Although a little light-hearted at times, they are okay, one shoot-out, involving a ramshackle staircase, a real standout. Castellari has added several action scenes to his story, conceived by Giorgio Ubaldi, who would later put his stamp upon the action scenes of the Trinity-movies. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. Both scenes, the first very lively, the second almost hypnotic, render the feel of Shakespeare's gothic story in an imaginative way, but soon afterwards, we're in typical spaghetti land, with a variety of fistfights, gunplay and the familiar extreme close ups. We see Giordana, floating in the air, the world circling around him, while having a sort of hallucination about his father. For this scene Giordana was tied to a very complicated rotating wooden construction that was moved by hand, the camera fixed to its axis. Even better is the next scene (after the credits), set in the grotto-churchyard, with Johnny thinking about his father's violent death. The opening scene, with Johnny waking up on a beach, surrounded by performers, after having a nightmarish dream about his father, is very strong. It proves that Castellari had developed a strong sense of cute camera angles and rapid zooms at a rather young age. Its strength lies undeniably in its visual style. I think Johnny Hamlet is a fair version of Shakespeare's play, although the movie only occasionally breathes a Shakespearian atmosphere. In the movie Claude is shot and choked by the gold-powder covering his face after Johnny has perforated the pockets in which it was kept with his bullets. Hamlet kills his uncle by piercing him with his sword and - to be absolutely sure - forcing him to drink from the poisoned cup too. In the movie she dies at the feet of her crucified son. While Laertes and Hamlet are having a swordfight, Queen Gertrude accidently drinks from the poisoned cup intended for Hamlet. There's no sign of Laertes in the movie, and the sheriff is a poor substitute for Ophelia's father Polonius (and he is killed much later). While the two men are having a swordfight, Queen Gertrude accidently drinks from the poisoned cup intended for Hamlet. In the play Hamlet is (mortally) wounded by Laertes, the older brother of Ophelia/Emily, who holds Hamlet responsible for the death of his sister and father (who is accidently killed by Hamlet). Needless to say, I suppose, that the crucifixion sequence is not Shakespearian. This works quite well, but in return the entire Polonius-Laertes-Ophelia story-line is missing, leading to some complications in the script. It has been tried to render Hamlet's inner struggle by raising doubts about uncle Claude's guilt, by introducing a subplot of a Mexican bandit, who allegedly has killed Hamlet's father and subsequently was killed by Claude. In accordance to Renaissance ideas, he tries to find conclusive evidence by running a test, the famous play within the play in which the murder is represented by the performers, and Hamlet checks the reactions of the public. In the play Hamlet has doubts about the identity of the Ghost: still adhering to his Christian faith (like most people of his time, in spite of the Renaissance), he must decide whether the Ghost is really the Spirit of his father who has come back from the Purgatory (and is telling the truth) or was sent by the Devil (and is trying to deceive him). The first appearance (in the play not witnessed by Hamlet but by Horatio) is now a dream sequence, while the consecutive appearance, in which the Spirit orders Hamlet to kill his uncle but to save his mother, is turned into a contemplative moment, taking place on a graveyard, located inside a large cave.
To Shakespeare's viewers, the apparitions of recently deceased persons, so-called wraiths, were realistic events. The appearances of the Spirit of Hamlet's father, so central to Shakespeare's intentions, have been turned into events more acceptable to us modern viewers. We immediately understand that this is a man of action. Of course the spaghetti western is not the ideal background for complicated philosophical knotsĀ : in one of the first scenes of the movie, Johnny kills two gunmen who have been stalking him. Hamlet is nearly constantly wavering, and concludes, at one point, that conscience (2) has made us aware of our finiteness (we make the journey to >) and thus makes cowards of us all. Michel de Montaigne's Essays, shortly before translated into English, and was strongly influenced by them. Like most intellectuals of his time Hamlet/Shakespeare had read
> Hamlet is a so-called renaissance man, slowly shaking off the chains of medieval philosophy that saw man as an impotent subject to a God deciding over his destiny.