G - “Ghost”
Brian Blessed’s appearance as the Ghost is his third role in a Branagh Shakespeare film. Previous to Hamlet, he starred in Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and then went on to do As You Like It (2006). His famously booming voice is sublimated and spooky, but nonetheless, he manages to whisper his tale in capital letters.
When Horatio questions Hamlet about his conference with the Ghost, Hamlet famously replies “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (1.5.165-66), a statement that coincides with a Platonic mindset. In his schooling, Shakespeare would have been exposed to Platonism, which includes a mystical doctrine concerned with the distinction of a reality that is perceptible but unintelligible. To explain this concept, Plato used his “Allegory of the cave,” wherein prisoners chained inside a dark cave can only perceive shadows dancing on the wall, but not understand what makes them. This has been compared to the conceit of cinema—light projecting forms on a screen in a darkened auditorium—although film theorists like Siegfried Kracauer would contend with Plato, arguing that cinema has the power to enlighten audiences by the strength of its art. Plato’s shadows have nothing on cinematic “ghosts.”
Shakespeare employs ghosts in five plays spread throughout his career, all serving to enlighten specific characters. In Henry VI Part 2, Roger Bolingbroke conjures a fortune-telling (sort of) ghost for Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester. Richard III is visited by the ghosts of his murder victims before the Battle of Bosworth Field. Banquo haunts Macbeth at the celebratory feast of Macbeth’s ascendancy to the throne of Scotland.
But mostly famously, “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” twice visits Brutus in his tent at night on the fields of battle, reminding him of his betrayal and his inevitable death. Octavius Caesar (Julius’ nephew), along with Antony and Lepidus, rise to rule Rome as a triumvirate, and these same characters continue their story in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.
In Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), John Lithgow’s character quotes Enobarbus from Antony and Cleopatra: “As for Caesar, kneel down, kneel down and wonder!” Thusly, the infant chimpanzee rescued from the experimental pharmaceutical lab in the film is dubbed “Caesar.” Portrayed via performance capture by Andy Serkis, Caesar becomes a great leader of apes, and eventually sees ghosts himself in War for the Planet of the Apes (2018). Steve Zahn also plays an ape in War, and he previously played Rosencrantz to Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet in Michael Almereyda’s 2000 film adaptation.
Serkis founded the Imaginarium studio in 2011, which collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare company for their 2016 production of a “digital” Tempest, using performance capture technology to make Ariel a truly ephemeral spirit onstage and demonstrate to audiences how cutting edge tech could enhance even the 400-year-old works of the world’s most famous Bard. Prospero was aptly played by Simon Russell Beale—the second gravedigger in Branagh’s Hamlet.
Sources:
Wikipedia: Allegory of the cave
Kracauer, Siegfried. “Theory of Film: Basic Concepts.” Film Theory and Criticism, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 171-182.
The Tempest Review: Real-time digital avatar brews storm in a teacup from Ars Technica
Bogaev, Barbara, Interviewer. “The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Digital Tempest.” Shakespeare Unlimited, Episode 75, Folger Shakespeare Library, 6/13/2017. Link
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