Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and Absurd - Summer of Shakespeare Fan Pick #3

[@riff5fki]

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.

[@dkeith45]

That must have been effing awesome : )

[@wess9900]

I saw a similar thing! unfortunately the hamlet was awful. great in R&G, less in a production where it's cut so that the majority of the show is soliloquies

[@stefanfilipovits21]

THAT is awesome. What a cool experience.

[@jeffreysmith236]

that sounds like Heaven to me, how fortunate you were.

[@randomwerewolf1099]

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

[@qw000pz]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Fucking Rolling in the Dosh from all their Hamlet Royalties

[@bobbyshaddoe3004]

Except as this analysis points out.. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern DO NOT MATTER.

[@meskalurator]

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.

[@eliburry-schnepp6012]

Yeah, that's how I saw it too

[@steveevans3073]

Yes! That makes so much sense!

[@demency2741]

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.

[@RileyRampant]

Like that fellow endlessly pushing that boulder up the hill, day after day. We are supposed to imagine Sisyphus as happy - otherwise, why would he be doing it ? Its not just comedy, its a commentary on the power of routine.

[@susieboo22]

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."

[@dechha1981]

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.

[@TiogshiLaj]

Go play "Return of the Obra Dinn". A tragedy at sea, told one death at a time.

[@duncanshipley831]

This comment reminds me of a game that actually does the opposite of this. The game is called “Presentable Liberty”. Instead of being able to move through the game and watch the story unfolding around you, you are stuck in a room for the whole game while you get letters from people which explain what’s happening in the outside world. You can’t leave the room, you can’t right back to the people sending you letters, there’s no way to tell if the people talking to you are even real, you don’t know were you are or how you got there. All you can do is wait as the story happens just out of reach for you to experience. It has one of the best concepts and stories out of any game I have ever seen. I highly recommend you check it out or watch a let’s play if it.

[@SuctionCat]

Have you played Elsinore?

[@Wendy_O._Koopa]

@@duncanshipley831 That's hardly a game then. It's just a story with extra steps.

[@clanoftheraven]

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.

[@midnighthope7752]

yesssss

[@ninjaturtlefan2003]

That might have worked REALLY well

[@Sylocat]

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.

[@ZanderNyrond]

Agree on all points.

[@theninjamaster67]

@Ron Maimon well they mean he was a playwright he wrote for actors to play out in said plays

[@theninjamaster67]

@Ron Maimon he's talking about Shakespeare you jackass and if you're trying to say some bullshit conspiracy theory about Shakespeare's writing with that last comment i don't want to hear it

[@theninjamaster67]

@Ron Maimon or that could also be a bunch of idiots grasping at straws to discredit Shakespeare any way they can because they can't live with the fact that such great work would come from a common playwright instead of some uppity privileged writer

[@theninjamaster67]

@Ron Maimon well you know the biggest problem with a time long past as this is you can only really speculate but my main point in the first place was pointing out what the guy meant not to go into some flame war on who Shakespeare was or wasn't just to point out what the guy meant so have a good day i will not be arguing with you on a subject i care very little for

[@karelfinn2343]

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

[@asalways1504]

Mine too, mainly because my sister did a one-act play of this scene, (don't ask which one she played...)

[@scaper8]

Clearly she would have to have been Guildenstern. Or was it Rosencrantz?

[@maugos]

Professor Kallgren's classes are the best.

[@LucasSampaioMaia]

Amem to that!

[@Redem10]

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

[@SWProductions100]

As bad as Tom Cruises groundhog day loop in Edge of Tomorrow, where he was dying to aliens in most loops? Granted, R&G seem mostly bored from what I've seen in this vid, and I can imagine boredom being it's own kind of hell.

[@Jaytheradical]

If we're to take their last words literally, it's possible to interpret that "the journey beats the destination" really is their philosophy. Better to push the rock up the hill than to hang out at the bottom, looking up.

[@rezkalla]

That's a Twilight Zone episode. A guy has a lucid dream that he's executed every night and it feels entirely real to him.

[@Strawberry92fs]

Bill Murray and Johnny Depp co-star in Groundhog Day 2: Phil Conners is Dead.

[@ArthurCrane92]

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.

[@governor_explosion]

Ditto. One could argue that the play is a prototype for fanfiction. Fanfic predates the Internet, after all, and it's not the first place where readers/watchers pitied and pondered the fate of bit characters. I always recommend this film (and Léon: The Professional) to people who liked Gary Oldman in Harry Potter, while I suggest it and Lie To Me for any Tim Roth fans who only know him as part of Tarentino's posse. I think Deadpool fans might like it too, as it can be interpreted as breaking the fourth wall a bit. I think the reason absurdity is so appealing to me is that I think everyone feels like a bit character in someone else's story, or that "Everyone knows exactly what they want and what they're doing in life-- except me". People often don't realize just how many other people can relate to that.

[@Implicacean]

It is Very worth watching. Just tick it into the search bar. Someone has it uploaded as a playlist.

[@EmpressTiffanyOfBrittany]

I call it Fanfiction Syndrome: when there are characters so good yet so little observed, that you want to see more of their story. R&G is more or less Shakespeare fanfiction, after all.

[@maxshulman-litwin3497]

Same!

[@misseli1]

Arturo Garza Same!

[@catherinehorowitz3930]

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!!

[@Philbert-s2c]

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

[@Nick0Kyuubi0Narion]

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.

[@LenHummelChannel]

Read Ecclesiastes chapters 3 and 12.

[@Nick0Kyuubi0Narion]

Len Hummel Unfortunately, there was nothing in those for me. I don't fear death.

[@szemek]

@@Nick0Kyuubi0Narion How are you doing?

[@QuikVidGuy]

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.

[@destinedmp5625]

This has to be the worst analysis I've ever read. What could you possibly gather from the same syllable scheme. It does not mean anything. The characters are so different and act as foils with one another. Maybe if you had any critical thinking skills you wouldn't be so obtuse and illiterate you dumbass fuck. If you're going to leave comments like this, provide some sort of literary evidence. People do not mistake them for their names, but their similar appearance you blind bat. It is very clear in the play how Guildenstern comes off as a pessimist while Rosencrantz comes off as an optimist. If you had to pick between their character traits you can easily tell them apart. It's just your socially introverted and never had any friends. Your lack of social skills show that you can't tell the difference between two different characters. "That the coin may as well land on heads every time, as landing on tails any number of trials would be the same"?????????? Believe it or not but tails is actually different from heads. If I were to analyze the play, I would say Guildenstern would be a head as he often "controls" their action, while Rosencrantz "tails" behind. Now due to their lack of control a character like the Player, Hamlet or Claudius could be the one spinning the coins as they are the ones truly in control of these two characters' lives.

[@bessh2501]

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.)

[@Crazy56U]

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.

[@tobychilver145]

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

[@andreraymond6860]

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.

[@LadyLunarSatine]

I remember an issue of Wizard from years ago that considered Gary Oldman for Wolverine in an X-men film; this was obviously before the film FOX gave us.

[@katarinajanoskova]

I think I love the film precisely because it's not perfect. It makes it all the more endearing, watchable and hilarious.

[@TheDrawingOne]

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

[@jammiedodgers13]

That sounds awesome! The way this film is described kind of reminds me of his comedy actually, though I'm not well-versed enough to explain why. Maybe because some of his songs have a vibe of.. acceptance, in the face of absurdity.

[@Jojoscotia]

"Apologies to any Scots watching". Apology accepted!

[@kittenpuke8918]

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.

[@rosebyanyname]

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

[@leandrocesar5207]

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!

[@KyleKallgrenBHH]

Was it Pink Floyd? It was just the opening and closing music from the film for me.

[@LucasSampaioMaia]

+KyleKallgrenBHH It is! Seamus is from one of theirs lesser known albums from before Dark Side of the Moon

[@lamecasuelas2]

I thought he just confused it with Sysypus from Umagumma

[@jadegecko]

Oh thank god I'm not the only person who didn't know it was Pink Floyd

[@lamecasuelas2]

jadegecko one of my least favorite songs from what actually is my favorite PF album like, i know wish you Were Here and DSOTM are better in their conception, somposition and recording, but i just like Meddle better, weird isn't it?

[@Pigeonstatue4232]

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

[@edatthegovernance]

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.

[@simonpeter5032]

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.

[@Streetsvillainy]

Godot was doing the beer run.

[@Lucholosabe]

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.

[@stanschanuzer5875]

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

[@EmpressTiffanyOfBrittany]

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.

[@Tuckerscreator]

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.

[@katarinajanoskova]

Why do you think Stoppard wrote this in? Was it so that we, as audience, don't feel that bad for their needless deaths (as it shows they are actually to blame in something) or to show us that they couldn't have done anything anyway to prevent their own deaths even if they would have been presented with an opportunity (like reading the letter and telling Hamlet about it).

[@Tuckerscreator]

Commentaries I've read suggests that it reflects real life responsibility. Life is often vague and issues don't appear to be fully black or white. But sometimes something objectively awful happens nearby us, and we're responsible for stopping it. But we freeze up because we're so used to not being in control, and so remain passive. I speak from experience, it's really hard to intervene when one sees evil happening nearby because we're afraid of getting involved in something complicated or getting ourself killed. But we have to do it anyway. Sadly R and G don't learn that lesson, because at the very end Guild openly wonders where he could've prevented all this. But we can feel bad for their deaths, sad that the cycle will repeat and they'll make the same mistake all over again. (Under "Difficulty of Making Meaningful Choices") www.sparknotes.com/lit/rosencrantz/themes.html It's kinda like what Kyle said in his video on Mr. Nobody: every choice has consequences, but no one can simply never choose because inaction is also a choice. You remain immobile, but life around you keeps moving and its problems catch up to you.

[@katarinajanoskova]

I haven't seen Mr. Nobody. I'll check it out. So the advice, more or less, would be to do the best thing and intervene if we see bad things happening. That said, we can't be doing it because otherwise we will get killed (karma is not real) but to lessen the evil or injustice in the world? We might still end up dead (and we will) but at least we will know why, the satisfaction of what R and G don't get to feel.

[@stefanfilipovits9221]

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

[@toontoosh]

I was just marathoning your stuff, perfect!

[@lenawalters1866]

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!

[@jaromirmoravec2789]

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.

[@godzillasaurbuttersworth3176]

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.

[@allyrae333]

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.

[@reddeathmonster]

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

[@lilacbombs_5197]

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

[@jsmountain]

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.

[@ajciccar3]

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.

[@lovaloo763]

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.

[@annlyric]

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.

[@jacksonhoemann9655]

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

[@Strawberry92fs]

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.

[@sadderall8]

Awesome, another lesson from professor Kallgren!

[@jankarieben1071]

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! 🌹

[@reannamckee43]

Def one of my favorite videos you've done

[@Skullkan6]

I actually really recommend seeing this film.

[@betteronbrunettes]

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

[@globalklaus]

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.

[@cameronpiper1261]

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

[@Bluecho4]

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.

[@andrewmillard2119]

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.

[@Gnomelord0]

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

[@cynthmcgpoet]

Every high school theater class would play Questions for fun.

[@davidpaylor5666]

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,

[@Lordwakawaka]

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

[@murdockfiles9406]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, an underrated gem

[@lauraortiz4906]

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.

[@Poppop-xl1jl]

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

[@BlackSilver23]

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)

[@komnenekar]

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.

[@Librariansaysook]

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.

[@TimeTravelerJessica]

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

[@jordanjamison5829]

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.

[@artcrime2999]

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

[@emmajochum8682]

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.

[@idunno...someguy3252]

Splendid animation!

[@alexthelizardking]

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

[@peej1708]

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.

[@mr.stoneface7699]

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.

[@TheMadwomen]

I think he's talking about something completely different.

[@gnalkhere]

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

[@renatapaiva4805]

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.

[@JanaSzIsBasicGlitch]

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

[@slashandbones13]

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

[@muticere]

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)".

[@thoughtfulpug1333]

The song at beginning and end: Seamus by Pink Floyd

[@ZanarkandIsntReal]

"And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes-how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry I shall never know." - Camus

[@willwalters8391]

I had the Hamlet cameo in my school play version.

[@patrickjohnson1649]

I was in the kitchen, Seamus, that's the dog, was outside Well, I was in the kitchen, Seamus, my old hound, was outside Well, the sun sinks slowly But my old hound just sat right down and cried...

[@АлександрСатановский-и8ю]

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

[@АлександрСатановский-и8ю]

And thanks for rus subs.

[@alex-bj3lh]

omg you actually pronounced it "eh-din-burg

[@albion65]

They truly are Fortune's fools.

[@JediJared-bs1wt]

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

[@professorred3669]

I never understood if this was canon or not and so i didnt understand how they died

[@ZillMob]

Such good casting for an adaptation. I think fear and loathing is equally good in both categories

[@annjohnson994]

I love this film. Oldman and Roth are fantastic!

[@stefanfilipovits9221]

Sir Jorah! You look so young and dynamic.

[@spencerraney4979]

Why is Seamus by Pink Floyd playing in the background?

[@alexsdemkin]

Why did Robert Ebert hate this film so much?

[@Philbert-s2c]

Because he was often wrong?

[@KyleKallgrenBHH]

He was a fan of the original stage play and thought that the translation to film was choppy and frankly uncinematic. I agree with him on that point. The film works because of the dialogue, the performances, everything about it that had nothing to do with the medium of film. The tone of his zero-star review wasn't hateful, if I recall, just massively disapointed.

[@alexsdemkin]

KyleKallgrenBHH Thanks for clearing that up.

[@jadegecko]

Yeah, I remember liking this and being surprised it got panned. Then reading the reviews and finding the gist was "man, it was OK I guess, but the play was sooo amazing."

[@LenHummelChannel]

and how soon we forget.

[@Hositrugun]

2:18 - Apology accepted.

[@Lazkaroz]

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 KZbin, I'd love to find out what the song is called, please point the way if you recognize it~

[@Lemanic89]

So "Hey Dude" on Nickelodeon was just like this?

[@davidkaplan2745]

I don't own many movies. This is one.

[@skoooch7270]

Love the Pink Floyd instrumental

[@dagbertwilliams1681]

There's another layer to the absurdism and that's the author as cruel god. The coin flip in R&G represents the characters getting an inkling of the author's control over the events. Probability is supposed to work like X, but instead is acting like Y. The author is letting the audience as well as the characters know that he is aware of them and they of he as the lord. There are similar recognition moments in Waiting for Godot, and most especially in the Berenger plays of Ionesco. Part of the alienating effect of absurdist theatre is the revelation of the man behind the curtain. The audience is never allowed a moment to fully suspend their disbelief. Ultimately, someone in the audience may come away with a greater awareness of where strings are being pulled in their own lives towards an end they neither desired nor considered. The question of "who is the author of my story, and am I the hero, villain, or chump," can be engaged by a participation in the performance... because now as an audience member, you are part of the cast.

[@tsilsby888]

Great job.