Hamlet's done with ghosts, Oedipus, and that finger-sucking Ophelia—he's writing plays in Paris now.
The Prince of Denmark, Hamlet, is little interested in family affairs and the fate of the kingdom, and not at all attracted by a doll-like Ophelia sucking his finger. Annoyed by his friend Horatio, who tells him of the apparition of his father's spectre that would like to drive him to revenge, and by Polonius, Ophelia's father, who psychoanalyses him by explaining the Oedipus complex, he imagines escaping to Paris with Kate, the leading actress of the company performing in Elsinore, to become a playwright.
Direction
Bene's manic, Brechtian dismantling of the canon.
Acting
Bene plays Hamlet as exhausted, horny, and over it.
Editing
Surgical cuts—70 minutes of pure, aggressive montage.
Director
Carmelo Bene
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bene was a towering figure in Italian experimental theater who despised traditional cinema; this is his middle finger to Olivier and Branagh.
The 'William' character is a stand-in for Shakespeare himself, dragged into Hamlet's contempt for his own creator.
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