Review: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
DVD: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
What happens to the people in Shakespeare’s plays, when they are not actually on the stage? Well in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead you get a peep behind the curtains. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare’s Hamlet are former school friends of the Danish Prince, and Hamlet’s stepdad and uncle, King Claudius commands them to discover why his nephew has been acting a bit weird since King Hamlet’s death.
Tom Stoppard’s story is essentially Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s story from Hamlet, but importantly we see what happens when they aren’t actually IN Hamlet. So while they wait for their ‘turn’ the chaps have long esoteric conversations about the meaning of life, reality, and logic.
While Shakespeare’s play is often considered the epitome of dramatic poetry (if you want check out Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of Hamlet, it’s cracking) Stoppard’s work focuses on random events that don’t make make sense, and don’t really matter in the lives of the characters. At one point, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are instantly transported from one scene to another with no logical explanation, leaving the characters to contemplate the boundaries of reality; a theme throughout the film. Heads? Heads. Heads… (you have to see the film to get that reference).
A very young Tim Roth and Gary Oldman give solid performances in a film that is quite quirky, and I feel it should have stayed on stage as it loses some of its power by putting it in locations. Having said that I do like this film, but I think non Shakespeare fans would get a bit bored by it.
3 hours of Bonus features:
25th annivesary interview with Tom Stoppard (He’s VERY posh)
Interviews with Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss and Gary Oldman
Review by Tina (co-host of 60 Minutes With) from a disc kindly supplied by Aim Publicity.
