Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

By: Stoppard, Tom

Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: School & Library Binding
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0833553887
• ISBN13: 9780833553881
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Turtleback Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

In a tragedy, even minor characters die.

Screenplays serve several purposes; when they follow the film closely, you get to slow down and have time to savor the nuances. They also work as an external memory, so you can revisit your favorite parts of the story. I could not tell my shoe was untied unless it was pointed out. I use screenplays to point out what I may have overlooked in a moment of contemplation. This particular book also has a few black & white stills. The scene closes in on Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, or is it Guildenstern & Rosencrantz, discussing the odds of a flipped coin coming up heads. What seems to be a casual curiosity is the setting for the eventual outcome of the story. If the names sound familiar, then you will recognize them from the play “Hamlet”. Their story was never fully told until now. Throughout the film, we get snippets of Hamlet and visions of what is to come. The real fun is in the fact that the dialogue and the actors could have easily been seamlessly slipped into the original play. Their play on words not only matches Shakespeare but a good dose of Lewis Carroll; “Toes on the other hand”,” Don’t you mean the other foot?” A little about the movie: Disperses through the story, Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) makes all the great discoveries from gravity to flight to steam engines and so forth. Every time he goes to show them to Guildenstern (Tim Roth), they are overlooked or dismissed. The only person who was a tad over the top, acting like he was acting like Richard Dreyfuss as the leader of the acting troop. However, this is one movie that you can get away with overacting.