i wanted to watch laertes be intense and angry for a little bit so i made another shakespeare supercut
Don't know if this is the official Shakespeare designation, but I call this scene the riotous head scene because of that great hype Laertes gets before he comes on stage,
'The ocean, overpeering of his list, / Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste / Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, / O'erbears your officers' --
Structurally speaking, it's fantastic because the last time we saw Laertes he was awkwardly trying to talk to his sister about her chaste treasure, and now he's raising rebel armies and threatening the king. It's such a shift in tone and mood for him that I greatly anticipate in every production. (When watching Shakespeare with company I've been known to shout 'The boy! The boy is here!'
First Laertes is very angry, but also sad --
Second Laertes is mostly sad, a little angry --
Third Laertes is sad and angry but a little more deliberate with his fury (there was a helicopter drop-in) and he also goes straight into the line
'Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, / It could not move thus'
from 'O rose of May' (his speech when he first sees Ophelia and is like 'Sister?? Sister?? Are you okay???')
Which I think says a lot about him? I think one of the tragedies here is that Laertes sees his sister's pain and she's trying to communicate with him, but because Laertes has such a targeted focus with his own grief and anger, he can turn everything back to 'so revenge now please??' I love him so ... I love this boy ...
(also none of these claudiuses handle laertes as smoothly as my favorite claudius but i do love to see my man scrambling to use his words when threatened with force)
the first thing laertes says to claudius is 'thou vile king' which is delightfully withering -- just as 'thou' can imply a level of fond intimacy with someone, it can be demeaning and belitting if you use it -- for example -- on the king of denmark because he's the goddamn king, he's not your buddy and he's not your 'thou'
(in three little words it shows how laertes has dispensed with all respect and courtesies for the danish king)
claudius has always called laertes 'thou,' in the first scene he was playing this generous, friendly persona and really playing up how grateful the crown is to polonius's father so laertes can have anything he wants ... but in the riotous scene he gets very pointed when he 'thou's laertes right back, like laertes is an unruly child throwing a tantrum
(the claudius above does this delightful little eyeroll on 'what is the cause, laertes, / that thy ... rebellion looks so giant-like?' which is like 'okay yeah if you want to call this tantrum a rebellion')
but as the scene goes on, claudius switches to 'you' -- in fact, right after laertes makes his big 'i dare damnation' stand and shows just how serious he is, in a way that would appeal to claudius particularly (this is a man who's struggled with the idea of being damned for a murder he can't bring himself to repent, and here's laertes going 'fuck that, i will go to hell a thousand times over for this and won't repent it at all') ... and that's when he's like 'oh, this isn't someone to treat like an unruly child, this is a suddenly very interesting and useful man'
(something i just realized, because i can still realize new things about hamlet, is how much laertes's language riffs on claudius saying 'there's such a divinity that doth hedge a king') (which i already love individually as a line because of how arch and ironic it is, knowing that claudius has a heightened awareness of how little divine protection he has, due to the whole thing where he tried and failed to repent) (so it's interesting to pull back and see how introducing that idea gives laertes a chance to twist the divinity theme with 'to hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!' and all the other fun blasphemy he gets into) (which makes claudius pull back and notice laertes is a force to be reckoned with and also: hot) (like 'damn, i was just being ironic, but this man really will walk into hell backwards, i like that')
so he uses 'you' to show that he's speaking to laertes as an equal, and he keeps using it for the rest of his scenes with laertes, even when laertes eventually does swear himself to claudus's service which is ... so much no matter what their relationship is