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Page 169 son. Figuratively, Gertrude thus embodies the maternal object, the internalized loss that underlies this Hamlet’s existential angst and his unrelenting self-hatred. To identify fully with his father, he would have to acknowledge her as “lost,” to sever himself from her completely, and finally to substitute another object in her place. Unable to mourn her successfully, Hamlet carries her loss as an emptiness that cannot be filled, an inner void. In the closing moments of the film, the camera positions the viewer as a “mourner” trailing Hamlet’s funeral procession, followed by a repeat sequence of the film’s opening shots (see Donaldson 1990:62). Interestingly, these final shots include the infamous bed, the site of the “primal scene” (the traumatic experience of witnessing one’s parents engage in sexual intercourse), and by extension, the emblem of Hamlet’s own Oedipal dilemma. Following the bed, other objects appear in successive shots: Hamlet’s “mourning” chair, Ophelia’s room, and the chapel. Through the use of these emblems, Olivier closes the film with a final emphasis on Hamlet’s failed mourning, his unsuccessful attempt to come to terms with death and separation, which lies at the root of his inner longings and Oedipal impulses. In contrast to Olivier’s film, with its emphasis on Hamlet’s unconscious desire and loss, Zeffirelli’s Hamlet focuses instead on Gertrude’s overwhelming passion and its consuming effect on others. Although Zeffirelli’s adaptation opens with a scene of mourning, or insufficient mourning, it clearly gives way to the predominate issue at stake in this Hamlet—the overpowering desire of the mother and the anxiety it produces in those who seek to fulfill it, namely Hamlet and Claudius. In this initial funeral scene, Gertrude’s grief as she weeps over her husband’s dead body instantly transforms into a look of sexual longing directed at Claudius, which emblematically presents the film’s departure from Olivier’s Hamlet: mourning gives way to Gertrude’s desire. In further contrast to Olivier, Zeffirelli makes no attempt to reveal Hamlet’s unconscious, or to deal with desire on anything other than a conscious, literal level. The appropriation of psychoanalysis in this film is obvious and literal, counter to Freud’s emphasis on the unconscious and repression and more in line with Lacan’s theory in that “Oedipus is not so much distanced by repression as too close for comfort’’ in Hamlet (Lupton and Reinhard 1993:76). According to Lacan, the Oedipal dilemma and desire itself are openly dramatized and explored in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, not buried and detached from conscious action, as Freud had argued.7 |
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