Shakespeare on Film: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
MM's seventh week of Shakespeare on Film explores the Bard's original comedy duo
By Daniel Rosenthal
URL: http://www.moviemaker.com/acting/article/shakespeare_on_film_rosencrantz_guildenstern_are_dead_20080710/
Tom Stoppard originally sold the screen rights to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, the stage comedy which made his name, soon after its 1967 premieres in the West End and on Broadway. He wrote a screenplay for MGM, then saw the project languish for twenty years until the rights were bought back and he rewrote the script and filmed it in what was then still Yugoslavia. With a cast featuring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, Stoppard portrayed the events of Hamlet entirely from the point of view of the Prince’s doomed friends as they travel to Elsinore, kick their heels ‘off stage,’ and sail to England.