In his recent autobiography, internationally celebrated Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, now seventy, tells us that at sixteen, as an exchange student in Germany, he saw Adolf Hitler for the first time at a rally in Weimar. He loved the experience, he remembers, holding out his arm like everyone else, howling like everyone else. "I loved him [Hitler]. For many years, I was on Hitler's side, delighted by his successes and saddened by his defeats." It look Bergman many years to accept the reality of the concentration camps, and when he finally did, he decided, "Politics--never again!"
The idealism, hero worship, and aggressiveness of National Socialism powerfully appealed to him, as did its theatricality, although he confesses he was unable to perceive "the darkness." The director's Hamlet, recently presented in Swedish at the Brookly Academy of Music, has, fittingly, a political spin to its final scene, recalling something of what moved the adolescent Bergman in Weimar so many years ago.
Resolutely Modern Hamlet
Bergman's Hamlet is a resolutely modern Hamlet. This is a Hamlet in dark glasses, with rock music, and sex--a lot of sex. The tone of the production is set with the first appearance of Claudius and Gertrude on all fours, copulating, as the court stands about politely applauding. Hamlet virtually rapes Ophelia in the "get thee to a nunnery" scene. Laertes and Ophelia touch and grasp one another in all their scenes. Hamlet and Horatio constantly clutch, kiss, and embrace one another. It never stops.
The stage is bare except for an overhead light and a large white circle painted in the middle. In most of the scenes, members of the court dressed in red robes sit like judges with periwigs, Greek-chorus-like, viewing the action. Costuming is eclectic, to say the least.
Bergman seems to want to establish some identification between himself and the eponymous Hamlet. The young actor playing Hamlet, Peter Stormare, bears more than a passing resemblance to the Ingmar Bergman of forty years ago. He moves like Bergman, slumps in a chair like him, and even has Bergman's highly idiosyncratic laugh--a loud bray--down cold. On winter locations, the director always used to wear a navy watchcap, at exactly the same angle as the actor's. Bergman's relationship with his own mother, as discussed at length in his biography (The Magic Lantern, Viking) [see "The Play of Shadows," p. 432], was tortuous and highly ambiguous--as indeed is Hamlet's with Gertrude in this production.
Violating Shakespeare
Bergman violates Shakespeare many times, but perhaps never so often as in the last half of the play. At the end of the duel between Hamlet and Laertes, when Hamlet realizes that Gertrude has been poisoned and that he and Laertes are dying, he starts toward Claudius. At this point, suddenly the Ghost emerges from the wings, grabs Claudius firmly and shoves him toward Hamlet. Hamlet appears to hesitate. Horatio seizes Hamlet by the shoulders and pushes him toward Claudius. With the help of the Ghost and Horatio, Hamlet finally manages to stab Claudius. The audience reacted with hoots of derision.
In the last scene of the play, Hamlet lying dead with
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