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Page 165 In this sense, Branagh’s Hamlet realizes Freud’s thesis concerning Hamlet and repression, much more so than earlier films that have attempted to depict, through cinematic conventions, the workings of the unconscious on a visual and often literal level. In the shadow of psychoanalytic appropriations of Hamlet since Freud, all screen adaptations have necessarily had to position themselves either within or against a psychoanalytic reading that tends to resist visual representation. It is Ernest Jones’s elaborations on Freud’s analysis of Hamlet’s repressed Oedipal complex, however, not Freud’s own writings, that have had the most direct impact on the cinematic adaptations of Olivier and others. Ironically, the realization of this directorial concept can be seen as ultimately counter-psychoanalytic, for to visualize unconscious desire is potentially to render it conscious and to disavow the very existence of the unconscious as that which constantly disrupts the stability and unity of the subject. Since the unconscious is an effect of repression, a literal representation of the unconscious in Hamlet contradicts Freud’s own reading of the play as an emblem of societal and individual repression. In contrast to later directors, Olivier openly positions his film adaptation of Hamlet in relation to psychoanalytic literary criticism of the play. As an Essay on Hamlet, which the film was initially titled, Olivier’s Hamlet proclaims itself to be a cinematic appropriation not only of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but also of psychoanalytic interpretations of the play, particularly those elaborated on by Jones (see Donaldson 1990:37). When preparing his Hamlet, Olivier visited Jones, whose Freudian views on Hamlet provide the initial “Oedipal” concept of the film, namely that Hamlet’s inability to kill Claudius results from his guilty conscience, for unconsciously, Hamlet longs to do what Claudius did—kill his father and fulfill his sexual longings for his mother (Olivier 1982:102; see also Donaldson 1990: 31–34). Notwithstanding this influence, Olivier made many directorial decisions that directly countered Jones’s suggestions for an ideal “Freudian” production of Hamlet, as detailed in his Hamlet and Oedipus. Jones thought that, contrary to popular stage practice, the actress playing Gertrude should be a mature forty-five year old, five years older than the actor playing Claudius and twice as old as Hamlet. In Jones’s view, both Gertrude and Ophelia, whom he links as objects of desire, should be “unmistakably sensual,” Ophelia never docile or “innocent.’’ Jones recommends that Hamlet be “bawdy in a forced fashion but…never sensual—especially towards his mother” |
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