Act 3:1 Hamlet’s Soliloquy

Judging from the three videos, the best video would be by Laurence Olivier who best captures Hamlet’s thoughts and emotions in his soliloquy in Act 3:1 of Hamlet. The director has given much thought to the camera effects, and setting of the movie while Oliver presents the soliloquy in a subtle manner by which the speech is given appropriate pauses, tones, and reactions of body and emotion. The work that is put into the video all collimates into a piece of work that evokes the audiences’ emotions, allowing the viewer to experience his pain and suffering.

The scene first begins with the camera being focused from the sky to the ocean waves crashing against the rocks below Hamlet in black and white. The camera does not capture images in black and white but rather it captures the deep and serious overtone of the scene. Hamlet’s emotions are as black and white as the camera that is capturing him. The camera captures the actor in a depression faced with the resolution to escape his “mortal coil” (82) by killing himself. It shows this by having Hamlet stand by the edge of a ledge where if one were to fall they would fall into their watery graves.

The watery setting is extremely fitting for this scene. In the soliloquy water is referenced more than once. When Hamlet says over the water that he is “against a sea of troubles” (81) the actor is gazing over the sea watching the rocks going against the waves, but in the end one has to go with the flow of events to face their troubles. Speaking of flow of events, on lines 63 to 66 Hamlet uses death being comparable to sleep. When one sleeps, one has dreams fantasizes the relief of work and labor, which is the same as death. After leaving the physical world there isn’t any duties to keep a person from coming back from the afterlife. These duties are the physical labors one slaves over and to dream is allow the mind to rest, leaving the conscious mind dead, and setting the unconscious free: death brings about an image of the soul being set free from it’s physical body.

Laurence Oliver’s pronunciation is clear and easy to hear, unlike the other videos. Oliver presents Hamlet’s most famous lines slowly saying “To be, or not to be, that is the question:” (81). For each comma that separates the words Oliver pauses for 3 seconds each. The pauses help the listeners to digest and understand what he is talking about. By listening to him one can tell that Hamlet is stuck in a dilemma of whether or not to commit suicide. By lines 63 Hamlet switches from speaking with his mouth to speaking through his mind then a dramatic noise arises and Hamlet is then awaken to say how great it would be to be asleep, where pauses seem like forever or silence has come to Hamlet’s world, death. Oliver uses pauses to help stress the effects of a word or phrase to help the listener hear more clearly the important words that are said.

During the beginning of the scene the actor maintains a certain ambiguity in his tone; after all Hamlet starts out asking himself whether or not to end his life. Then the tone of his voice shifts to critically speaking of life and “the law’s delay”, or the “insolence of office.” (82) He is feeling anger because of how he insults the government or the way one courts a woman. But the tone eventually changes to soft nostalgic manner, as he refers back to Ophelia for solace, as he mentions Ophelia and sin in the same sentence.

While presenting the most famous lines of Hamlet it can be seen that Hamlet is holding onto the rock ledge in the beginning, it appears that he wants to jump into a vast ocean that is distinctively heard in the background noise. He stares deeply into the sea, making him appear as if he is deciding whether or not to drop into the sea head first, he holds his head still to stare down the ledge and into the sea. At lines 56 Hamlet reaches for his dagger on his left belt and draws it to have the tip point at himself; appearing as if about to lunge it into his upper chest. By lines 64 he lowers his weapon and lays himself on the ledge and adjusts his head to face the sky.

In conclusion Laurence Olivier appeals to the audience and he exceeds the performance of the other actors performing Hamlet’s soliloquy. It was the director’s mastery of the camera that he was able to capture the exact seriousness of Hamlet, with its black and white tones, and dramatic sound effects. It is also the decision to stage the soliloquy by the sea that enhances the word choice of “opposing”, “sleep”, and “dream” which is referring to the fluidity of liquid. It is also the skill of the actor that helped make the soliloquy flow nicely into the ears. The pauses that stress importance, the body language that changes to the emotions of the speech and to the tone of the voice the actor speaks in. It is these elements of directing and acting that makes this video so much worthier than the other choices.

March 11, 2008 12:52 AM