Hamlet's Ghost on Screen : The paradox of the Seventh Art

The infinite possibilities offered by the cinema in terms of special effects, fully exploited since Méliès, should have enabled directors to show infinite inventiveness in representing Shakespeare's most famous ghost. And yet, the adaptations over the last century (1907-2007) remain peculiarly timorous in applying technological breakthroughs to Hamlet's ghost. The present paper will first offer a survey of the different ways of representing the ghost since Laurence Olivier's version, such as omission, ellipsis, a living actor, superimposed image, video etc., before confronting them to ghostly apparitions in other films, especially fantasy and horror genres, eventually to propose a few hypotheses likely to explain the lack of special effects which seems to characterise film adaptations of dramatic material.
Malgré les possibilités offertes par les nouveaux effets spéciaux numériques, la façon de représenter le fantôme de Hamlet au XXIe siècle demeure assez timorée. La présente étude se penche sur les différentes adaptations de la tragédie entre 2000 et 2010 et les confronte à la production de cinéma d'horreur depuis les années 1980, pour expliquer ensuite l'absence d'effet spectaculaires.