hamletmachine by heiner muller

screenplay

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FADE IN

white masked female messengers carry a stretcher like board with a dead

philosopher on it. they march in unison, dressed in hooded cloaks, the

messengers are led by the lead messenger who performs a butoh like dance.

bells toll as they march in time to create a feeling of mourning and

grieving.

FADE TO BLACK.

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2. INT HAMLET STAGE DAWN (hamlet)

FADE IN

hamlet alone in his captivity is haunted by his father’s ghost. still with

the mood of the state funeral, hamlet runs, spins, hides, and attacks this

deathly spirit that pulls at his soul.

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HAMLET: I was hamlet. you, the ghost that made me, the ax still in your

skull. i know you’ve got one hole too many. I would my mother had one less

when you were still of flesh: I would have been spared myself. Women should

be sewed up-a world without mothers. we could butcher each other in peace

and quiet, and with some confidence, if life gets too long for us or our

throats too tight for our screams. What do you want of me? is one state

funeral not enough for you? you old sponger. is there no blood on your

shoes? What’s your corpse to me? What are you waiting for? All the cocks

have been butchered. tomorrow morning has been canceled.

FADE TO BLACK.

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3. EXT JUNKYARD NEAR FENCE AFTERNOON. (hamlet, ophelia)

FADE IN

hamlet and ophelia playfully engage in a light hearted afternoon at the

junkyard. shot in super 8 black and white, these sequences with hamlet and

ophelia act as memories of a lost reality. this initial sequence shows them

playfully teasing each other in innocent games between the two lovers.

FADE TO BLACK.

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4. INT HAMLET STAGE DUSK (hamlet)

FADE IN

defeated hamlet lays exhausted on his crumbling city, climbing on his city

structures and wrapping himself in cloth to emanate his mother the bride. he

tells us the story of how he would rape his mother. he sits within his

thoughts, and lives in his sick fantasies. much like a politician, who never

acts on his words, but always immerses himself in self indulgent lies. this

is simply hamlet getting off on himself.

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HAMLET: my mother the bride, her breasts a rosebed, her womb the snake pit.

"wash the murder off your face my prince/ and offer the new denmark your

glad eye". i’ll change you back into a virgin mother, so your king will

have a blood wedding. A mother’s womb is not a one way street. Now I tie

your hands on your back with your bridal veil since I’m sick of your

embrace. Now, i tear the wedding dress. Now, I smear the shreds of the

wedding dress with the dust my father turned into, and with the soiled

shreds your face your belly your breasts. Now, I take you, my mother, in his

my father’s invisible tracks. I stifle your scream with my lips. Do you

recognize the fruit of your womb? Now go to your wedding, whore, in the

broad danish sunlight which shines on the living and the dead. i want to

cram the corpse down the latrine so the palace will choke in royal shit.

Then let me eat your heart ophelia, which weeps my tears.

FADE TO BLACK.

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5. EXT JUNKYARD NEAR FENCE AFTERNOON. (hamlet, ophelia)

FADE IN

hamlet and ophelia continue to play in this memory. miscommunication

between lovers grow as their play fighting gets rougher as we witness the

tension between ophelia seeking affection, and hamlet seeking sex. the

wrestling builds into a battle for power.

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FADE TO BLACK.

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6. INT OPHELIA’S ROOM NIGHT (ophelia) FADE IN

we find a bloodied ophelia in the middle of this small white box that is

demolished. we get a shot of her through a glass bowl, as to represent the

sink. we vaguely see her silhouette and her rippled face leaning over the

sink, as she says her lines. she washes the blood off of her hands. we cut

back to the room where there is a broken chair, table, lamp and glass all

around her. in a white slip, with wet hair, as if to show after an act of

violence of rape or self mutilation, we find her in shock. she holds a piece

of bloodied glass in her hands. with the glass, she cuts a pile of film,

tearing it between her teeth, and with her bloodied hands. the camera never

reveals all of her and never shows her face as a whole, and avoids her eyes

altogether. instead the camera captures her body parts, starting at her

hips, her hands, her feet, her back, the top of her head. as we hear the

incessant ticking of clocks and their alarms, we continue to piece ophelia

together as the it appears as though the camera were raping her with a

perverted gaze. then as it captures her chest, it turns into a drawn

animation sequence that peels the layers of her skin, and reveals her

inside organs, to zoom in on her heart as a clock that is a stop watch for

her life, counting down to her extinction. 00.00.00.00.09.59 to imply

years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds that remain in life. we cut

between her on the ground to her smashing things in the room. all of this

is shown together, as she says her lines, cutting between the sink, her

body, her cutting the film and her breaking stuff.

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OPHELIA: I am ophelia. the one the river didn’t keep. the woman dangling

from the rope. the woman with her arteries cut open. the woman with the

overdose. Snow on her lips. the woman with her head in the gas stove.

yesterday i stopped killing myself. I’m alone with my breasts my thighs my

womb. i smash the tools of my captivity, the chair the table the bed. i

destroy the battle field that was my home. i fling open the doors so the

wind gets in and the scream of the world, i smash the window, with my

bleeding hands i tear the photos of the men i loved and who used me on the

bed on the table, on the chair on the ground. i set fire to my prison. i

throw my clothes into the fire. i wrench the clock that was my heart out

of my breast. I walk into the street clothed in my blood.

FADE TO BLACK.

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7. EXT JUNKYARD NEAR FENCE DUSK. (hamlet, ophelia)

FADE IN

the playful memory has turned into a painfully slow battle between the two

characters. hamlet in a rage of anger has the intention of raping ophelia to

exert his dominance over her. this is contrasted with ophelia’s every effort

to fight off his dominance, but with no intention of leaving him, rather

pulling him into her, desperately seeking affection from him. the scene

turns grim as the camera captures moments of violent resistance to moments

of hopeless exhaustion.

FADE TO BLACK.

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8. INT SCHERZO CARNIVAL DREAMSCAPE NIGHT (hamlet, ophelia, madonna with breast cancer, dead philosopher, lead messenger, 2 dead ballerina

messengers)

FADE IN

we transition into this topsyturvydom dream world zooming out of the

madonna with breast cancer posing on the statue as a martyred saint with her

mangled breast that radiates like the sun. her character represents the

hopeless existence of a diseased mother, stripped of her womanly power to

give life. this whole scene has the appearance of being a carnival ritual.

at her side looking calmly up at the madonna’s masked face, the lead

messenger stands unmoved. at her feet dead ballerina messengers dance with

broken ankles, encircling the shrine. as the dead philosopher hurls pages

from books at her, getting himself worked up. the group then turns it’s

attention to the center of the room where hamlet and ophelia stand. ophelia

wrapped in black, seduces hamlet who is on his knees, helpless and unable

to move from his spot. the dead ballerinas tear his shirt off, as the

philosopher violently rubs ripped pages from his book on his body, and gags

him with the pages. ophelia approaches him with a strip tease, pulling off

layers of her wrapping but never revealing any skin.

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OPHELIA: Do you want to eat my heart, Hamlet?

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ophelia continues to tease him, acting as the dominant character over

hamlet, as she makes him up like a whore. the lead messenger looks on

unmoved, as if meditating over the events that unravel before her. hamlet

then poses as a whore, when suddenly the philosopher grabs the lead

messenger, and leads her into this fast paced scherzo dance. stiff as a

board this waltz appears to give her the appearance of a dead fish. as he

violently spins her as she never takes her eyes off of the characters of

hamlet and ophelia. ophelia continues to seduce hamlet making him up as her

doll. then the dead philosopher throws the lead messenger into the arms of

ophelia, and takes hamlet into his arms, spinning him dizzyingly around.

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HAMLET: (whispers in the philosophers ear) I want to be a woman.

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the lead messenger and the dead messenger ballerinas haul the philosopher

from hamlet’s arms, taking him into the shadows. the camera zooms back

into the madonna with breast cancer on top of the statue. the light from her

mangled breast cancer fills the picture and brings us out of this world.

FADE TO BLACK.

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9. INT HAMLETS STAGE NIGHT (hamlet, lead messenger, messenger, dead

philosopher)

FADE IN

the camera gets uncomfortable close-ups of hamlet. what is revealed is a

character struggling to stay in character and increasingly getting annoyed

with the presence of the camera. this scene shows the actor breaking out of

his role.

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ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: I’m not Hamlet. I don’t take part any more.

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He violently grabs the camera and begins to reveal the tv studio and the set.

the lights stay the same, hamlet simply reveals that the studio is empty,

and that he is the one behind everything that is shot. so when he is not

behind the camera, we are showing him setting up other cameras, monitors and

light changes for his next scene which is him in front of 3 televisions. so

he must set up the tv’s and the refrigerator. as he is doing this he is

talking from behind the camera.

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ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: My drama doesn’t happen anymore. Behind me the set is

put up. I’m not interested in it anymore. The set is a monument. the

petrification of a hope. My drama, if it still would happen, would happen in

the time of the uprising. i stand in the stench of the crowd and hurl

stones at policemen soldiers tanks bullet proof glass. I look through the

double doors of bullet-proof glass at the crowd pressing forward and smell

the sweat of my fear. choking with nausea, I shake my fist at myself who

stands behind the bulletproof glass. Shaking with fear and contempt, I see

myself in the crowd pressing forward, foaming at the mouth, shaking my fist

at myself. I string up my uniformed flesh by my own heels. I am the soldier

in the gun turret, my head is empty under the helmet, the stifled scream

under the tracks. I am the typewriter. I tie the noose when the ringleaders

are strung up, I pull the stool from under their feet, I break my own neck.

I am my own prisoner. I feed my own data into the computers. My parts are

the spittle and the spittoon the knife and the wound the fang and the

throat the neck and the rope. I am the data bank. Bleeding in the crowd.

Breathing again behind the double doors. Oozing word slime in my soundproof

blurb over and above the battle.

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hamlet by now has set up a lazy boy, three tv’s and a fridge. he has set a

camera up behind the middle tv, one behind him from an above shot of all

three tv’s in front of him. and one below him for an extreme close up with

the pixel vision.

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ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: My drama didn’t happen. the script has been lost. the

actors put their faces on the rack in the dressing room. In his box, the

prompter is rotting. The stuffed corpses in the house don’t stir a hand. I

go home and kill the time, at one with my undivided self.

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for the next sequence the primary light comes from the tv’s, but there is

also a projection of sitcom series on his face. the tv’s show static. we

use the camera from behind as our primary shot, as it slowly zooms in.

hamlet then puts his feet on the tv, so that the screen is filled with the

soles of his shoes that then splay open with his face between them. we

continue to slowly zoom in, as he preaches about television, commercialism

as he is shown as apathetic and dumbed down by the tv’s. he is slowly

falling back into his role as hamlet.

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ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET: Television the daily nausea Nausea of prefabricated

babble of decreed cheerfulness Give us this day our daily murder since thine

is nothingness Nausea of the lies which are believed by the liars and nobody

else nausea of the lies which are believed nausea By the struggle for

positions votes bank accounts Nausea A chariot armed with scythes sparkling

with punch lines I walk through streets stores Faces Scarred by the

consumers battle Poverty Without dignity Poverty without the dignity of the

knife the knuckle-duster the clenched fist The humiliated bodies of women

Hope of generations Stifled in blood cowardice stupidity Laughter from dead

Bellies hail Coca Cola A kingdom For a murderer In the solitude of airports

I breathe again I am a privileged person My nausea is a privilege Protected

by torture Barbed wire Prisons. muller appears on screen. the actor crawls

in front of the tv barking at it. I don’t want to eat drink breathe love a

woman a man a child an animal anymore. I don’t want to die anymore. I don’t

want to kill anymore. he smashes the television. he then lowers himself to

the ground in a fetal position. crying from his crisis:

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HAMLET: I want to be a machine. no pain no thoughts.

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the lead messenger then leads one of her messengers holding armor in and

proceeds to lift him up and present the armor to the ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET.

they then assist in dressing him. the lead messenger than has the second

messenger kneel before the statue on stage. She covers her head with a

white cloth. she then hands hamlet an ax. we zoom into him sweating with

fear. he proceeds to raise the ax and lower it, slicing open the head of the

messenger. the sheet soaked in blood. hamlet takes a perverse satisfaction

from this act. the lead messenger takes off the white cloth to reveal that

what was thought to be a female messenger has turned out to be the dead

philosopher. the lead messenger than puts the dead philosopher on her back,

so that his arms are splayed open towards hamlet. she takes him off stage

to leave hamlet defeated alone as he drops his ax to the ground. a deep

voice speaks the following lines as we get a long take of the actor

alienated in this cruel world.

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VOICE: Hamlet the dane prince and maggots fodder stumbling from hole to hole

towards the final hole listless in his back the ghost that once made him

green like ophelia’s flesh.

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FADE TO BLACK.

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10. INT SEA OF THE DEAD NIGHT (ophelia, sea of the dead, lead messenger,

dead philosopher)

FADE IN

this grimy, filthy decaying world is filled with a sea of dead people. the

lead messenger carries the dead philosopher on her back towards the platform

where ophelia sits in her wheel chair. the lead messenger drops the dead

philosopher into the sea of dead bodies, and then approaches the platform

that ophelia sits on. unlike the other decay, ophelia appears as clean,

healthy and filled by a single spot light above her head. we find ophelia

already wrapped up to the neck in gauze past her chin. we cut to the action

with the lead messenger approaching the platform, and then to the lead

messenger rapping ophelia in gauze from head to toe. she says her lines very

calm and deliberate. these are words that don’t necessarily reflect her,

but are words that she spits out to rid herself of them. as if every line is

her last, she is not attempting to transport herself into a hereafter, but

rather into a state of nothingness, void of life or death. simply nothing.

that is where she finds her peace. as she recites her last lines,

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OPHELIA: This is electra speaking. In the heart of darkness. Under the sun

of torture. to the capitals of the world. in the name of the victims. I

eject all the sperm I have received. I turn the milk of my breasts into

lethal poison. I take back the world I gave birth to I choke between my

thighs the world I gave birth to. I bury it in my womb. Down with the

happiness of submission. Long live hate and contempt, rebellion and death.

When she walks through your bedrooms carrying butcher knives you’ll know the

truth.

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it remains that we start the scene with ophelia already wrapped up to the

neck. the other shots are merely catching the viewer up, revealing the past

action. after her lines are spoken the lead messenger wraps the rest of her

head. against a bright white background, so that ophelia’s head disappears

into the background. she remains motionless in her white wrappings.

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FADE TO BLACK.

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