The Prince of Denmark is not insane; he is only playing at it so that he can bring justice on those that deserve it most.  “Hamlet Prince of Denmark” by William Shakespeare is probably one of the most studied pieces of fiction in the history of the English language; and rightly so.  This work by the Grandmaster 17^th Century play write of England represents the very pinnacle of literature and has been re-produced in one form or another so much that many of the lines from the play have reached into the daily vocabularies of anyone that has at least a high school  understanding of English.  Lines such as “Something is Rotten in Denmark” from act one scene one, or  “Good night sweet prince” from act five scene two are repeated by even the most common of laypersons that have never seen the play much less read it. 

    Despite the commonality of the play there are still renditions that step forward from the rest in their artistic interpretation.  One such interpretation is Franco Zeffirelli’s movie starring Mel Gibson in the roll of Hamlet.  During the 1970’s 80’s and 90’s Mel Gibson as an actor starred in a number of action roles that would never have brought his name to mind for anyone casting a serious re-production of this master piece in any role much less the title.  Mel Gibson, up until the release of “Hamlet” in 1990 had stared in movies such as the Mad Max trilogy, Lethal Weapon, and other action films with varying degrees of success, his only movie up until “Hamlet” that showed his real talent for acting would probably be the 80’s version of the movie “Gallipoli” 1981.  In contradiction to the type cast Mel Gibson delivers a masterful portrayal of the Prince of Demark and brings something to the character that is often over looked…courage.

    Hamlet is often portrayed as a whiney sop of a man that spends his time moping around Castle Elsinore teetering on the brink of insanity.  Mel Gibson’s departure from the norm brings to light the deviate side of the character that is often overlooked in mainstream productions; 

“His imagination is only rivaled by his brilliance.” Mel Gibson said referring to his character in the movie during an interview (Gibson). This assessment holds true throughout the movie as Hamlet is shown manipulating or evading the many underlying plots of the play.  Hamlet in this version is no longer the weak victim of his wretched uncle’s machinations; instead he is the grand master schemer attempting to avenge the murder of his father within an impossible situation.

     “Murder most foul” has been committed and there is something terribly “rotten in the state of Denmark” are lines that illustrate the underlying theme of the work in which a gage of vengeance is cast upon the son of the dead king.  While this task would come easy to most men with little thought of consequence, Hamlet is not most men.  He is a good man, a patriot and an educated man.  He realizes what the consequences of failure can mean the loss of all that his father had gained against his arch rival in Norway.  Murdering the king would mean national and international scandal as well as possible revolution.  The part of a prince in the murder of a king is no light situation and is made far less so by the king’s popularity of court and queen especially when one is set to task by a ghost, this ghost of a loving father who at first appears to a pair of guards, then to a true friend of Hamlet and finally to Hamlet himself.  During this revelation of the dastardly plot Hamlet’s uncle is revealed as the royal assassin, thus the true game of thrones begins.

    The appearance of insanity in the character of Hamlet is at first very real, albeit temporary.  The temporary insanity of a loving son grieving for the loss of an idolized father is at once replaced by the posed insanity of a man attempting to hide his true motivations.  For the audience it is not easy to part from the real to the imagined especially if one fails to understand the many metaphoric soliloquies in which the character rages at himself and at the other characters of the play for inaction and injustice and at the moral implications of both.  The character of Hamlet is a young man and hot blooded.  He must restrain himself and that restraint is eating at his very soul, yet if he allows his rage to consume him and cause him to fly off into a murderous fit, he will have failed in avenging his father’s death and dishonor himself and his country.  A choice must be made and a young man with little experience in courtly intrigue is forced into a situation of high drama that can very well destroy all that he loves.  He knows that most of the court thinks him insane so he chooses to fuel this suspicion by playing the part and playing thus he uncovers the king’s own spies in the form of Hamlet’s supposed friends Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.

    Shortly here after a plot to expose the king’s treachery comes to mind for the prince.  He hears of a troop of players newly arrived to Elsinore and he enlists them to perform a play at court while substituting certain lines of his own into a scene.  Meanwhile Polonius thinks he has discovered some reason for Hamlet’s distemper.  He discovers that Hamlet has recently accosted his daughter in a fit of madness which causes him to conclude that Hamlet’s un-returned affection toward Ophelia is the source of the young prince’s madness.  He thus creates a scenario for the King and Queen to observe an encounter between the chamberlain’s daughter and the prince in the hopes of proving his point.  Hamlet sees through the plot, and spurns Ophelia which in turn has the reverse effect on her.  She really does love Hamlet, and his hateful discourse and temperament toward her causes more pain to her than even she can realize.  He leaves her suddenly in a fit of rage, while in the rafters not far from the scene the King, Queen and Chamberlain stand witness.  Here the king is finally convinced of his nephew’s madness and chooses to send him off to England and away from the court lest his madness spread. 

“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” (3.1.175)

    This portion of the movie displays the true brilliance of not only Frank Zeffirelli’s vision of the piece, but also the wealth of talent possessed by Mel Gibson and Helena Bonham Carter in her role as Ophelia.  Each actor’s passionate deliverance brings life to these troubled characters in such a way that the audience cannot help but empathize with the characters and recognize that each is a victim of a much larger plot.  If it were not for the murder of the former king this would have been a love story between the daughter of the Chamberlain, and the heir to the throne.  Unfortunately the posed madness of one character fuels what is soon to become the very real and life ending madness of another.  Hamlet is not insane, but Ophelia will be.

      The grand game of thrones begins to heat up in Act III as the prince and the King maneuver their pieces around the chess board of Elsinore to probe each other’s defenses.  The prince has outmaneuvered his rival at every turn thus far and now he will move another step closer to his goal of vengeance against the man that killed his father.  Up to now Hamlet has parried the dual thrusts of the king’s knights in the form of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, and reposted the fell swipe of the bishop in the form of Polonius without so much as a nick to his person nor a kink in his armor of deception.  Hamlet’s only wound would be from the pawn in the form of Ophelia and this wound is due to the prince’s affection for her which is overturned within Ophelia by her duty to her father.  Hamlet is aware of her role and in this act he will play her once more and wash his hands of her once and for all. 

     Now Hamlet goes on the offensive as he maneuvers his pieces in the form of Horatio and a band of actors newly arrived to Elsinore.  The prince writes a scene for the players to act out and asks his one and only true friend to witness the reaction of the king as the later views the play.   The play is called the Mouse Trap and the scene for which Hamlet has written duplicates the circumstances that were the cause of his father’s death.  The play is a success and the king is revealed to not only Hamlet, but to Horatio as well.  The king overcome by his own guilt retires from the room and the heavy air of scandal is laid upon the chamber in his absence.  Elated by this confirmation, and by the fact that Horatio is now confirmed to his side, Hamlet receives word that his mother requires a word with him in her chambers. 

    In route to the queen’s chambers Hamlet witnesses his uncle praying within his private chapel and considers taking out his vengeance on the king, but then chooses not to act.  He reasons to the audience via a soliloquy that he cannot kill the king in so pious a state because if he does he will surely send the soul to heaven instead of the hell so richly deserved by such a wretched man.  What is not conveyed within the soliloquy is that the character also realizes that now is not the time to be rash.  The king has been revealed, if Hamlet is to succeed with his plan he must first win over the other players in the court before he can carry out his vengeance.  Hamlet passes on this opportunity in hopes that he can remove his father’s murderer with justice rather than bare violence that would surely cast a poor light on a prince already thought to be mad by most of the court.  Unfortunately for Hamlet, and for the Chamberlain to Elsinore fate has a way of taking a hand in the plots of men.  As Hamlet attempts to reason with his mother by revealing the dastardly crimes of his uncle, he hears movement behind the arras in her room.  Thinking that the movement is none other than the King, Hamlet strikes with his rapier and kills Polonius who had hidden there in hopes of hearing the plans of Hamlet.  “Is it the King?” (3.4.25)

    Scene III of the play is by far the most significant as the audience has the motives of all the key players revealed to them.  The king is confirmed to be a murderer, and the madness of the prince is shown to be a sham.  What is also revealed is the true tragedy of the play in the form of the family of Polonius.  While in the service to his king and country he will lose his daughter to madness, his son to vengeance, and himself to manslaughter due to mistaken identity.  The mouse trap has been sprung and the pawns have been played and the prince is now shown a clear path to checkmate but the cost may be his soul as he and his rival compete for a throne at the expense of not only the family of Polonius but the Royal family as well. 

    The chess game swings toward its grand finale as Hamlet and Claudius circle one another in a game of wits, and thrones.  Each has played well yet both will suffer from unexpected aspects of the pieces which they employ. The heavy deed of Hamlet with the accidental murder of Polonius causes the king to send his nephew to his death in England.  While in route, Hamlet witnesses a possible invasion of his father’s lands by the prince of Norway; Fortinbras, Hamlet envies this man’s power over his destiny and decides finally that he must alter his own course if he is to save his country and his father’s honor. 

     Within the written version of the play there is little information as to how Hamlet thwarts the will of the king.  However in the movie version starring Mel Gibson; we see Hamlet’s surreptitious substitution of the king’s letters that foil his intended demise sending his traitorous companions to the headsman in his stead.  This brief departure from Shakespeare’s original script offers a new and often overlooked interpretation of the character of Hamlet which prooves to the audience that the prince is not mad at all instead, Hamlet has at last adapted to the game of thrones and has risen above the former master in the form of Claudius.  With this task complete Hamlet sends word via messengers and employs subterfuge by omitting the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern while reporting to his mother that he is now in route to Denmark after his ship had been waylaid by pirates.  Hamlet knows full well that his correspondence will be intercepted by the king, so in effect he is telling the king that the jig is up, and it is time to pay the piper.

     Meanwhile within the halls of Elsinore the king receives the son of Polonius in addition to news that Hamlet yet lives and is in route to the castle.  Claudius has grown weary of playing games with Hamlet now, but he cannot risk acting against the prince outright for fear of how this action will look in the eyes of the court and the people of Denmark.  Laertes is incensed with the knowledge that Hamlet is responsible for his beloved father’s death and receives the news that Hamlet is in route to the castle with the king. 

   “I am lost in it my lord. But let him come.  It warms the sickness in my heart

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth “Thus didest thou.” (4.7.55)

    The pieces are now set and all that remains is for the queen to deliver the somber news that Ophelia is dead.  This segment of the play offers a brilliant segway to the scene were the plot of the king will set Laertes against Hamlet in a dual before the court.  For Hamlet, the news of Ophelia’s untimely death is an un-expected blow.  He did love her after all and the wrath that Laertes bears him for the death of his father is received with sadness.

    “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.” (5.1.220) Hamlet declares as he leaps into the grave of his lost lover to grapple with her brother.  Laertes was a friend, but now Hamlet must face him in combat to satisfy the wrongs that he has done.  The men are pulled apart and the king gets his wish as he declares that combatants will be satisfied before the court in a test of arms.  From the opening scene Hamlet has lead his opponent on a merry chase after an alleged lunatic only to find that query is not at all insane, but completely in control as Hamlet declares before he enters the hall where he is to face Laertes; “The readiness is all” (5.2.185)

   The final scene is one of the most powerful dramas in English literature which caps a play of tragedy.  The tragedy however is not so much the death of the king, Hamlet or the queen, it is the tragic deaths of all the members of a family that represent the collateral damage that is the price of this game.  Polonius, his daughter, and finally Laertes are slain.  The country of Denmark will surely fall into the hands of Norway as Fortinbras delivers Hamlet’s eulogy.  Hamlet has his revenge, but the cost has been heavy, his mother, his lover and he are now scattered across the hollowed earth as the boots of Norway tread across their fresh graves.  The audience is weeping.

“Good night sweet prince, and flights of angles sing you to your rest” (5.2.325)