At the
Movies No
staid approach
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
Even if youve gone to more
than your share of Hamlet movies, youve never seen anything
quite like Michael Almereydas new mod version. Claudius (Kyle
MacLachlan), after killing his predecessor and marrying his wife Gertrude
(Diane Venora), has become CEO of the New York-based Denmark Corporation, and
Hamlet (Ethan Hawke), wearing a Peruvian knit cap with earflaps, is a resentful
student video-maker.
John de Bormans photography for Hamlet projects a
sinister beauty on the nighttime city, and Claudius opening speech is
given at a media and press conference where he mocks Fortinbras bid for a
corporate takeover.
Almereyda uses Shakespeares text but trims it to less than
two hours, perhaps responding to the box office failure of Kenneth
Branaghs uncut Hamlet a few years back. If the latter version
sometimes annoyed me by offering visuals during lengthy speeches, as if lacking
confidence in the text, it was intelligently aimed at older, more traditional
viewers. Almereyda does far less for the poetry, preferring to capture the
young with digital imagery. He stages To be or not to be in the
action aisle of a Blockbuster video store.
The movie does sharpen our awareness of the evil set in motion
when Ophelia is told to spy on Hamlet, and she is shown wearing a listening
device in a last rendezvous with her distraught lover. Unfortunately, Julia
Stiles makes Ophelia such a sullen teenager that she loses the sympathy we
should extend to a powerless young woman, and giving her a downtown
pied-à-terre undermines the assumption that she could never act on her
own.
Bill Murray strikes a more authentic note in humorously
underlining the lackey mentality behind Polonius advice. Liev
Schreibers Laertes reveals a solid Shakespearean training, and Diane
Venora conveys a brittle glamour as well as the emotional strain that has
brought her near collapse.
The irony is that Ethan Hawke, whose star status apparently made
it possible to get financial backing for the movie, reveals the weakness at its
center. His Hamlet is no noble prince, but a spoiled, self-centered young man.
A brief televised glimpse of James Dean suggests the kind of hero with whom he
could identify. In addition, the decision to turn a number of Hamlets
soliloquies into interior monologues, which he has previously recorded and to
which we now listen with him, robs the lines of their power. The later scenes
of the movie are especially weak, offering no hint of Hamlets readiness
and renewed sense of purpose. Almereyda has placed his bet on younger viewers
identifying with all the ingenious ways communication is conveyed: computer
screens, TV sets, an elevator monitor, overheard phone conversations. The
play-within-the-play, staged to catch the conscience of Claudius,
becomes a projection of Hamlets video The Mousetrap, which
will leave those unfamiliar with Shakespeare asking questions.
They will be even more confused by Hamlets decision not to
kill Claudius when he has the opportunity. Apparently the motive in the
original -- that Claudius was repentant at the time and would likely go to
heaven -- was considered too foreign to a contemporary audience, and the
heros action is left inexplicable. If the directors decisions lead
todays students to read the play for themselves (and better yet, see it
in on the stage), his boldness will be justified.
I liked the idea of TV commentator Robin McNeill delivering the
official summary at the end -- The rest is silence -- but when I
called up my old friend Aristotle by long, long distance, all he said was,
No catharsis.
Although Keeping the Faith
might seem like a natural for NCR readers, its more modest
ambition is to be an escapist New York-based comedy. An appropriate framing
device, in which a drunken Brian (Edward Norton) tells the story to a patient
but skeptical bartender, makes it clear were supposed to view the
proceedings with amusement. When Brian reveals himself to be a priest, the
bartender explains that he has Muslim, Christian and Jewish relatives and is
quite ready to hear his confession.
It quickly develops that Brians best friend Jake (Ben
Stiller) is a rabbi; theyve been buddies since grammar school when they
were both captivated by Anna, a tomboy who rescued them from a bully with a
well-aimed kick. Annas parents took her away to California when they were
still kids; now, almost 20 years later, their blond heroine is back, a
gorgeous, super-confident, successful businesswoman (Jenna Elfman), creating a
highly improbable romantic triangle.
The movie has easy fun establishing Norton and Stiller as
ill-prepared modern clerics. Jakes only apparent qualification is that he
used to collect Heroes of the Torah cards instead of baseball cards
when he was a boy. He passes out the first time hes asked to witness a
circumcision. Brian is no better, becoming so unbalanced when swinging a censer
that he sets his clothes on fire. Their Manhattan West Side congregations,
however, apparently find their standup comic routines a pleasant change from
more staid approaches to spirituality.
Although Stiller is a less convincing rabbi -- his aggressiveness
seems self-centered -- than Norton is a priest, Stillers function in the
plot is more central since his job security and advancement presumably depend
on his getting married. This offers a pretext for several cliché comedy
scenes in which Jake dates overeager Jewish young women. He finds the process
so unnerving that he finally inveigles Brian and Anna to join him and a
successful woman TV personality on a double date. Though Brian has earlier
assured Anna that his commitment to the priesthood, including the requirement
of chastity, is total, he sheds his clericals and enjoys the evening. But the
experiment proves a disaster for Jake. Or perhaps a revelation -- since at the
end he is seen racing to Annas door, where they fall into each
others arms.
I leave it to you to speculate on Brians further role in
this romantic comedy, which leads back to the bar where it began.
Norton does well in his first directing assignment, but the
movies most successful moments are made possible by bit players -- the
recording equipment salesman, the elderly Central European priest-counselor
(Milos Forman), and of course the bartender. When Anna asks, Am I
spiritually empty? I was sorely tempted to shout yes -- not that it would
be impossible to imagine walking out of a rectory to join her.
The movie wants to say, Lighten up. Anyone who is against
love is a bigot, but isnt something more than intolerance involved
in the concern of Jakes congregation about his marrying a non-Jew? The
uncomfortable fact is that Keeping the Faith is just one more
Hollywood confection in which religion is mostly an amusing oddity.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie
reviewer.
National Catholic Reporter, May 26,
2000
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