Saturday, 16 February 2008
Hamlet's Final Fantasy
After watching Ross's youtube link to the death of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII (as someone who has at least 120 hours on the FFXII game clock, currently - and certainly well over 500 on the series in total, I consider myself something of a fan) I was struck, first by the rather obvious similarity between Aeris' watery cadaver and Ophelia's (particularly the fetishisation of the slain angel), but then, by the actual manner of her death, which recalled another part of Hamlet - the scene where Claudius is praying, and Hamlet sneaks up behind him, ready to do him in. Then Hamlet (I call him MC Hamlet) decides not to, because Claudius has just confessed his sins and therefore will go straight to Heaven if he's killed straight away. Of course, Sephiroth, the superpowerful super-soldier, is a bit more decisive, but the way the two scenes are classically portrayed in our culture seems really, really similar. Here's some pics from stagings of Hamlet and from nerdy cosplay recreations of FFVII.
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hamlet and ophelia seem quite popular around here. i'd like to add two short quotes from my favourite hamlet-adaptation: heiner muellers HAMLET MACHINE (the translation into english is not the best.)
1.
FAMILY ALBUM
I was Hamlet. I stood on the coast and spoke with the surf BLABLA at my back the ruins of Europe. The bells sounded in the state funeral, murderer and widow a pair, the town councilors in goose-step behind the coffin of the High Cadaver, wailing in badly-paid grief WHO IS THE CORPSE IN THE MEAT-WAGON’S STY / FOR WHOM IS THERE SUCH A HUE AND CRY? / THE CORPSE IS OF A GREAT / GIVER OF ESTATE The pillar of the population, work of his statecraft HE WAS A MAN WHO ONLY TOOK ALL FROM ALL. I stopped the corpse-train, sprang the coffin with my sword, broke it to the hilt, succeeded with the blunt remains, and distributed the dead progenitor FLESH ENJOINS HAP’LY FLESH to the surrounding faces of misery. Grief gave way to joy, joy into munching, on the empty coffin the murderer mounted the widow SHOULD I HELP YOU UP UNCLE OPEN THE LEGS MAMA. I lay on the ground and heard the world revolving step by step into putrefaction.
I’M GOOD HAMLET GI’ME A CAUSE FOR GRIEF
AH THE WHOLE GLOBE FOR A REAL SORROW
RICHARD THE THIRD I THE PRINCEKILLING KING
OH MY PEOPLE WHAT HAVE I DONE UNTO THEE
LIKE A HUNCHBACK I DRAG MY OVERBRAIN
SECOND CLOWN IN THE SPRING OF COMMUNISM
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THIS AGE OF HOPE
LET’S DELVE IN EARTH AND BLOW HER AT THE MOON
(…)
2
THE EUROPE OF THE WOMAN
Enormous room. Ophelia. Her heart is a clock.
OPHELIA [CHORUS/HAMLET]
I am Ophelia. She who the river could not hold. The woman on the gallows The woman with the slashed arteries The woman with the overdose ON THE LIPS SNOW The woman with the head in the gas-oven. Yesterday I stopped killing myself. I am alone with my breasts my thighs my lap. I rip apart the instruments of my imprisonment the Stool the Table the Bed. I destroy the battlefield that was my Home. I tear the doors off their hinges to let the wind and the cry of the World inside. I smash the Window. With my bleeding hands I tear the photographs of the men who I loved and who used me on the Bed on the Table on the Chair on the Floor. I set fire to my prison. I throw my clothes into the fire. I dig the clock which was my heart out of my breast. I go onto the street, clothed in my blood.
(...)
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