Immortality, Revenge and a Ghost

"Hamlet" is, in my opinion, Shakespeare’s most complex play, with so many layers that can be tackled and even more interpretations of what the characters have done or are about to do, not to mention what Shakespeare might have implied and what the background and the cultural context actually were centuries ago.

"Hamlet" is, no doubt, a play about death and revenge. Killing Claudius seems easy once there is evidence of what he has done, but when evidence comes in the shape of a ghost, things turn to be more complicated than expected, especially in a time when the trend was to distance from superstitious imaginary and embrace humanism. In my opinion, there are many perspectives on death in the play, depending on our prior knowledge and the way we would like to understand and decompose it.

 If one is familiar with the Buddhist teachings, then the lines in Act 1, scene 2 (72-73) “all that lives must die, / passing through nature to eternity” is not at all strange. In the same scene, Hamlet wishes “that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ and resolve itself into a dew!”(129-130). In this respect, Buddhists are quite aware that we will return to nature when we end our time on Earth because we are one with it. Through karma and eventual enlightenment one can escape samsara and achieve the end of suffering, which is Nirvana. Isn’t Hamlet trying to escape his faith by not committing any murder and not avenging his father’s death, but the odds are against him? Doesn’t he wish for a more gentle task?  “The time is out of joint. O cursed spite/ that ever I was born to set it right!”(I.5 190-191)

In the final scene of the play, before Hamlet dies, he says “there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.” (211). He seems to have resigned himself with what had happened mainly because he knows he would be taken care of by God or the supreme force governing all creatures. This return to the original, natural condition of the human mind, without any worry or struggle, letting it all be is defined as enlightenment or Satori in Buddhism and, unlike animals, which are always in this condition, we have lost this condition and made things and life more complicated. In order to regain this state, we need to reach true inner peace, “… the rest is silence.” (350) 

To Be or Not To Be

I have read almost everything Shakespeare wrote hundreds of years ago, but my favorite play still remains "Hamlet". It is so complex and the main character is incredibly intriguing that it makes you raise so many questions about human nature, revenge, love and the intricacies of the human mind.
I got acquainted with "Hamlet" in high school because we had to study a few extracts and I found the prince of Denmark quite mysterious.
Years after that moment, in 2000, I discovered that my favorite actor, Ethan Hawke, starred as Hamlet in the modern-day New York City adaptation of Shakespeare famous play. I saw it first in 2004 or 2005, I guess and I was absolutely amazed at how well he succeeded in embodying the main character and how actual the story can be, even if written at an uncertain year between 1599 and 1602. Watching the adaptation for the screen makes you realize once more what a powerful universality Shakespeare can have.
Another plus that this movie offers is the fact that it was directed by Michael Almereyda, the famous, talented director who also directed "Cymbeline" in 2014, based on Shakespeare's play and which also stars Ethan Hawke as Iachimo.
"Hamlet" (2000) got mixed reviews from different important magazines, but you cannot judge it until you see it, and you also need to appreciate how faithful it is to the original play, not by simply sticking to Shakespeare's lines, but by playing with ideas and feelings in crucial moments. prior to delivering the well known monologue "To Be or Not To Be", Ethan's Hamlet watches a movie of a famous Buddhist teacher in which he explains the principle "To be is to be with others, to be is to inter-be."
Almereyda has definitely created a new standard for Shakespearian adaptation, one in which we should understand more the emotional pull of the characters while still "TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE."