Despite the fact that it's not the cleanest play-to-film transition, it is still up there for me as a movie I can watch endlessly. I was once lucky enough to see a performance where they played two nights in a row, the first night was Hamlet, and then every actor returned, playing the same roles, the next night in Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead. It was a great production.

I remember we were reading Hamlet in my AP Literature class in my senior year, and someone asked, "Wait, did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern KNOW Claudius was trying to kill Hamlet? And that's why Hamlet gets them killed?" The teacher: "Well, no, they didn't know." "...That's effed-up!" "Yep."

The interesting thing is that R+G are rarely cut out of Hamlet now, because of this play/film. People expect to see them.

Two men, committing no overt sin, but vaguely, graspingly aware of the narrative they inhabit - dimly aware that they are bound for doom, until they die - and then repeat the task again, once the play is next performed, without the capacity to change the deaths they lurch towards, again and again. It always struck me as a tragedy, from start to finish, despite the comedy.

I kind of connect the coin-tossing gag to the fact that in the "script", A coin toss turn out to be heads, and since they are chained to the script they cannot change the outcome. Kinda like the whole movie.

I just got a really wierd idea for a videogame; You, the player, can't change anything, but everything happens around you can you can stand wherever you like to see what's going on. And it's Hamlet and rozencrantz & Gildenstern both going on at the same time. Even now there are VR movies where you, the viewer, have the option to turn your head in any direction, but that's it. Things happen atround you no matter what you do. Just add to that the ability to move around, and, yeah.

Professor Kallgren's classes are the best.

Yes....now let's see "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead." That ones'a classic.

That Questions Tennis scene is one of my favorite scenes ever.

I think an interesting way to film this and still get across the 'off-stage' elements might have been to film it in the style of behind the scenes footage/bonus content, with deliberately allowing the camera team to be visible at times, hair/makeup people in the shot periodically, etc. Behind the scenes content is the closest equivalent film has to the idea of being off stage in a play.

I think the coin-flipping at the beginning is meant to establish that the dominant force at work here is the force of narrative. The coin comes up heads because the coin is scripted to come up heads at that point in the story, and it does so every time they flip it at that point in the performance (in live theatre it might not, but the audience can't see the coin, so the actors will shout "Heads!" anyway). The other major theme of RnGrD is the lack of backstory. A fair chunk of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's lines in this play are them unsuccessfully trying to remember anything about themselves or their histories other than what's spoken in Hamlet, which they can't do, because Shakespeare never bothered writing it. (I actually disagree with this point that Stoppard was making... read Nicholas Hytner's article "With Shakespeare, the play is just a starting point." The reason everyone seems to create their own Shakespeare is because Shakespeare was an actor, he wrote for actors, and he wanted to give his actors room to help create their own characters. Future actors and directors should give Rosencrantz and Guildenstern their own backstories; that's what Shakespeare would have wanted) Similarly, many of the rest of the jokes are about R&G trying to piece together, from scant context clues, exactly where they are and what time it is, because the theatre is a low-tech medium where it's hard to establish such things without dialogue (remember that scene where they try to deduce the position of the sun and/or compass directions?). This, to me, is the reason that RnGrD just doesn't work as well on film; because on film you can establish such things visually. RnGrD is about the limits of the theatre as a medium; it doesn't work in a medium with different limits.

Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are so replaceable that their names are the same syllable scheme That people just reverse their attributes That the coin may as well land on heads every time, as landing on tails any number of trials would be the same If you were to try to pick from them which is Rosencrantz and which is Gildenstern based on their traits, you would still have a 50/50 chance.

Always die, but back to the next performance would actually be an hellish groundhog day inferno

This might just be right up my alley. I have an odd amount of empathy for characters who get short changed in stories, particularly when they have such strong ties to the main characters.

This is full circle for me. Years ago, I told a friend about the feelings which I'd later know to be the beginning of a very existential depression, and he recommended Camus. I didn't read any back then. Through one of your reviews, I went through a short IMDB click-chain and ended up at R&G Are Dead, and watched it about half a year later with my best friend. I was, at the time, at the height of my depression, and it was so wonderfully silly and existential in all the right ways that it became one of the main reasons I started getting better [me and her would play the questions game often after]. Now, suicide ain't a thing and both of those friends are hopelessly far away, so maybe I should start reading some Camus. I feel like it's time I rewatch this, too. Maybe with both of them on Skype, if I can get the time aligned right. Gods, life is stupid.

There was a _major_ missed opportunity in the fact that there was a movie about Hamlet _also_ made in 1990... with _no_ involvement from the cast and crew from this film.

i could literally talk about this play for hours. it's had such a huge impact on me and i'm performing as guildenstern this spring which is the most exciting thing ever!!

"Apologies to any Scots watching". Apology accepted!

So helpful for my intertextuality assignment of 'Hamlet' and 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead'. Tysm

I saw this in Sydney with Tim Minchin. Honestly one of the greatest play experiences I've ever had.

I am so happy that we finally got a R&G are Dead episode! I love the play-- the choice of picking Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to continually search for meaning behind the scenes is perfect on so many levels. They're characters with ambiguous motives (in the original Hamlet, anyway) set in an ambiguous narrative, doubly cursed by greater forces within their own world and the nature of fiction itself to die. It's just awesome. A complete existential mess. (Also the humor is great.)

I saw it the day it came out and fell in love. I was already a Richard Dreyfuss and Gary Oldman fan. Tim Roth was a revelation. Bought the play. Have followed Stoppard ever since. A complex and fascinating puzzle box of a piece. You are right to point out that the thing works better on stage. It makes more sense, but Stoppard adds other dimensions by using editing-montage and close ups. The sexual ambiguities surrounding Alfred, the use of sound and music to create a sense of dark magic. It all brings more facets to think about.

As a fanatic of absurdism philosophy this is very fascinating to me as a movie/play/idea. I always do wonder about characters that only show up briefly for a moment in media and then vanishes never to know their story, even if it is uninteresting, a slice of life type of movie. So this seems like my kind of film/play, i'll need to watch it.

8:00 I guess Tommy Wiseau didn't know that there was already a play called "The Room"! XD

the insightful analysis has always been amazing with this show, but the use of animation recently has really elevated it all

The use of "Seamus" thorough this review made it even more pleasant and insightful (maybe because it's Pink Floyd and I'm a sucker for it but it really fit the mood). Thanks Kyle!

I was just marathoning your stuff, perfect!

I think I disagree with the claim that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did nothing wrong. An important point that's set up is that they get an opportunity to actually do something when they find Claudius's letter to kill Hamlet. But rather than warn Hamlet or destroy the letter or anything else, they lay back, comfortable that their life's got direction now, embracing the passivity that they've been complaining about all this time. This is a direct change from Shakespeare's play where it seemed the two were unaware of the letter's contents. And their actions, or rather inactions, gets them killed when Hamlet switches the letter.

Def one of my favorite videos you've done

I love your Shakespeare videos. I have watched them time and time again. You are charismatic and make the videos very interesting. Thank you again Mr. Kallgren. High School English would have been bearable, if I had had you videos

Thank you so much for this video. I've seen that movie three times, since seeing this video. Now I hope to see the play.

I just have to say, you sir have an amazing and clever mind. This was very entertaining. I will be watching all your videos from now on.

Ah, I loved this play when I was a teenager. I related to R&G a lot. I always felt like my story was never my story. I felt like an extra in everyone else's life. Everybody else was always having more fun than me, being more successful than me, dragging me along to places I didn't want to go, making me do things I didn't want to do. R&G made me realize that just because the "camera" wasn't on me doesn't mean there was nothing to my life, that I shouldn't live my life according to what other people did or wanted.

Excellent Kyle! I only now realise that Stoppard was one of the screenwriters in Terry Gilliam´s Brazil, another tale of a man trapped in a absurd story beyond his control.

I wached this play recently on stage! Its playing in Toronto right now with beloved hobbits Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan as leads. It was a fantastic performance and you're absolutely right, it works so much better as a play than a movie just because the stage itself and everything happening around it is a almost character of its own. Settings shift easily. There are these moving large wrought iron and wooden steps on wheels, they look like seats in a theater. Sometimes they are pointed towards the audience and sometimes away and towards the play hamlet is staging or something else happening "off stage" and we watch everything *through* them. When they are joined together they become the hull of the ship. Actors move through them, breaking, climbing, walking, jumping, pushing them apart and making them something different. When R and G die they are on a dark stage lit by spotlights and when the lights over them switch off they are dead because in a dark theater that's all you need. It's a play. If the theater is dark they cease to be! R and G keep trying to find east and can't get oriented in the theater, because they can't tell where the sun rises in the darkness that surrounds the stage. At one point the light is shone on the audience and they look at us and go "ah that must be it" because of course in a play that's where the east is. The audience is the east. Its so good! It plays so much with so many ideas! Even at the end, when the play loops in on itself it's so much more obvious because of the space it's happening in. Film simply does not have this kind of vocabulary. I like it fine but it's just not the same. There is a magic to live theatre performances that can't be beat! I was thinking of this video on my way home, how much it touched on a lot of good points and gave me a lot of tools and context to enjoy the play more and how much it holds up. I really enjoyed your Shakespeare videos in university days and i still do many years later, old and new. Cheers!

So glad you did do this, obvious as it is. Walking through someone else's tragedy can often be absurd as hell. I always loved how R and G only see Hamlet muttering to himself for his eloquent speeches.

This is one of my all time favourite movies. Good job!

One of my favorite channels/reviewers doing one of my favorite Shakespeare inspired movies. Life is good...

"The Myth of Sisyphus" is one of my favorite books. I'm so glad you discussed it!

This is one of my favorite films I’ve never actually seen, just the concepts within are so good and funny naturally that it transcends the film. This is at the top of my watch-list again, thanks Kyle! 🌹

This is actually one of my favourite movies. I remember countless games of questions played with my father, even though I was never any good, and I remember my mother trying to track down a copy after ours got lost in a move or something, waitlists at every used movie shop around.

Awesome, another lesson from professor Kallgren!

UH this is now my favorite! Albert Camus is my fav smart guy writer. Its confusing and works my brain. The Stranger is my fav Smart Guy Book. Everyone should read it. Takes me back to high school.

I was in a production of the play last year. I played Fortinbras, who in the original script didn't have any lines(our director gave me the Ambassador's line to compensate) and only appears at the very end. I barely was needed at any rehearsals, so by the performances I still had no idea what was going on. But after rereading the play again and watching this video, I can finally say that I know just what the hell was happening

I wonder if Camus ever read Ecclesiastes.. "There is no new thing to be done under the sun. All our lives are to labor and gain what we will leave to those who've not labored for them. The only joy in life is to be content in one's labor." Well, that's just *my* summary of one of its chapters, very worthy read for any sophist.

I actually really recommend seeing this film.

My high school English teacher had us read this my senior year. He had us compare it to Waiting for Godot. I guess they both have similar-ish themes. Existentialism & absurdism. Looking for meaning where there is none. Repetition. Anywho, nice video.

the way this video essay has completely reformed my view on character deaths in all media cannot be understated

If you watch/read Hamlet while taking into account idea pioneered by modern Shakespeare fans (that has popped up in more and more productions I've seen as time goes on), that Hamlet and Horatio are secretly lovers, I think that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's place in the story makes more sense.

This last school year, we read this in my AP English lit class. it made quite the impact on me.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is the only movie that has the same emotional punch to me each time, because of "we'll know better next time." It isn't how the medium of film works, I logically know that, but each and every time I watch it, there is a not-small part of me that fruitlessly hopes that this time, it will be different, that they will escape their written roles, or learn their proper names, or get out safe. It never happens, but the structure of film in allows for that sort of emotional investment in me more than the play does, because film is, relative to theatre, more fixed. You can see a play thousands of times, and it will always be just a little bit different, because it is a live performance. The movie is the same every time, a cycle in a way that a play can't fully be. And that stirs the futile hope in my chest that the impossible might happen and the medium might be broken.

hurrah it finally came the time for this one! xD i'm actually interested in reading mr camus after this, who knew. anyway, how do you think that offstage but in frame problem could be better resolved? i think it worked well enough. maybe less obvious links with actors in a play but that the texts already conveys that plenty. i liked the way stoppard used the rooms of the castle. its like the play is moving all over and they're almost always in the wrong room (cue that benny hill song for the moments when the play arrives at the rooms they're in) sometimes they end up at the right room but only to be more confused bc they missed all the others, so they remain confused as hell.

God I love this movie. I was toying with the idea for a script that puts Tim Roth and Gary Oldman together again. What I came up with was basically a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, placed in a post apocalyptic England.

I don't know much about high brow cinema and plays, it's not my cup of tea frankly. But your channel is very entertaining and enlightening. Thank you.

I have heard about the myth of sisyphus from a different KZfaq channel. Passion of the Nerd, who reviews Buffy the Vampire Slayer, talked about the season 3 episode Amends

Stoppard is also Czech, and you can see the influences in his work, particularly if you happen to be reading Kafka at the time.

All this talk of Sisyphus, Waiting For Godot, and ignorance reminds me on an episode of the anime Kino's Journey. In "Three Men Along the Rails", the traveling Kino meets exactly what the episode promises: three men, each working along a rail line. She meets them in succession, and stops long enough to hear their stories. The first man has spent the last 50 years meticulously shining the tracks, for a rail line that he has been told will be restarted. The second man, slightly younger, has spent the last 50 years pulling the tracks up and stacking them in piles to the side. The third man, even younger, has spent the last 50 years taking the tracks that have been helpfully stacked up, and placed them down. For the record, because the track is constantly being polished, destroyed, and remade, there is no train coming through, and probably never will be. All three men have spent their lives engaging in mutually contradictory tasks, for no ultimate purpose. Still, they are reasonable content with their lives. After all, they are getting paid for their work (they would have abandoned the jobs otherwise), and none of them know about the others. Their tasks are absurd, but they do not know it, so it doesn't bother them. Kino, who long ago learned that getting involved in the insane problems of the countries she passes through can often lead to tragedy, proceeds to not inform the men. It is perhaps the kindest thing she could do for them.

There is a Love Labour's Lost Musical that played Off Broadway that is NOT The Kenneth Branagh version. My school did it recently and it was the last show my director put on before he left our school. Please review it because it is somewhat a modernized version with modern English song yet including Shakespearean text from the actual play. It is the only shakespeare comedy that doesn't end with a wedding, but with the death of the princess's father, making her the Queen of her kingdom but forcing her to leave her love the King.

Splendid animation!

Every high school theater class would play Questions for fun.

Ahhh, the story of the extras, the background characters, the comedy relief. And just like in the stories proper, they spend most of their time doing sweet FA while waiting for the stars to do their things. Silly question, Mr Kallgren, is "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau worth mentioning? I can't help feeling like there's something there for a "Between The Lines" episode on the line between film that's not good bit still good art, versus something that's just... bad.

DeAndre Cortez Way (born July 28, 1990), better known as Soulja Boy Tell 'Em or simply Soulja Boy, is an American rapper, record producer, actor and entrepreneur. In September 2007, his debut single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The single was initially self-published to the internet, and later became a number-one hit in the United States for seven non-consecutive weeks starting in September 2007. On August 17, Way was listed at number 18 on the Forbes list of Hip-Hop Cash Kings of 2010 for earning $7 million that year

The song at beginning and end: Seamus by Pink Floyd

It's a great play and they did a very fine job of translating it into a movie, something that very rarely works well. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that it is so good, the cast is magnificent, it's a delight to see Roth and Oldman before they were in any way famous, and Tom Stoppard is a superb playwright,

omg I remember when I wanted the book it was HELL to aquire it in my country... like I don't have it bought I lended it :D

King Claudius was portrayed by the actor who played Maester Luwin.

It was this film which got me into Shakespeare. After a night of hallucinogenic indulgence, returning to reality in the wee hours of the morning, I happened across this production on cable television... luckily (though, unbeknownst to me) at the very beginning. I was riveted to the screen. All through the performance I found myself saying, "I know these lines... what is this?" By the end I had realized it was a parallel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, and decided I wanted to re-experience the classic. I found Kenneth Branagh's production and have been thoroughly hooked on the Bard ever since. For that, Tom Stoppard has my eternal thanks. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_(1996_film)

I love this interpretation. It makes me realize how pedestrian the interpretation my high school drama director went with was.

This is a great video. Subscribed for more. :)

I cannot for the life of mine find out what music plays at 00:37 and later in the very end of the video If it's part of the soundtrack then it's not on KZfaq, I'd love to find out what the song is called, please point the way if you recognize it~

That Pink Floyds Sheamus in the background is making me think Ive gone crazy

A couple of years ago I was pleased to enjoy a local performance of the play in which all of the roles were played by women. It was delightful and surprising.

that title tune is straight-up Pink Floyd's Seamus, but without the lyrics.

I find it interesting in the choose your own adventure version of Hamlet by Ryan North, "To Be Or Not To Be", there is no way for Hamlet to betray Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They will always be your friends, and even if you tell someone that they've died it will be a lie.

My English teacher tried to explain this movie to us one day in class when I was in grade 9, I didn't know what she was talking about because I had never seen the movie, it took ten years, but at least now I know what she was talking about.

I had the Hamlet cameo in my school play version.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, an underrated gem

wow you taught me how to say camus I've been saying it wrong this whole time wtf how come philosophers always have hard names

Great job.

Sir Jorah! You look so young and dynamic.

It's one of my favorite films. Yes, it's the Theater of Absurd, but it have some charming atmosphere.

I wonder if on the casting call and later in the script, for one actor it said "Rosencrantz(Guildenstern)" and for the other "Guildenstern(Rosencrantz)".

One of my favorite movies!

Thank you.

Kudos - very well said!

I believe this was the inspiration for Lion King 1 1/2

They truly are Fortune's fools.

Actually there is a reason to Sisyphus’ punishment. The reason is because he had kept cheating death, Thanatos, so the endless boulder pushing represents him doing something over and over again which at the end of the day is pointless, like cheating death.

I love this film. Oldman and Roth are fantastic!

Well, I'm adding another movie to my watch list. Tim Roth is one of my favorite actors.

Love the Pink Floyd instrumental

To me, the coin flipping signified reality. Whenever Rosenstern flipped the coin and it came up "heads", it was a statistical impossibility, signifying that their reality was not real. Because their reality was the story of Hamlet. They exist solely as characters in Hamlet, and when they're not "seen" in the story, they don't really exist. That's why they literally can't piece anything together about themselves outside of them recalling that they were summoned to Denmark to see Hamlet. And that he is an old friend of theirs. That's all they know about themselves because that's all that Shakespeare gave them.

Why is Seamus by Pink Floyd playing in the background?

They were dead. They are about to die. They ARE dead. They are in a weird purgatory state where they don't fully remember anything before the events of Hamlet. They don't remember dying, yet, somehow, deep down, they knew. Something deep down nagged at them about it. "I tell you it's all stopping to a death, it's all boding to a depth, stepping to a head? Heading to a dead stop." ""Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?" (Guil in refrence to how the others treated Polonius's death) "Good god, I hope more tears are shed for us!" "I'd like to know where I am, even if I don't know where I am going... if we go there is no knowing." "Knowing what?" "If we'll ever come back." "We don't want to come back." "That very well may be true, but do we want to go?" "We'll be free." "I don't know, it's the same sky." "He's dead then, as far as we're concerned." "Or we are as far as he is. Not so bad is it?" "England! That's a dead end." "They" [Could this they even be refering to Shakespeare and the veiwers?] had it in for us, didn't they? Right from the beginning." They are witnessing their death, they are about to die, and they are, at the same time, already dead. They aren't fully aware of their death, but they still want to change the events leading up to their death. They don't want to do what the others tell them too, knowing deep down there will be consequences. But no matter how badly they want to - there's something prohibiting them from changing a single thing. They can't NOT go on that ship, to England. Because it already happened. And simulataniously, it is hapening. Time is circling. They are simply puppets created for their creator's {Shakespheare's} pleasure. The Players are likely dead as well, but the King Player seems very aware, confident, knowing. Maybe the players are somehow exempt from forgetting, finding some freedom in this Shakespeare-created purgatory in some strange way - which makes them able to lead those that who have died in this world to learning the truth about their deaths, what could have been different, and perhaps give them some sort of comfort in the fact that they are dead. Over and over again. Or perhaps, they simply just figured out they were dead before Guil and Ros did and will forget again as soon as the next reader/veiwer of the play comes along. Player: "I can come and go as I please." Guil: We're still finding our feet." Player: "I should concentrate on not losing your heads." Guil: "Do you speak from knowledge?" Player: "Precedent." Guil: "You've been here before." Player: "And I know which way the wind is blowing." Guil: "You're actors! You can't DO death." Player: "On the contrary. Death is what we do best." All this just to say, this is one of the most amazing plays in the history of plays.

Godot was doing the beer run.

One of my top movies

omg you actually pronounced it "eh-din-burg

Maybe I'm just thick but I came away from this even more confused than I was before starting. So this film is about Hamlet? Or about someone playing Hamlet?

I hope at some point you look at Rosencrantz ans Guildenstern Are Undead. I'm actually not sure if I liked it or not, it would help to see someone elses opinion on it.

This play ripped off Lion King 1/2!!!