I keep coming back to this scene. Tremendous acting by Mr. Scofield.

Just watched The Crucible, where Scofield's accent is spot on. There is something about the timing and rhythm in his speech that no other actor has or will ever have.

The best ghost in the best screen version of Hamlet. A stellar cast and fabulous director showing how to bring this amazing play to life. Will never be bettered.

I can remember how happy I was Mel's Hamlet was a lot better than I had hoped. Next to Max and Conspiracy Theory, I like this performance of his the most. Paul Scofield is a fucking legend and is his usual captivating and brilliant here.

A truly great actor. He could be speaking backwards in an alien language and still convey himself perfectly

I love how he acts and how he speaks! I love this "old" english!❤

Truly chilling, and moving. What an unforgettable voice, and one of the greatest actors ever.

After his basketball season this year, my son did drama club, and we watched Hamlet for the first time tonight. He loved this movie as much as my wife & I do! Paul Scofield was an incredibly talented actor; he should have an Oscar simply for this scene alone.

The key to the play is not marveling at the acting or even caring about Hamlet at this moment.... the key is to see how Dad suffers in his death, how he is lost and tormented... to want vengeance, to need it.... then ... everything that follows is so much clearer, so real and emotionally alive... this great play, 400 years old, comes to fresh life now. CATHARTIC.

I've watched this probably a hundred times. When Hamlet came out in December 1990, I went back to see it three times just to see this scene again.

Scofeild's performance is just stunning here. Perfect!!!

I just watched this movie for the first time in like 25 years this weekend. I had to rewind and watch this scene a couple of times and research who played Hamlet's father. It was so moving. Best scene in the movie.

Scofield could have made a nursery rhyme shake the earth. A master and genius of the craft. Phenomenal performance here.

Brilliantly played by a true master of his craft, even Gibson had the good sense to make way in this howling scene from the play.

The best ghost I ever saw. And he is so effortlessly compelling.

Orson Welles once said that the best actor in a production of hamlet should play the ghost, because if the audience doesn’t believe the ghost then the production is ruined. No wonder they chose a master like Paul.

an acting lesson- the best of so many remarkable actors who have performed this role.....

Paul Scofield should have lived forever. None better.

Best ghost ever. I would gladly sit for days listening to Charles Laughton, Peter O'Toole, Paul Scofield or Alec Guinness read the telephone book. He was just as overlooked for his role in The Crucible opposite Daniel Day Lewis. A remarkable actor.

Mr. Gibson and Mr. Scofield played off of each other wonderfully! I wonder what Orson Welles and Mr. O'Toole would think?

I’ve seen clips of every onscreen Hamlet, and Scofield is the best of them all by a mile. His restrained suffering has been justly praised but I must also commend how perfectly he embodies and conveys the character’s moral ambiguity. Why does the father want to be avenged? Did he knowingly send his son onto this path that led him to his own doom? Is this really the father at all? Scofield’s sense of mystery in this role is flawlessly performed.

Scofield was a GENIUS. I read that Mel Gibson was in complete awe of him when they filmed this.

An amazing movie. Mel was great, but paul just puts acting to the highest level not many can reach. I know nothing about acting, but this is the most powerful scene.

Mel Gibson said that his time working with Scofield was like being “thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson”. .

I don’t think I have ever witnessed in cinema, a more haunting scene than this. Terrified to watch. Unable to not. It is as sublime on the screen as it was in the authors minds eye. We have not yet seen a match, that can match Shakespeare flow.

0:08 Shakespeare version of "I am your father"

The only movie I ever saw multiple times when it came out. This scene, and so many others in it, are mind blowing.

This is the most important scene in the play, because it reveals the REAL villain without Shakespeare ever telling us outright (something he did a lot). The ghost king reveals to his son that his uncle crept into the garden while he was sleeping and poured a leprous distillment into the porches of his ear. In this scene, the ghost king is committing the exact same crime, pouring a leprous distillment of WORDS into the porches of young Hamlet’s ear, which poisons his soul, and sets him off on a path which destroys the entire family. Claudius’s crime is one man’s murder of another; King Hamlet’s ghost commits a crime against family and kingdom. In great literature, scenes often spin against their drive, meaning they are about the OPPOSITE of how they appear. This scene is why I think Hamlet bests King Lear as Shakespeare’s greatest play.

Such incredible literature! Also amazing acting

Thank you SO Very much. What an awesome actor Mr. Scofield was. That voice!

*"... Once Dispatched, Cut off. Even in the blossoms of my sin?..... No Reckoning Made? But sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head! Oh Horrible!....... Oh Horrible!....Most horrible.."* That part is just soooo powerful and full of terrifying emotions! 😰 Even more than Charles Dickens' 'Jacob Marley'. 💀

Scofield will always, always be the best.

Scofield just wipes the floor with Mel here. Greatest Shakespearean actor I ever saw and his King Lear is untouchable.

Take a look at the Branagh Henry V. Scofield as King of France becomes the quiet pivot of every scene he is in.

This is how Shakespear should be performed. PERIOD.

I completely agree with the poster's comment. I remember seeing this film when it first came out and remember that my husband and I were completely heartbroken by Scofield's performance. Thank you so much for putting this clip up.

When I was a kid I listened to an audio drama based on Hamlet acted in my native language Mizo. The ghostly part was acted in such a way it could send chills down your spine.

Just had a look at all the other Hamlet Ghosts on the tube. I think Schofields is the superior version.

A superb film version of a truly wonderful play. In 1990 Mel Gibson was, quite rightly, one of the biggest film stars and a well respected screen actor. In this scene, I think he also deserves credit. At the time, every one of his acting peers would have been completely acted off the screen by Paul Scofield. Mel Gibson was indeed blown away in this scene but not in an undignified way. He was in a two way scene with one of the very finest actors of the English-speaking world yet he hangs on and put in a fine performance. Gibson later went on to say that it was like being thrown in the ring with Mike Tyson.

Scofield was a great Hamlet and recorded the complete play.

still my fav version of hamlet!

This breaks my heart.

This breaks my heart. Acting of this power, this subtlety, this incredible skill is all too rare these days. Mr. Scofield's performance is utterly magnificent and there is NO actor making films today that can come close to matching him. Watch this scene and despair; you will never see the like again, at least until Hollywood turns its back on sensationalism and CGI and returns to what made the Silver Screen great: the power of its actors. I salute you, Paul Scofield. You are truly great.

Absolutely amazing.

I love this version of hamlet tbh

brilliant

saw Scofield on stage in coriolanus 1962 --I have never seen a shakespearean performance equal to it

Scofield at his brilliant best.

That ghost is the most paranormal of all, the bets part is that he is floating and actually looks like one

best scene ever

I cry every time.😢

Everybody's tooting Scofield's horn... I like him, but like many Shakespeareans his pleases his audience more through sheer force of personality than believability. In this scene in particular Gibson outperforms, and without even saying a word. The mixture of horror, grief, and madness on his face...

Thank you.Ben Kingsley is always awesome, I agree, and Maggie Smith is like a re-incarnation of Edna May Oliver or Gladys Cooper. I'd put the less seen on screen Eileen Atkins up there too.I suppose it did depend on what the character had to say and do which also determined how well they survived opposite Scofield.A dream Hollywood coupling would have been a scene between Paul S and Spencer Tracy, another swan on the still water with the mechanism furiously working away out of sight.

Most people who lost loved ones say, they would wish to see them again... I said many of times that about my mom....but I truely believe I would react like Hamelt...shocked and scared and confused...and sad.

Adieu, Adieu, Remember him. Paul Scofield was the greateast of us.

My favourite Harry Potter movie ever!

No reckoning made! This is the key to this scene in that he was sent to his account without final confession and by his brother no less. This is a Catholic universe and at this moment the revenge tragedy begins, but the protagonist must function within this Catholic framework which delays the action. Shakespeare overturns dramatic conventions by forcing Hamlet to abide by certain moral laws.

I like that they say "incest" a bunch of times and I got an ad for Game of Thrones Season 8.

I disagree - Mel Gibson did extremely well. No man alive at the time could possibly match Mr Scofield; but let that not cloud our judgement. Mel was not trying to match Sir Paul; he was playing Hamlet - a young man overwhelmed by the mystical forces surrounding him at the time. Do you seek to compare Mr. Gibson against Mr. Scofield? Then shut up and learn a thing or two about acting. Mr. Gibson cannot hope to compare with Mr. Scofield, but he can learn from him. Neither man belittles the other.

Wow. Paul Scofield, the Mike Tyson of Shakespearean verse and performance. Mel Gibson couldn't stand a chance in this scene🎭💯🔥🔥🔥

😢There is nothing in revenge.. ..all but in itself; oblivion.

Adieu, adieu...remember him.

Excellence, thy name is Scofield

la mejor escena de la película

Anyone else here after Dylan's epic new "Murder Most Foul"?

yes, quite possibly

Damn, that would be creepy if your dead fathers spirit told you he was purgatory

say what you will about mel but he did do one hell of a good hamlet

ADIEU!!!

oh poor ghost remember thee!

3:19; Vibrato inhalation. 👑

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

School work anyone?

How does this only have 200+ views.........

haha take that Mr wittemann

Omg, we are performing this scene, and I just laughed as I could read off our script to what they say.

what is the ghost entrance like in this clip

shakespeares characters are so aghast at life's twists and turns, yet we the people just laugh them off, maybe pelt them on the stage

Anybody think he could've played a Maester on "Game of Thrones"?

I mean king of thrones?

HOLY SHIT I just realized The Lion King did it better.

Too many cut away's to Mel Gibson.

I totally understand Gibson wanting to do Shakespeare but 'he is out of his depth' ... wide-eyed becomes boring very quickly ... he is not conveying 'any' emotion.

Scofield won the best actor Oscar in 1966 for "A Man for All Seasons." It should have gone to Steve McQueen for "The Sand Pebbles." He was robbed.

If I were to name the male actors I have seen with Paul Scofield on screen who weren't, imo, completely obliterated by that insurmountable charisma (like the hapless Mel Gibson here, a monumental example), I would say Orson Welles, Robert Shaw, John Hurt (A Man For All Seasons), Burt Lancaster(The Train and Scorpio), and possibly Ralph Fiennes(QuizShow), who survived slightly better than Daniel Day Lewis(The Crucible), who in turn came up smelling of roses compared to poor old Gibson here.

"Don't act with animals or children" WC Fields said, because that's where you always come off second best -but someone should have told Mel Gibson, "animals, children or Paul Scofield".

My favorite ghost also. Scofield can play the saddest man in the world so well. Mel is pitiful, however.

Whats so good about paul scofield. I’d rather see keaunu reeves as the father

"Remember Me"... Should always be said with a vengeful tone, with Re-'mem'ber Me being in a low forceful command, slowly drawn out. I love and admire Scofield but this isn't Hamlets father, pleading from weakness and sadness. Shakespeare has him actually angry and seeking retribution, the only mercy is for Gertrude in which he also shows pity for. But..."Remember Me" was meant as a lasting impression for the son. (See Jacobi's Hamlet, BBC 1980)

wtf

best Ghost ever...period