Hacker Cinema
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
1991 · Film · 117 min
Directed by Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, minor characters from the play 'Hamlet', find themselves on the road to Elsinore Castle at the behest of the King of Denmark. The duo encounter a band of players before arriving to find that they are needed to try to discern what troubles the prince Hamlet. Meanwhile, they ponder the meaning of their existence.
2 positivefrom 2 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
Videos commenters linked
From YouTube links in the comments below. Most are clips and trailers; “Full” means the uploader says so.
5 comments on Hacker News
Almost everyone here will have seen a movie he was the screenwriter for or contributed to: Shakespeare in Love, Brazil, Empire of the Sun, even bits of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
A lot of folks here will have read either Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead or Arcadia, which are still probably his best plays, and certainly the best introduction to his work. I personally also really like The Invention of Love, about the gloomy tortured homosexual poet and classical scholar A.E. Housman, which was also apparently Stoppard's favorite of his plays. It's definitely niche territory though and you might need to care at least just a little about A Shropshire Lad and latin textual criticism. The Coast of Utopia is even more packed with history and erudition, although worth a read; the currently top comment here is a quote from it about death, childhood, and the pursuit of happiness.
He had an interesting combination of traits that many HN readers will probably appreciate: erudite to the point of elitism, although never attended college; a self-described "small c. conservative in politics, literature, education and theatre" with libertarian inclinations, but he wrote a sprawling trilogy about 19th-century Russian socialist and anarchist exiles (The Coast of Utopia).
Now that he's dead, I want to go back and re-read all his plays, including the ones I never managed to get to before.
Some that I've watched that I think qualifies, depending on how loosely you want to interpret it. Been a while since I watched most of these, so won't fight anyone if they disagree. Also didn't consider comedies or war, horror and very low budget movies as there are so many that fit from those categories.
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8518302/
Good One - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30319516/
Hard to Be a God - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2328813/
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100519/
The Wanting Mare - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2267554/
In a Savage Land - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151047/
Welcome the Stranger - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5716280/
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/
The Hourglass Sanatorium - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070628/
> you will be flipping coins until the end of the universe
Reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, which opens with just such a scenario[1].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOqaD5tWB0
This reminds me of the opening scene of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead[1]. Didn't get to see the play, but loved the movie.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwLEVQGbrM
> BTW, there are coin magicians who have mastered the ability to flip a normal coin and control the outcome to >95%.
Now you made[1] me want to rewatch Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead[2] again...
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_TfdNAXOwE
[2]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100519/