'er my conversation coped withal.Be marry that I have written my 2-billion dollar will to your name. Horatio takes his face in guilt. HORATIO O my dear lord! HAMLET Nay, do not think I flatter; for what advancement may I hope from thee That no revenue hast but thy good spirits, To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where profit may follow fawning. Horatio faints. Hamlet caresses him. HAMLET (continuing) Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing, A man that fortune's buffets and rewards. HORATIO Sweet lord... Horatio attempts to stand up, but Hamlet keeps him in his arms. HAMLET Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee. They stand up. People are looking at them, creating a semi- circle. The semi-circle braks. Horatio sobs---by happiness and remorse. HAMLET (continuing) Observe mine uncle. HORATIO (recovering) If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damned ghost that we have seen. Horatio leaves. Hamlet meets Polonious besides him. Polonious is going to utter something, but Hamlet speaks faster. HAMLET Polonious! You played once in the university, you say? POLONIUS That did I, I was accounted a good actor. HAMLET What did you enact? POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed in the Capitol; Brutus killed me. HAMLET (making a Joke; touching Polonious belly) It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Polonious laughs. Gertrude and Claudius meet Hamlet. GERTRUDE Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by us. HAMLET No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. Hamlet approaches Ophelia, who talks to a male friend. Hamlet takes her away while talking. HAMLET (continuing) Look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. OPHELIA Nay, 'tis twice two months, my patient. HAMLET So long? O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet?. CUT TO: A GARDEN [ SCRATCHED FOOTAGE]. EXT/DAY. A middle-aged man and a woman make love; they scream in ecstasy. GERTRUDE (V.O.) You are naught, you are naught! HAMLET (O.S.) I'll cut the scene. The man lies on the bed exhausted. The woman kisses him. ACTOR 2 So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er before love be done! The man gets sleep and the woman lies some flowers on him; afterwards she leaves naked. Anon comes in a fellow, pours poison in the man's ears, and leaves. CLAUDIUS (V.O.) O, what a rash and bloody deed is this? The woman returns; finds the man dead, and cries. The Poisoner comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. OPHELIA Is this film brief? HAMLET As woman's love. The Poisoner kisses the woman in consolation and they make love. The film ends. DISSOLVE TO: TOMLINSON THEATER. INT/NIGHT. People are seated in front of the screen. They look confused. Hamlet, on the stage, handles a guitar in his right hand. Claudius claps first; everybody imitates him. CLAUDIUS (laughing) What do you call the play? HAMLET The Mouse-trap. OPHELIA You are as good as a chorus, my lord. HAMLET I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying. CLAUDIUS You are keen, Hamlet, you are keen. HAMLET It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge. CLAUDIUS Still better, and worse. HAMLET (furious; to his uncle) His brother poisons him in the garden for his state. The murderer gets the love of his wife. Claudius stands up an copes with Hamlet; he looks back at him and meets the audience. HAMLET (continuing; playing his guitar) Someone rises... (loud, to Claudius) What, frighted with false fire! GERTRUDE How did you dare? CLAUDIUS Lights, lights, lights! CUT TO: TOMLINSON THEATER. EXT/NIGHT People talk; all of them avoid Hamlet, who walks alone. Claudius is touched and caressed by almost everybody, in a dreamy fashion. Hamlet meets Horatio and exits. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern look at him. CUT TO: PARKING LOT. EXT/NIGHT. Hamlet and Horatio walk towards Hamlet's car. HORATIO So runs the world away. HAMLET Didst perceive? HORATIO Very well. HAMLET Upon the talk of the poisoning. HORATIO I did very well note him. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern approach them. GUILDENSTERN Vouchsafe me a word with you. HAMLET Sir, a whole history GUILDENSTERN Mr. Claudius... HAMLET Oh, Claudius! --Ay, sir, what of him? GUILDENSTERN Is in his retirement marvellous distempered. HAMLET With drugs? GUILDENSTERN No, youngster, rather with choler. HAMLET Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor. Guilderstern hits Hamlet, who falls on the soil. Horatio is threatened with a gun by Rosencrantz. GUILDENSTERN Put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair. HAMLET I am tame, sir: pronounce. GUILDENSTERN Your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. HAMLET You are welcome. GUILDENSTERN Your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration. HAMLET O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! GUILDENSTERN She desires to speak with you in her garden, down the river. HAMLET We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Guilderstern makes a gesture and Rosencrantz keeps his gun. Hamlet hits Guilderstern and Horatio beats Rosencrantz--who immediately falls. GUILDENSTERN My lord, you once did love me. Hamlet takes two guns from them. HAMLET So I do still, by these guns and bullets. Hamlet walks away with Horatio, but he's stopped after two steps by Guilderstern, who takes Hamlet's legs. GUILDENSTERN What is your cause of distemper? You do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to us, your friends. HORATIO He lacks advancement, sir. GUILDENSTERN (to Hamlet) How can that be, when you have the voice of your uncle himself for your inheritance in Elsinor? Hamlet helps Guilderstern to raise. HAMLET (joking, to Horatio) I do not well understand that. (He gives his guitar to Guilderstern) Will you play upon this guitar? GUILDENSTERN No, I cannot. HAMLET I pray you. GUILDENSTERN Believe me, I cannot. Hamlet puts the gun in Guilderstern's eyes. HAMLET I do beseech you. GUILDENSTERN I know no touch of it, my lord. HAMLET This is as easy as lying: govern the strings with your lingers and thumb, and it will discourse most eloquent music. GUILDENSTERN But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill. HAMLET Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. Guilderstern plays some atonal random notes. HAMLET (continuing) 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a guitar? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me. Guilderstern throws the guitar to Hamlet and runs away. HAMLET (continuing) You won't pluck out the heart of my mystery. CUT TO: RIVER DRIVE. EXT/DAY Hamlet walks through the garden . HAMLET Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural: I will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites; How in my words soever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent! CUT TO: RIVER DRIVE. EXT/NIGHT. Rosencrantz and Guilderstern listen at Claudius, who observes the stars through a telescope. CLAUDIUS I like him not, nor stands it safe with us to let his madness range. Therefore prepare you; I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to Colombia shall along with you fly, in order to be protected against the laws of our States. He himself may not endure Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies. GUILDENSTERN We will keep his body safe out of the country They get three flight tickets and leave. CLAUDIUS O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murder. Hamlet arrives there and approaches him. CLAUDIUS (continuing) Like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. Hamlet looks around: empty space. CLAUDIUS (continuing) What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as bones? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence? Hamlet takes out his gun and places it behind Claudius' head. CLAUDIUS (continuing) My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'? Claudius sobs. Hamlet's hand trembles with the gun. Hamlet's face sweats. CLAUDIUS (continuing) That cannot be; since I am still possessed Of those effects for which I did the murder, My city, mine own ambition and the mother of my son. Hamlet steps back; looks around and runs away. CUT TO: RIVER DRIVE. EXT/DAY. Gertrude awaits for Hamlet. She talks through a cellular phone. POLONIUS (TELEPHONE VOICE) He will come straight. HAMLET (V.O.) Mother, mother, mother! POLONIUS (TELEPHONE VOICE) I'll warrant you, fear me not. Gertrude keeps the phone in her purse. Hamlet arrives. HAMLET Now, mother, what's the matter? GERTRUDE Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. HAMLET Mother, you have my father much offended. GERTRUDE Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. HAMLET Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. GERTRUDE Why, how now, Hamlet! What's the matter now? Have you forgot me? HAMLET (tired, resting upon her breast) You are the trustee, your husband's brother's wife; And-- would it were not so!--you are my mother. Gertrude moves away, and is stopped by Hamlet. HAMLET (continuing) You shall not budge You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. GERTRUDE (maternal) Come, come and sit you down. Hamlet is guided by his mother to a bench. Suddenly, Hamlet notices a gleam coming between the bushes. He frees himself and takes out his gun. GERTRUDE (continuing) What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me? She sees helpless how Hamlet points out his gun towards the bushes. GERTRUDE (continuing) Help, help, ho! What, ho! help, help, help! HAMLET How now! a rat? Hamlet's first shot is misled by his mother's arm. He hits her with his gun and shuts to a body that runs. HAMLET (continuing) Dead, for a ducat, dead! POLONIUS O, I am murdered! GERTRUDE O me, what hast thou done? HAMLET Nay, I know not: Is it the bastard? GERTRUDE O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! HAMLET A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, as kill a husband, and marry with his brother. GERTRUDE As kill a husband? HAMLET Ay, lady, 'twas my word. He discovers Polonius and screams. HAMLET (continuing) Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool!! I took thee for thy better; Thou find'st to be overworking is some danger. GERTRUDE What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? HAMLET (guilty) Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow: Yea, this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act. GERTRUDE Ay me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index HAMLET Look here, upon that statue, and on this, the counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See, what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperons' curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New- lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man: This was your husband. Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildewed ear, Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err. (pause) Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight. (he looks at Gertrude's still proud face) O shame! where is thy blush? GERTRUDE O Hamlet, speak no more. Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct. HAMLET Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty. GERTRUDE O, speak to me no more. These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears; No more, Hamlet, my only son. HAMLET A murderer and a villain; A looser that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord. GERTRUDE He was the vice of men! Hamlet looks at Polonious' cadaver. He addresses the skies. HAMLET Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? GERTRUDE Alas, he's mad! HAMLET Do you not come your tardy son to chide, that, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O, say! ACTOR 1 (O.S.) Do not forget: this visitation is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But, look, amazement on thy mother sits: O, step between her and her fighting soul: Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works: Speak to her, Hamlet. HAMLET How is it with you, lady? GERTRUDE Alas, how is't with you That you do bend your eye on vacancy And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse? Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? HAMLET On him, on him! Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, Would make them capable. Do not look upon me; Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects: then what I have to do Will want true color; tears perchance for blood. GERTRUDE To whom do you speak this? HAMLET Do you see nothing there? GERTRUDE Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. HAMLET Nor did you nothing hear? GERTRUDE No, nothing but ourselves. HAMLET Why, look you there! look, how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he lived! Look, where he goes, even now, into the river! Hamlet drives her mother into the river--up to her knees. GERTRUDE This the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in. HAMLET Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music: it is not madness That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that mattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. GERTRUDE O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. GERTRUDE (continuing) O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half. Good night. He looks at Polonious' cadaver, and drags it to the river. HAMLET How can I repent; our State will punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. So, again, good night. I must be cruel, only to be kind. GERTRUDE What shall I do? HAMLET Let the bloat looser tempt you again to bed; Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. Break your own neck down. GERTRUDE Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me. HAMLET |