In the beginning when she is trying to get Hamlet to stay, she kisses him on the mouth...not like a mother would kiss her son...what the heck was up with that? She does it again later on, after he kills Polonius but still...I didn't quite get the point of that.
"The joy is not the same without the pain." ~Badly Drawn Boy
Look up "Oedipus Complex" - I think that would probably be the explanation for those scenes.
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
yeah hamlet has a thing for his mom-lol its really subtle, but in other versions there has been that little hint- that hes jealous. in my shakespeare class we've talked about that. we also think that in othello, iago was really in love with othello (no joke!) and he was insanely jealous. what other motive could he have?
shareI know about the Oedipus Complex and its interpretation into Hamlet, but still I was really surprised that it was shown in the 1948 version. I figured maybe all the actors kissed each other that way, but somehow they don't really.
It seems the actors were much closer in general in those times (they keep touching each other and are generally standing much closer than nowadays). Just a thought.
Yeah, Hamlet has an Oedipus complex; one of the reasons he's so persistant in his disgust over Claudius and Gertrude's marriage is he views it as incestuous, which makes some sense, as Claudius, in killing Hamlet's father and marrying Gertrude, did what Hamlet subconsciously wants to do: kill his father and marry his mother; which, of course, would be completely incestuous if Hamlet did it, so, therefore, he projects his tentatively incestuous guilt on Claudius. You see the female counterpart of the Oedipus complex, the Electra complex, a lot in fairy tales in the wicked stepmother representing the prohibitive side of the mother, the one that surfaces with a girl's desire for her father, and the dead mother, the memory of the mother's nurturing and encouraging side, and this relates to Hamlet in Claudius being one of the few wicked stepfather figures found in literature, the half of Hamlet's father that prohibits him from his desire for his mother.
shareYeah, there's a book called HAMLET AND OEDIPUS which makes this point. When I picked it up, I thought it was going to be one of those "team-up" things, like in the comic books, where they meet and fight each other.
Sadly, no.
Yes that's true, in fact I have heard that Lawrence Olivier read that book before directing the film and that he wanted to reflect the Oedipus complex in his film, that's why Gertrude kisses Hamlet that way.
shareHamlet has an Oedipus complex; one of the reasons he's so persistant in his disgust over Claudius and Gertrude's marriage is he views it as incestuous, which makes some sense, as Claudius, in killing Hamlet's father and marrying Gertrude, did what Hamlet subconsciously wants to do: kill his father and marry his mother; which, of course, would be completely incestuous if Hamlet did it, so, therefore, he projects his tentatively incestuous guilt on Claudius.
I thought in Hamlet, it used to be that way but was then an electoral system and Claudius managed to get elected?
shareFurthermore, according to sixteenth-century English royal line of succession, Hamlet should have taken his father's place. Claudius interrupted the "natural" order of things by marrying his dead brother's wife. This hasty and "incestuous" marriage is the main reason why the state of Denmark is considered "rotten" or decayed.
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This is Denmark, not England. And the king is chosen through electoral process (this is why Hamlet gives his support to Fortinbras at the end). Granted, young Hamlet probably would have been elected had his uncle not swooped in underneath him and done it himself, so your point still sort of stands.
I think the Oedipal element is appropriate. Maybe it's just me, but I could never buy the idea of Hamlet being all het-up to kill Claudius on account of Hamlet Senior. In this play, fatherhood is more of an abstraction than a family relationship.
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Think cynical thoughts.
Yeah, I've heard of the Oedipal interpretation, but having read the play, I don't really buy it. LOL, those scenes seemed painfully awkward!
Great movie, though!
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