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Page 175 as well. To downplay and to offset any hint of erotic attraction between son and mother, Branagh displaces Hamlet’s sexual yearnings from Gertrude to Ophelia through the use of flashbacks, all but one explicitly marked as deriving from Ophelia’s memory. As Ophelia agrees to obey her father’s wishes in rejecting Hamlet’s romantic advances, she remembers making love with him in memories that resemble the most typical Hollywood love/sex scenes; from body positioning to lighting and filming, Ophelia is clearly the object of her lover’s desire. Branagh also has Ophelia, instead of Polonius, read Hamlet’s love letter to the king and queen. When she runs out of the room in distress, Polonius finishes the letter, juxtaposed with flashback shots of Hamlet reading Ophelia amorous verses in bed. These flashbacks reappear in Ophelia’s mad scene, when she apparently visualizes Hamlet making love to her as she parodies the act of sexual intercourse, lying supine, thrusting her pelvis up and down while chanting, “before you tumbled me,/You promised me to wed” (4.5.61–62). These flashbacks underwrite the nunnery scene as well, where the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet is unmistakable. Hamlet’s cruelty to Ophelia in this version is greatly mitigated, even more so than in most performances. Hamlet shows his romantic feelings for Ophelia through his gentle speech and passionate kiss, his mood changing to anger only when he feels wounded by her perceived rejection and betrayal. He treats Ophelia in an abusive manner only after becoming aware of Polonius’s and Claudius’s presence behind the mirrored door. Hamlet’s interest in “mettle more attractive” than his mother (3.2.99) is fully realized when he reveals his love for the lost Ophelia, now the impossible object of desire through death. In a subsequent move to de-emphasize the relationship between mother and son, Branagh stresses instead scenes involving Hamlet and Claudius. Therefore, Branagh’s Hamlet becomes the story of step-father/uncle and son, in a relationship that is intense and emotionally charged. The obvious similarity in physical appearance of both actors and intertextual, biographical connections between the two—Jacobi was Branagh’s inspirational mentor and the major “paternal” influence in his acting training (Branagh 1990:36, 84)— highlight this Oedipal conflict even more. Further emphasis on the father-son relationship over that of the mother-son is achieved through an exchange of looks in key scenes, as well as through camera shots and body positioning. When Gertrude pleads with her son to “let |
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