I'll take Manhattan

Who, when, how long?
Ethan Hawke, 2000, 1¾ hrs.

What sort of Hamlet?
Stocking-capped.

What's missing?
Oh, rather ask what survives--it's half the time of what a full performance would require, so half the lines are gone, and while they're not precisely the half I'd choose, the slashes are intelligently chosen.

What's changed?
In terms of lines as lines, scarcely anything, though the odd direct address is tossed.

What's odd?
Oh, everything, magnificently . . .

• The setting is Manhattan, and the kingdom is Denmark, Inc.


• "I have of late . . . " opens the film: Hamlet on video by Hamlet, viewed on computer. Much of the film is on video, captured by Hamlet or by Ophelia.


• Fortinbras's challenge is financial, displayed on a USA Today front page, with Claudius tearing the page in half--"So much for him"--to signify his disdain.


• Marcellus becomes Marcella, Horatio's girlfriend, played by the Deadwood-lead-whore-to-be Paula Malcolmson. The unnamed Francisco is a security guard, and the first sight of the Ghost is on a surveillance video; the three come to Hamlet's apartment to apprise him.


• Polonius sneaks a bankroll into Laertes' pocket during the "borrower/lender" speech, but he doesn't ask Ophelia about her conversation w/ L until a later scene--and at the end of that scene, she does not say, "I shall obey, my lord."


• Between those two scenes comes the Hamlet-Ghost interview, which is much more physical than typically, the Ghost touching Ham's face early and embracing him at "remember me."


• "To be" has a wonderful prelude, with Ham watching a Buddhist monk on TV discussing being and nonbeing.


• Ham's letter to O is written--with false starts--in a notebook in a coffeeshop, then delivered to her in her apartment darkroom. Then Pol arrives, Ham flees, and Pol retrieves the accidentally dropped page, though he later characterizes it as having been in "her duty and obedience." (When he tells Gert & Claud this, at their indoor swimming pool, O fantasizes/prefigures her drowning in that pool.)


• As one of at least two "to be" teasers, Hamlet visits Claudius's office, piston in hand--but Claud's not there, so a legitimate reason to delay.


• Finally "to be" is delivered in a Blockbuster video store, and though I had not to this point been enchanted w/ Hawke's Hamlet--had thought it rather flat--this is as good a delivery of that famous soliloquy as I've seen.


• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Steve Zahn) meet Ham at a dance club, and afterward report to Clau & Gert via speakerphone. Then we see Ham, during the "rogue and petty slave" solil., watching a James Dean film (East of Eden?) and something that looks very Buñuel on TV.


• Poster: The Mouse Trap, a video by Hamlet.


• Pol straps wire to a tearful Ophelia ahead of the "nunnery" exchange; she brings a '60s-looking box for 45rpm records, containing his remembrances: a bunch of letters and a rubber ducky. He is affectionate in the scene, kissing her and groping--whereupon he finds the wire at "believe none of us." "If you would marry" is seen on tape.


• The "play" is a surreal pastiche of cliché '50s family happiness. Afterward, Ham gets into a cab and hears Eartha Kitt's buckle-up message--brand new in 2000, I believe.


• Ham bribes the chauffeur and is driving Claud--but there's no explanation of why he declines to kill him while he's praying.


• Pol is killed via a gunshot through a mirrored wardrobe door--the "one word more" is from a phone after Ham has dragged the body from Gert's closet. Afterward, R&G accost Ham in a laundromat--Claud joins them and gut-punches Ham at "look for him in the other place yourself."


• Ham mouth-kisses Claud at "and so my mother."


• Ham (w/ R&G) leaves for England via American Airlines, seen off (silently) by his mother. The captain of Fortinbras becomes a flight attendant, played by Tim Blake Nelson.


• O's single mad scene is at the Guggenheim: Laertes arrives; Polaroids become "herbs."


• Pistol used to kill Polonius handed from Claud to L in a plastic evidence bag, as a fax in arriving from Hamlet, announcing his return.


• Hor picks up Ham at the airport, takes him to cemetery, where Gravedigger (otherwise silent) is singing "All Along the Watchtower." Ophelia's funeral is already underway. Ham offers L his hand to pull him out of grave. Then to Hor's apartment, where two volumes of Vladimir Mayakovsky's poetry are on display--why, I have no idea, not knowing Mayakovsky. The Ghost and Marcella are there. Ham tells Hor of the intercepted and revised email calling for his death. Then a fax comes, outlining the king's wager on the fencing bout.


• L snubs Ham's apology.


• Gert intercepts the poisoned chalice, and clearly knows what's up--and then, so does Ham. Laertes pulls a gun to decide matters.


• Final Fortinbras speech falls to a TV commentator.

Flesh?

Solid.

Ghost?

Sam Freakin' Shepard, and he's freakin' great--good enough that you don't mind that he appears a couple of extra times.

Gert-Ham eros?

No.

Other characters.

Julia Stiles is an excellent Ophelia, and Bill Murray may well be the best Polonius I've seen. Liev Schrieber is very good as Laertes, Diane Venora (Kline's Ophelia, at age 38) a fine Gertrude, and Kyle MacLachan a good enough Claudius.

This is just a fucking terrific production--thrilling to hear WS's language in a contemporary context and have it still seem so right. I mourn many lost lines and would have done the cutting differently myself--and probably would have made it 3/4 of an hour longer--but that's a quibble. If you didn't know Hamlet at all, it might be a bizarre but still effective film; but if you know the play well, it's a brilliant modernization. Five ear-flap stocking caps.