How has Queen Gertrude (Shakespeare's Hamlet) been portrayed in screen adaptation?

Queen on Screen: Representing Queen Gertrude in Screen Adaptation

Abstract

This portfolio will analyse how queen Gertrude in hamlet has been echoed in a selection of adaptations in the 20th century. This includes Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), Grigori Kazantsev's Hamlet (1964), Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990), Kenneth Branagh (1996), and Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000). I would argue that the directors' interpretation and the cultural and social context of each adaptation influence how Gertrude is depicted.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Gertrude is seen as an incestuous woman who is not faithful to her dead husband and can not control her sexuality. She is a weak woman victimized by males and never has a chance to protect herself from patriarchal authority. After her husband's death, King Hamlet, Gertrude falls in love with his brother, which is something Hamlet can not accept. Through her love for Claudius, she is no longer the perfect ideal of a woman for hamlet. Hamlet becomes angry and disappointed at his mother's fall; he transfers this new image to all the other women, including Ophelia, whom he drives mad, and then to her death. But how has Queen Gertrude been portrayed in screen adaptation? Does her image differ from the original text? To answer these questions, I will analyze a selection of screen adaptions, where Gertrude is portrayed differently in almost each adaptation.

Laurence Olivier depicts queen Gertrude as a young attractive, and seductive woman who uses her beauty to obtain what she wants. Therefore, by appearing very youthful, she is seen as an object of male sexual desire. Eileen Herlie, who performed the queen's role, was much younger than Hamlet's actor Olivier. Consequently, this makes Gertrude and Hamlet, who also appears youthful with his short blond hair and athletic body, seem less like mother and son than like lovers of roughly the same age. Moreover, Gertrude is seen as a seductive woman through her offensive sexuality. In this adaptation, her relationship with Hamlet takes the form of an incestuous mother-son relationship. In depicting this relationship, Olivier adopts the Freudian interpretation of the play; he works out this aspect more clearly and uses several cinematic means. Gertrude's sexuality is discussed intensively in this adaptation; it comes very early in the film, as the camera focuses on the royal double bed which ‘might be assumed the site of a recent or imminent sexual consummation.'¹ Olivier also uses a similar shot at the end of the film, suggesting the validity of the Oedipus complex.

The intimate mother-son relationship is revealed in the film primarily through the kisses that Hamlet and Gertrude exchange. This occurs once at the beginning of the film in a semi-close-up camera shot when the queen asks her son to stay at Elsinore. Surprisingly, Hamlet gazes at her breasts, and she expresses her joy at his acceptance with a prolonged kiss, which she does not end until Claudius has intervened. A similar kiss scene occurs at the end of the closet scene when Hamlet and Gertrude again express their mutual attachment in the same way. Olivier uses camera technology to emphasize the erotic component of their relationship and their deviant behavior. Hamlet's aggressive actions in the closet scene correspond in some ways to a symbolic rape of the mother, but his action is interrupted by the sudden appearance of the ghost. In the bedroom scene, Hamlet and his mother restore their relationship following the ghostly admonition, and this scene also introduces a radical change in the queen's behavior. From this moment on, she allies herself with Hamlet and turns away from Claudius at the same time. In other words, she follows her son's advice and practices sexual restraint, although she has shown no apparent erotic interest in Claudius throughout the film.

Olivier portrays the marriage of the royal couple as unsatisfying for both partners. In addition, the alienation of the royal couple is expressed in the scene that corresponds to Act IV, Scene vii, where a long shot shows Gertrude and Claudius reading a letter from Hamlet in each other opposite directions. During the film, Gertrude changes from a seductive woman to a caring woman, supporting her son and, consequently, the patriarchal authority. In the end, Gertrude is swinging between the lustful seductive woman and the good mother who should protect her son at any cost, yet Gertrude chooses to sacrifice herself in order to save Hamlet from certain death by the poisoned cup.

In Grigori Kozintsevs's adaptation, Gertrude is depicted as an attractive middle-aged woman with long blonde hair; she is slim, wearing a magnificent dress, and the ‘most modestly dressed woman' in this adaptation.² Her first appearance in the film is when she comforts Hamlet and tells him: ‘ all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity'³ I.II.73.74 with a look at his dead father. After a while, she looks at herself in the mirror to make sure that she has a good appearance, despite her husband's death and son's plight. This scene shows that she moves on so fast and would like to enjoy her life as a queen for a second time with her new husband, King Claudius. Being surrounded by servants reveals that Gertrude is a woman who belongs to the high class and enjoys being treated as a queen. This scene repeats itself many times throughout the film, such as when some servants lift her dress when she walks through the castle or when four ladies accompany her as she goes to the theatre. Gertrude might represent a class that exploits ordinary people for its own benefit and well-being without any pity or sympathy.

The way Gertrude behaves in the film shows she is very concerned about appearances. Her big concern is expressed in individual gestures and actions throughout the film, such as her frequent changes of clothes or her hairstyle. However, a woman's virtuous behavior plays a much more significant role than her physical attractiveness in the USSR. But from the beginning, Kosintsev portrays Gertrude as a woman who does not share the same ideals. Moreover, Gertrude enjoys the marriage celebrations and the performance of the dancers, which symbolizes that she is a pleasure-seeking woman. Yet, her moral corruption is never expressed directly; she lies alone in bed, but she is never seen with Claudius. Kozintsev depicts her as a woman who is respectable, ‘reserved and modest.'⁴

Gertrude enjoys the comforts of the royal court and makes herself an accomplice in the immoral or criminal goings-on around her. In doing so, she adapts her behavior to the political practices of the royal court, which makes use of mutual spying and surveillance. As a result, after the performance of The Murder of Gonzago, she allows Polonius to hide behind the curtain and listen to her private conversation with Hamlet. Her behavior, however, is not only characterized by a lack of critical faculties but also bears role-specific traits since, despite her high social status as a woman, she is underprivileged within the patriarchy and has no deep insight into how the social system works.

Furthermore, her insignificance and powerlessness are shown above all in the duel scene when she arrives too late for the fencing match and has no idea that her husband wants to get rid of Hamlet on this occasion. She arrives late to avoid being ‘privy to her husband's nefarious plot' to poison Hamlet's drink.⁵ In this screen adaptation of Hamlet, Gertrude dies as she lived, as a careless, irresponsible mother without emotional maturity. In contrast to the original text, Gertrude's relationship with Hamlet plays a far less significant role. In addition, the mother-son relationship in this adaptation seems much more distant than in other Film adaptations and shows no signs of incest. Since the ghost does not appear to him a second time in the closet, Gertrude does not seem as agitated as in the original.

Last but not least, Gertrude appears as a pleasure-seeking driven woman who, despite Hamlet's request for sexual abstinence, can be seen later with Claudius in the royal bedchamber. Yet, Gertrude does not give herself to Claudius since she believes she can secure a luxurious lifestyle and a high social status only by connecting with him.

Franco Zeffirelli's screen adaptation shows how the choice of the actress can exert an influence on the reception of the female figure. Zeffirelli casts Glenn Close in the role of Hamlet's queen and mother, who has already been seen as a sexually attractive, seductive woman in earlier films. Therefore, this leads the viewer to assume from the start that she will also embody one in Hamlet. During the funeral, Gertrude and Claudius express a particular interest in each other and cast a long glance at each other as Gertrude clings tearfully to the coffin of her deceased husband. This scene shows ‘the widowed queen's consuming grief reveals that the former king was much beloved.'⁶ The following scene in the film depicts Claudius' speech from Act I, Scene ii, in which a smiling Gertrude can now be seen in the picture. This drastic change from grave speech to wedding speech shapes the characterization of the queen, who appears as volatile and libidinous. This impression is especially evident in her relationship with Claudius and Hamlet, characterized by a constant exchange of physical contact. Hence, in the first half of the film, Gertrude kisses and embraces her husband effusively, for example, when she meets him in the castle or when he waits for her outside. In this way, Zeffirelli translates textual replicas such as ‘As if increase of appetite had grown/ By what it fed on" (I. ii. 144­145) or "a pair of reechy kisses'⁷ (III. iv. 186) into film images.

However, an estrangement of the royal couple begins, as in the Olivier film version, after the closet scene; it is characterized by specific camera angles as well as a change in Gertrude's costume. Moreover, the queen moves away from Claudius in tears after witnessing Ophelia's madness. But the most telling indicator of Gertrude's distancing from her husband is the exchange of her medallion for a cross, which she wears after the closet scene. This change can also mean that she follows Hamlet's advice and practices abstinence after he has criticized her lifestyle. In contrast to her increasing distancing from Claudius, her close relationship with Hamlet remains until the end of the film. She has an intimate and sensual relationship not only with her husband but also with her son, which has an incestuous component. This expresses Gertrude's exaggerated sexuality, especially conveyed by her youthfulness. However, Zeffirelli depicts incest and sexuality in general much more explicitly than his predecessor.

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¹ ‘Patrick J. Cook (2011) Cinematic Hamlet: The Films of Olivier, Zeffirelli, Branagh, and Almereyda's, pp. 28-29 <https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2012.0028>.

² Grigori Kozintsev, Shakespeare: Time and Conscience (Dobson Books Ltd, 1968), p. 241.

³ William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Repr (Ware: Wordsworth Ed, 1999), p. 673.

⁴ Kozintsev, p. 241.

⁵ Kenneth S. Rothwell and Kenneth Sprague Rothwell, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: A Century of Film and Television, 1. paperback ed (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001), p. 241.

⁶ ‘Patrick J. Cook (2011) Cinematic Hamlet', p. 67.

⁷ Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, p. 774.