Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, friends of Hamlet, have been summoned to the court of the King of Denmark. Hamlet's parents are worried about his strange behaviour and his friends are supposed to purke him up. They find themselves trapped in a situation where they come to betray Hamlet, which they might regret... The film was awarded the Golden Lion in Venice.

Comment:
In this film (based on his own play of the same title) Stoppard plays with the possibility of simultaneously using and ironizing over his own play, the innumerable interpretations of the drama, the film script and the original text by Shakespeare. To take one example, a great deal of Stoppard's plot takes place at moments when, traditionally, the characters are off stage - in the gaps during the changes of act and scene. The element of irony and pastiche is reinforced by vigorous experimentation with screen time, anachronisms and levels of verbal style.
The language, which occupies a central position all through the film, is its greatest asset - a witty, imaginative dialogue, full of subtle and drastic plays on words and verbal put-downs skilfully delivered by the outstanding theatrical duo of Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.

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