There is one confusing thing about Branagh's Hamlet film. Toward the end, Osric (Robin Williams) gets stabbed or something. There is general alarm from Fortinbras' attack, and Osric hotfoots it out of the mirror room, but the next thing we see, he's reaching down and is bleeding from the stomach or chest, but we never see how.

Anyone have a better understanding of this?

-- Sam W (sam@waas.us), August 07, 2004

Answers

I was sure I saw him get stabbed by a soldier running past him.

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), October 09, 2004.

Possibly. But I've watched the VHS several times and I don't see anything.

What I'm assuming is that it ended up on the cutting room floor.

-- Sam W (sam@waas.us), October 11, 2004.

Hmm, interesting. I'll get it out tonight and have a look. But are you watching the two-hour version, or the full four-hour version?

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), October 11, 2004.

Yep. The queen dies, Laertes does his speech finishing with 'The King's to blame', and a door closing behind him on the right is Osric going outside the room, as he thinks, to escape the mess within. A couple of women say 'Treason', and then in the next Osric is outside the door, leaning back on it, and a beige-coated arm which has to belong to one of Fortinbras's men in uniform stabs Osric in the stomach and Osric's hand comes up to cover it. When he has come back in and announces Fortinbras's arrival, it is his own blood on his hand that he holds up.

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), October 17, 2004.

The only think I didn't see is the arm coming up to stab Osric. I think it may have just been a awkward cut in the film, one of the very few flaws in this otherwise terrific piece of work.

-- Sam W (sam@waas.us), October 22, 2004.

I thought he may have stabbed himself.

-- Erica E (eebert@rochester.rr.com), October 27, 2004.

He did appear to have perhaps stabbed himself. I think the more logical explanation is that one of Fortinbras's soldiers stabbed him.

-- Alex (spgs4@aol.com), February 03, 2005.

He can't have stabbed himself: it's a beige-coated arm which has to belong to one of Fortinbras's men in uniform that holds the knife.

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), February 03, 2005.

If he was stabbed by Fortinbras' men, why did it take them another 10 minutes or so to actually enter the room?

-- Alex W (Alex@aol.com), February 16, 2005.

Mmm maybe now we're getting a bit too technical.

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), February 18, 2005.