Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1991)

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Tom Stoppard Director

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragi-comedy written and directed by Tom Stoppard based on his play of the same name.

Trivia:

This is Tom Stoppard's only directorial credit. He wanted to direct because he felt that no one else would give the material the proper level of disrespect that it deserved.

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Quote: Rosencrantz

Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?

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Writers
Cast
Gary Oldman Rosencrantz
Tim Roth Guildenstern
Richard Dreyfuss The Player
Livio Badurina Tragedian
Tomislav Maretic Tragedian
Mare Mlacnik Tragedian
Serge Soric Tragedian
Mladen Vasary Tragedian
Zeljko Vukmirica Tragedian
Branko Zavrsan Tragedian
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Plot Summary

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragi-comedy by Tom Stoppard starring Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss and Gary Oldman. The movie is adapted from Tom Stoppard's original stage play and tells the story of two minor characters from Shakespeare's famous tragedy Hamlet. The movie was met with medium success drawing its main criticism from the idea that it simply does not translate successfully to film.   
 
The film, like the play, focuses on Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) and their actions within the play of Hamlet. In the original Hamlet, the titular characters are old friends of Hamlet sent into spy and gain information as to why he feels morose. Hamlet quickly discerns their roles as spies and ultimately sends them to their death in the final act of the play (where the famous line, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" is spoken, and where the Tom Stoppard play/film gets it's title).  
 
Stoppard's film focuses on the events during Hamlet that are not known to the audience: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's beginnings, their travels and their experiences being sent to death.  
 

Main Themes

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead has a few notable themes and motifs that result in it being an absurdist experience. From Rosencrantz's discoveries of gravity to the protagonists' philosophical discussions of fate, chance, free will and death, this movie serves the same function as most absurdist dramas by taking an existentialist view on life.

 

 Rosencrantz playing with a makeshift Newton's Cradle
 Rosencrantz playing with a makeshift Newton's Cradle
One recurring theme in the film is that of physics and Rosencrantz's gravitational discoveries. Throughout the film he makes a series of scientific discoveries such as when he plays with a series of hanging clay jugs and concludes that bouncing the end jug into the next one causes the jug at the opposite end to bounce (Newton's Cradle) or when he finds that a feather and a bowling ball fall at the exact same speed. However, whenever he tries showing Guildenstern something goes wrong such as the ceramic jugs breaking or the bowling ball dropping faster than the feather. This plays on the relationship of the two as Rosencrantz is portrayed with a sort of child like innocence to Guildenstern's stern, older brother archetype. Rosencrantz may indeed be smarter than he looks, but whenever he tries and proves himself to Guildenstern, he fails.  
 
Another theme is that of free will and, similarly to the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are expressed as to not having control over their circumstances. They go from place to place, situation to situation without their control or even without their knowledge and further reflects the absurdist idea that we are not in control of our own lives.  
 
A third theme would be the limitless of language, often seen as a staple of absurdist, existentialist drama. In the film the two protagonists are often caught in verbal jousts with each other and in one scene they challenge each other to a game of "Questions" a sort of verbal tennis match. Stoppard paints the picture of articulation and the thought that language has no boundaries, by placing his characters in situations where words are all they have.  
 
A final theme that runs through the film is that of death. From the title including the word "dead" and the movie ending in the main protagonist's demise, the characters in the film are all constantly dwelling on it. In Rosencrantz's monologue about lying in a grave and how being a dead isn't so bad as people make it up to be, he addresses the idea that we are all born with an "intuition of mortality" and that at some point in our childhood we realize that life won't go on forever. Death is portrayed as an inevitability in the film and the characters better had to embrace it before they meet it, as they inevitably do.   
 

Reception

The film garnered mostly positive reception from critics, however a common criticism in the negative reviews was that the subject material was more suited to the stage than it was to film. Where Stoppard's play is one of the most highly acclaimed British absurdist pieces, the film did not reach anywhere near the amount of success the stage version has and is considered mostly a passable adaptation. 
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General Information Edit
Name Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
US Release Feb. 8, 1991
UK Release May 24, 1991
AUS Release July 26, 1991
Runtime 117
Language(s)
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English
Genre(s)
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Comedy
Drama
Theme(s)
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Rating PG
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  • In today's dollars
    Domestic $739,104
    Foreign +213,677
  • = total worldwide gross $952,781
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