Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) - full transcript
Showing events from the point of view of two minor characters from Hamlet, men who have no control over their destiny, this film examines fate and asks if we can ever really know what's going on? Are answers as important as the questions? Will Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or Guildenstern and Rosencrantz) manage to discover the source of Hamlet's malaise as requested by the new king? Will the mysterious players who are strolling around the castle reveal the secrets they evidently know? And whose serve is it?
(horse whinnies)
(horse whinnies)
Um...
(horse whinnies)
- (horse whinnies)
- Rosencrantz: Whoa!
Whoa, whoa.
Hmm.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Bet.
Heads I win.
Again...
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Whoops!
(horse whinnies)
(coin pings)
It must be
indicative of something
besides the
redistribution of wealth.
Heads.
A weaker man might be moved
to re-examine his faith,
for nothing else at least
in the law of probability.
Heads.
(bird caws)
Consider.
One,
probability is a factor which
operates within natural forces.
Two, probability is not
operating as a factor.
Three, we are now held within
un-, sub-,
or supernatural forces.
Discuss.
What?
Look at it this way.
If six monkeys...
If six monkeys...
The law of averages, if I
have got this right, means
that if six monkeys were thrown
up in the air long enough
they would land on their
tails about as often
as they would land on their--
Heads.
Getting a
bit of a bore, isn't it?
A bore?
Well...
What about the suspense?
What suspense?
It must be the law
of diminishing returns.
I feel the spell
about to be broken.
Well, it was an even chance.
Seventy eight in a row.
A new record, I imagine.
Is that what you imagine?
A new record?
Well...
No questions,
not a flicker of doubt?
I could be wrong.
No fear?
Fear?
(coin bangs loudly)
Fear.
Seventy nine.
(sighs)
I think I have it.
Time has stopped dead.
The single experience of
one coin being spun once
has been repeated...
156 times.
On the whole, doubtful.
Or, a spectacular
vindication of the principle
that each individual
coin spun individually is
as likely to come
down heads as tails
and therefore should
cause no surprise
each individual time it does.
Rosencrantz: Heads.
I've never known
anything like it.
He's never known
anything like it.
But he has never known
anything to write home about
and therefore it is
nothing to write home about.
What's the first
thing you remember?
Oh, let's see, hm...
The first thing that comes
into my head, you mean?
No, the first
thing you remember.
Ah.
No, it's no good.
It's gone.
It was a long time ago.
You don't get my meaning.
What's the first thing after
all the things you've forgotten?
Oh, I see.
I've forgotten the question.
Are you happy?
What?
Guildenstern:
Content? At ease?
Well, I suppose so.
What are you going to do now?
I don't know.
What do you want to do?
Look.
What about it?
Well.
We have been spinning
coins together since...
I don't know when,
and in all that time,
if it is all that time,
157 coins spun consecutively
have come down heads,
157 consecutive times,
and all you can do is
play with your food.
Wait a minute.
There was a messenger.
(banging)
Man: Rosencrantz!
Guildenstern!
We were sent for.
Rosencrantz: Another
curious scientific phenomenon
is the fact that the
fingernails grow after death
as does the beard.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: Beard.
Guildenstern:
But you're not dead!
Rosencrantz: I didn't say
they only started
to grow after death.
The fingernails also
grow before birth.
Though not the beard.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: Beard!
What's the matter with you?
The toenails on the other
hand never grow at all.
The toenails on the other
foot never grow at all.
No.
Do you remember the first
thing that happened today?
Oh, I woke up, I suppose.
- (banging)
- (shouting)
I've got it now...
That man, he woke us up.
A messenger.
Rosencrantz: That's it.
Pale sky before dawn,
a man standing on his saddle
to bang on the shutters.
But then he called our names.
You remember,
that man woke us up.
We were sent for.
That's why we're here.
Traveling, a matter
of extreme urgency.
"A royal summons"
was his very words.
Official business
no questions asked.
Up, we get and off at the gallop
fearful lest we come too late!
Too late for what?
How would I know?
We haven't got there yet.
(clanging)
What's that?
The Player: Halt!
An audience!
Don't move!
(tambourine beating)
Perfect. Well met, in
fact, and just in time.
Why's that?
Why, we grow rusty.
And you catch us at the
very point of decadence.
This time tomorrow we
might have forgotten
everything we ever knew.
We'd be back where we
started, improvising.
Tumblers, are you?
We can give you a tumble,
if that's your taste,
and times being what they are.
Otherwise, for a jingle of
coin we can do you a selection
of gory romances pirated
from the Italian.
And it doesn't take
much to make a jingle.
Even a single coin has music
in it, should it be gold.
Tragedians!
(dramatic musical intro)
At your command.
My name is Guildenstern,
and this is Rosencrantz.
I'm sorry, his name's
Guildenstern,
and I'm Rosencrantz.
We've played to bigger, but
quality counts for something.
Tragedians.
What exactly do you do?
The Player: Tragedy, sir.
Deaths and disclosures,
universal and particular.
Denouements.
Transvestite melodrama.
We transport you back into a
world of intrigue and illusion.
Clowns if you like.
(groaning)
Murders.
We can do you ghosts.
(ghostly moaning)
And battles.
(swords clashing)
On the skirmish level.
Heroes, villains,
tormented lovers.
Set pieces in the poetic vein.
We can do you rapiers,
or rape,
or both.
By all means, faithless
wives and ravished virgins,
flagrant delicto at a price
for which there
are special terms.
It costs little to watch,
and a little more to get
caught up in the action.
If that's your taste, and
times being what they are.
What are they?
Indifferent.
Bad?
Wicked.
See anything you like?
Lucky thing we came along.
For us?
Also for you.
For some it is performance,
for others patronage.
They are two sides
of the same coin.
Or being as there
are so many of us,
the same side of two coins.
It was luck, then?
Or fate.
Yours or ours?
It could hardly be
one without the other.
Fate then.
You said,
caught up in the action?
I did. I did.
You're quicker than your friend.
For a handful of
coin, I happen to have
a private and uncut performance
of The Rape of the Sabine Women.
Or rather woman.
Or rather Alfred.
And for eight you
can participate.
It could have been...
It didn't have to be obscene.
I was prepared.
But it's this, is it?
No enigma, no dignity,
nothing classical or poetic.
Only this.
A comic pornographer and
a rabble of prostitutes.
The Player: You should have
caught us in better times.
We were purists then.
Excuse me.
Alfred.
Rosencrantz: You're not,
exclusively players, then?
We're inclusively
players, sir.
- I had no idea.
- The Player: No.
I mean, I've heard, but
I've never actually seen.
The Player: No.
I mean, what
exactly do you do?
We keep to our usual stuff,
more or less, only inside out.
We do on stage the things that
are supposed to happen off.
Which is a kind of integrity,
if you look on every exit as
an entrance somewhere else.
Wait a minute.
What will you do for that?
(coin pings and drops)
Do you know any good plays?
Plays? Oh, yes.
One of the Greeks, perhaps?
You're familiar with the
tragedies of antiquity, are you?
The great homicidal classics?
Maidens aspiring to
godheads, or vice versa?
That's your kind
of thing, is it?
I can't say it is, really.
We're more of the love,
blood and rhetoric school.
Well, we can do you blood
and love without the rhetoric
and we can do you blood and
rhetoric without the love
and we can do you all three
concurrent or consecutive.
But we can't give you love and
rhetoric without the blood.
Blood is compulsory.
They're all blood, you see.
Is that what people want?
It's what we do.
Would you like a bet?
Double or nothing.
Heads.
Heads.
Double or nothing.
Come on.
I say that was
lucky. It was tails.
(woman moaning)
Ah!
(door opens)
(indistinct chatter)
(trumpet fanfare plays)
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.
(dog barks)
Moreover that we much
did long to see you.
The need we have to use you
did provoke our hasty sending.
Something have you heard
of Hamlet's transformation.
So call it.
Sith nor the exterior
nor the inward men
resembles that it was.
What it should be,
more than his father's
death, that thus hath put him
so far from the
understanding of himself.
I cannot dream of.
I entreat you both,
that being of so young
days brought up with him,
and sith so neighbored
to his youth and haviour,
that you vouchsafe your rest
here in our court
some little time.
So by your companies to
draw him on to pleasures
and to gather so much as
from occasion you may glean
whether aught to us
unknown afflicts him thus
that opened lies
within our remedy.
Good.
Gentleman, he hath
much talked of you.
And sure I am, two men
there are not living
to whom he more adheres.
If it will please you to
show us so much gentry
and good will as to extend
your time with us awhile
for the supply and
profit of our hope,
your visitation shall
receive such thanks
as fits a king's remembrance.
Both your majesties might
by the sovereign
power you have of us,
put your dread pleasures more
into command than to entreaty.
But we both obey, and
here give up ourselves
in the full bent to lay our
service freely at your feet,
to be commanded.
Thanks, Rosencrantz.
And gentle Guildenstern.
Thanks Guildenstern
and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you
instantly to visit
my too much changed son.
Heaven make our
presence and our practices
pleasant and helpful to him!
Aye, amen.
I want to go home.
Don't let them confuse you.
(dog barks loudly)
(indistinct chatter)
We're in over our steps,
heading out of depth.
Stepping out of our heads,
so heading to a dead stop!
There!
(echoes)
Hasn't it ever happened to
you that all of a sudden
and for no reason at all you
haven't the faintest idea
how to spell the word "which"
or "house"
because when you write it down
you just can't remember
ever having seen
those letters in
that order before?
- I remember.
- What?
I remember when there
were no questions.
There were always questions.
Answers, yes. There were
answers to everything.
- You've forgotten.
- I haven't forgotten!
How I used to remember my
own name! And yours. Oh, yes!
There were answers
everywhere you looked.
There was no question about it.
People knew who we were and
if they didn't they asked,
we told them out names.
We did. The trouble is,
each of them is plausible,
without being instinctive.
Instinctive?
All your life you
live so close to truth,
it becomes a permanent blur
in the corner of your eye,
and when something
nudges it into outline,
it's like being
ambushed by a grotesque.
A man standing in his saddle in
the half-lit, half-alive dawn
banged in the shutters
and called two names.
And when he called we came.
That much is certain, we came.
Rosencrantz:
Well, I can tell you
I'm sick to death of it.
I don't care which one I am.
So why don't you
make up your mind?
Guildenstern:
We didn't come all this way
for a christening.
But we have been
comparatively fortunate.
We might have been left to sift
the whole field of
human nomenclature
like two blind men looting a
bazaar for their own portraits.
At least we are presented
with alternatives.
Well, as from
now my name is--
But not choice.
Your smallest action sets
off another somewhere else,
and is set off by it.
Polonius: And I do think
or else this brain of mine...
Rosencrantz: We're
going round in circles.
Polonius: ...so sure as it
hath use to do that I have found
the very cause of
Hamlet's lunacy.
Oh, speak of that!
That do I long to hear.
Give first admittance
to the ambassadors.
He tells me, my dear Gertrude,
he hath found the head
and source of all your
son's distemper.
I doubt it is no
other but the main.
His father's death
and our o'er hasty marriage.
Well.
We shall sift him.
It's all right.
There's a logic at work.
It's all done for
you, don't worry.
Enjoy it. Relax.
Relax.
Rosencrantz:
We have been briefed.
Rosencrantz: Have we?
Hamlet's transformation,
what do you recollect?
Well, he's changed, hasn't he?
The exterior and inward
man falls to resemble.
Draw him onto pleasures,
glean what afflicts him.
Something more than
his father's death.
He's always talking about us.
There aren't two people living
whom he dotes on more than us.
We cheer him up,
find out what's the matter.
Exactly.
It's just a matter of
asking the right questions
and giving away as
little as we can.
And then we can go?
And receive such thanks as
fits as king's remembrance.
Oh, I like the
sound of that...
What do you think she
meant by remembrance?
He doesn't forget his friends.
Would you care to estimate?
Some kings tend
to be amnesiac,
others the opposite, I
suppose, whatever that is.
How much?
- Elephantine.
- How much?
Retentive. He's a
very retentive king.
A royal retainer.
- What are you playing at?
- Words.
Words. They're all
we have to go on.
Rosencrantz: Look at this.
Leave things alone.
Sorry.
This is interesting.
You would think
this would fall faster
than this, wouldn't you?
(thud)
And you'd be absolutely right.
Fancy a game?
We're spectators.
Do you want to play questions?
- How do you play that?
- You have to ask questions.
Statement, one love.
- Cheating!
- How?
- I hadn't started yet.
- Statement, two love.
- Are you counting that?
- What?
Are you counting that?
Foul! No repetition.
Three love and game.
I'm not going to play if
you're going to be like that.
(sighing)
Whose serve?
- Uh...
- Hesitation! Love one.
- Whose go?
- Why?
- Why not?
- What for?
Foul! No synonyms! One all.
What in God's
name is going on?
Foul! No rhetoric! Two - one.
What does it all add up to?
- Can't you guess?
- Were you addressing me?
Is there anyone else?
- Who?
- How would I know?
- Why do you ask?
- Are you serious?
- Was that rhetoric?
- No.
Statement!
Two all. Game point.
What's the matter
with you today?
- When?
- What?
- Are you deaf?
- Am I dead?
Yes or no?
- Is there a choice?
- Is there a God?
Foul! No non-sequiturs!
Three - two, one game all.
- What's your name?
- What's yours?
- You first.
- Statement! One love.
What's your name
when you're at home?
- What's yours?
- When I'm at home?
Is it different at home?
- What home?
- Haven't you got one?
- Why do you ask?
- What are you driving at?
What's your name?
Repetition! Two love.
Match point.
Who do you think you are?
Rhetoric! Game and match!
(bells chime in distance)
- Rosencrantz!
- What?
There.
How was that?
- Clever.
- Natural?
Instinctive!
Now I'll try you. Guil--
Not yet!
Catch me unawares.
Right... Guil--
No, me, unawares.
(whistles)
Ready?
Guildenstern: Never mind.
Polonius:
...for I will use no art,
mad let us grant him
then and now remains
that we find out the
cause of this effect,
or rather say, the
cause of this defect.
For this effect
defective, comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and
the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter.
Have, while she is mine.
Who in her duty and
obedience, mark,
hath given me this.
Now gather, and surmise.
"To the celestial,
and my soul's idol,
the most beautified Ophelia."
That's an ill phrase,
a vile phrase.
Beautified is a vile phrase.
But that you shall hear, thus,
"In her excellent
white bosom..."
Gertrude: Came this
from Hamlet to her?
Polonius: Good Madam,
stay awhile, I will be faithful.
"Doubt thou,
the stars are fire.
Doubt that the sun doth move,
doubt truths to be a lie,
but never doubt I love."
(bird cawing)
(cow lowing)
(dog barking)
(bird cawing)
(whistling)
(squeaking)
(quacking)
(imitates horn blaring)
Polonius: ...his hot love on
the wing, as I perceived it,
I must tell you that
before my daughter told me,
what might you, or my dear
Majesty, your queen here, think,
if I had played the
desk or table-book.
- Or given my heart...
- (door slamming)
...dumb, or looked upon
this love, with idle sight,
what might you think?
No, I went round to work,
and my young mistress
thus I did bespeak,
Lord Hamlet is a
Prince out of thy star.
This must not be.
(harp chord plays)
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Well, God have mercy.
Do you know me, my lord?
Hamlet: Excellent.
Excellent well.
- You are a fishmonger.
- Not I, my lord.
Hamlet: Then I would
you were so honest a man.
Polonius: Honest, my lord?
What do you read, my lord?
Words, words, words.
Polonius: What is
the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Polonius: I mean the
matter that you read, my lord.
Statement.
Hamlet: Slander, sir.
For the satirical
rogue says here
that old man have grey beards...
Rosencrantz: Who was that?
Guildenstern:
Didn't you know him?
Rosencrantz:
He didn't know me.
Guildenstern:
He didn't see you.
Rosencrantz:
I didn't see him.
Guildenstern: We shall see.
I hardly knew him, he's changed.
- You could see that?
- Transformed.
- How do you know?
- Inside and out.
- I see.
- He's not himself, you know.
- He's changed.
- I could see that.
Glean what afflicts him!
- Me?
- Him.
- How?
- Question and answer.
He's afflicted.
You question, I answer.
He's not himself, you know.
- I'm him, you see.
- Who am I?
You're yourself.
- And he's you?
- Not a bit of it.
Are you afflicted?
That's the idea.
Are you ready?
Let's go back a bit.
- I'm afflicted.
- I see.
Glean what afflicts me.
Right.
Question and answer.
How should I begin?
Address me.
My dear Guildenstern!
You've forgotten, haven't you?
My dear Rosencrantz!
I don't think you
quite understand.
What we are attempting
is a hypothesis
in which I answer for him
while you ask me questions.
Ah. Ready?
- You know what to do?
- What?
- Are you stupid?
- Pardon?
- Are you deaf?
- Did you speak?
- Not now.
- Statement!
Not now!
(echoes)
I say.
- What?
- Well, uh, uh...
Would you like a bite?
No.
Thank you.
Oh, you mean you
pretend to be him.
And I ask you questions.
Very good.
You had me confused.
I could see I had.
How should I begin?
Address me.
My honored lord!
My dear Rosencrantz!
Am I pretending
to be you, then?
Certainly not. Well,
if you like, shall we continue?
- My honored lord!
- My dear fellow!
- How are you?
- Afflicted!
- Really? In what way?
- Transformed.
- Inside or out?
- Both.
I see. Not much new there.
Look go into details! Delve!
(echoes)
Probe the background.
Establish the situation.
So your uncle's
the king of Denmark?
That's right.
And my father before him.
His father before him?
No, my father before him.
- But surely...
- You may well ask.
Let me get it straight.
Your father was king.
You were his only son.
Your father dies. You are of
age. Your uncle becomes king.
- Yes.
- Unusual.
- Undid me.
- Undeniably.
- He slipped in.
- Which reminds me.
- Well, it would.
- I don't want to be personal.
It's common knowledge.
- Your mother's marriage.
- He slipped in.
- His body was still warm.
- So was hers.
- Extraordinary.
- Indecent.
- Hasty.
- Suspicious.
- It makes you think.
- Don't think I haven't.
- And with her husband's brother.
- They were close.
- She went to him.
- Too close.
- For comfort.
- It looks bad.
- It adds up.
- Incest to adultery.
- Would you go so far?
- Never!
To sum up!
Your father, whom
you love, dies.
You are his heir.
You come back
to find that hardly
was the corpse cold
before his young brother
popped onto his throne
and into his sheets,
thereby offending
both legal and natural practice.
Now, why exactly
are you behaving
in this extraordinary manner?
I can't imagine!
And yet we were sent for.
And we did come.
Rosencrantz.
- What?
- Guildenstern.
What?
Don't you discriminate at all?
What?
Nothing.
Look at this.
Watch closely.
Interesting.
(clucking)
Will you walk out
of the air, my lord?
Into my grave?
Indeed, that is out of the air.
(clucking)
Polonius: My honorable lord.
I would, most humbly,
take my leave of you.
You cannot, sir,
take from me anything
that I will more
willingly part with all.
Except my life.
Except my life.
Except my life.
Fare you well, my lord.
These tedious old fools.
You go to seek
the Lord Hamlet?
There he is.
What's he doing?
Talking.
To himself.
- Guildenstern: My honored lord!
- My most dear lord!
My excellent good friends!
How dost thou, Guildenstern?
- Ah, Rosencrantz!
- Pleased, sir!
Oh, good lads, how do you both?
As the indifferent
children of the earth.
Happy that we are
not over-happy.
On fortune's cap we are
not the very button.
- Nor the soles of her shoes.
- Neither, my lord.
Then you live about her waist,
or in the middle of her favors?
Faith, her privates we.
In the secret
parts of fortune?
O, most true! She is a strumpet.
Well, what news?
None, my lord, but that
the world's grown honest.
Then is doomsday near.
But your news is not true.
Let me question
more in particular.
What have you, my good friends,
deserved at the hands of
fortune that she sends you
to prison hither?
Prison, my lord?
Denmark's a prison.
Then is the world one?
Hamlet: A goodly one,
in which there are many
confines, wards and dungeons,
Denmark being one of the worst.
We think not so, my lord.
Why, then 'tis none to you,
for there is nothing either
good or bad but
thinking makes it so.
To me it is a prison.
Why then your
ambition makes it one.
'Tis too narrow for your mind.
Oh, God, I could be
bounded in a nutshell
and count myself a
king of infinite space
were it not that
I have bad dreams.
But in the beaten
way of friendship,
what make you at Elsinore?
To visit you, my lord.
No other occasion.
Beggar that I am,
I am even poor in thanks,
but I thank you.
Were you not sent for?
Is it your own inclining?
Is it a free visitation?
Well, come, come, nay, speak.
What should we say, my lord?
Why, anything
but to the purpose.
You were sent for.
And there is a kind of
confession in your looks
which your modesties have
not craft enough to color.
I know the good king and
queen have sent for you.
To what end, my lord?
That you must teach me.
Be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for or no.
My lord, we were sent for.
Aha.
I will tell you why.
I know he finds it striking
too short at Greeks.
His antique sword
rebellious to his arm
lies where it falls,
repugnant to command.
I have of late,
but wherefore I know not,
lost all my mirth,
foregone all custom
of exercises,
and indeed, it goes so
heavily with my disposition
that this goodly
frame, the earth,
seems to me a
sterile promontory.
This most excellent
canopy, the air,
look you, this brave
o'er hanging firmament
this majestical roof
fretted with golden fire...
Why,
it appeareth nothing to me
but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors.
What piece of work is man?
How noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties,
in form and moving how
express and admirable,
in action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god.
The beauty of the world.
The paragon of animals,
and yet to me,
what is this
quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me.
Nor woman neither, though by
your smiling you seem to say so.
My lord, there was no
such stuff in my thoughts.
Why did you laugh then,
when I said "Man
delights not me"?
To think, my lord, if
you delight not in man,
what Lenten
entertainment the players
shall receive from you.
We coted them on the way,
and hither are they coming
to offer you service.
He that plays
the king shall be welcome.
Gentleman, you are
welcome to Elsinore.
Your hands, come then.
You are welcome.
But my uncle-father and
my aunt-mother are deceived.
In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-northwest.
When the wind is southerly
I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Well be with you, gentleman.
Hark you, Guildenstern.
And you too,
at each ear a hearer.
That great baby you see there
is not yet out of
his swaddling clouts.
I will prophesy he comes
to tell me of the players.
Polonius: My lord,
I have news to tell you.
My lord, I have
news to tell you!
When Roscius was
an actor in Rome--
The actors are
come hither, my lord.
Buzz, buzz.
Upon my honor.
Then came each
actor on his ass.
Polonius: The best
actors in the world,
either for tragedy, comedy,
history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral...
- I thought you...
- No.
I say, look at this!
I think we can say
we made some progress.
- You think so?
- I think we can say that.
I think we can say he
made us look ridiculous.
We played it close
to the chest of course.
Question and answer!
He was scoring off
us all down the line.
He caught us on the
wrong foot once or twice,
but I think we
gained some ground.
- He murdered us.
- He might have had the edge.
27-3, and you think
he might have had the edge?
- He murdered us.
- What about our evasions?
Oh, our evasions were lovely.
"You were sent for?" he says.
"My lord, we were sent for."
I didn't know
where to put myself.
He had six rhetoricals.
It was question
and answer, all right?
And two repetitions.
27 questions he got
out and answered three.
I was waiting for you to delve.
When is he going to start
delving, I asked myself.
We got his symptoms, didn't we?
Rosencrantz: Half of what
he said meant something else,
and the other half didn't
mean anything at all.
Thwarted ambition,
a sense of grievance,
that's my diagnosis.
Six rhetorical
and two repetition,
leaving nineteen of which
we answered fifteen.
And what did we get in
return? He's depressed!
Denmark's a prison and he'd
rather live in a nutshell.
Some shadow play about
the nature of ambition
and finally one direct question
which might've led somewhere
and led in fact to
his illuminating claim
to tell a hawk from a handbag.
- Handsaw.
- Handsaw.
- When the wind is southerly.
- And the weather's clear.
And when it isn't he can't.
He's at the mercy
of the elements.
- (wind blows)
- (doors bang)
Is that southerly?
We came from roughly south.
Which way is that?
In the morning the
sun would be easterly.
I think we can assume that.
That it's morning?
If it is,
and the sun is over there,
for instance,
that would be northerly.
On the other hand,
if it is not morning
and the sun is over there,
that would still be northerly.
To put it another way,
if we came from down there,
and it's morning,
the sun would be up there.
But if is actually over there,
and it's still morning,
we must have come
from back there.
And if that is southerly,
and the sun is
really over there,
then it's the afternoon.
However, if none of
these is the case--
Why don't you go
and have a look?
Pragmatism.
Is that all you have to offer?
I merely suggest the position
of the sun, if it is out,
would give you a rough
idea of the time.
Alternatively, the clock,
if it is going,
would give you a rough idea
of the position of the sun.
I forget which you are
trying to establish.
I am trying to establish
the direction of the wind.
There isn't any wind.
(wind blows)
Draft, yes.
(bangs)
(indistinct voice in distance)
The Player: Pyrrhus at Priam
drives, in rage strikes wide.
But with the whiff and
wind of his fell sword,
the unnerved father falls.
Then senseless Ilium,
seeming to feel his blow,
with flaming top,
stoops to his base,
and with a hideous crash
takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear.
For lo, his sword
which was declining
on the milky head
of reverend Priam...
Mind the bottom...
step.
Sorry.
(thunderous rumbling)
The Player: Aroused
vengeance sets him new awork,
and never did the Cyclops'
hammers fall on Mars's armor,
forged for proof eterne,
with less remorse than
Pyrrhus bleeding sword
now falls on Priam.
Out! Out, thou
strumpet Fortune!
All you gods, in general Synod
take away her power,
break all the spokes and
fellies from her wheel,
and bowl the round knave
down the hill of Heaven,
as low as to the fiends.
This is too long.
It shall to the barber's,
with your beard.
Prithee say on:
he's for a speech,
or a tale of bawdry,
or he sleeps.
Say on, come to Hecuba.
The Player: But who, oh, who,
had seen the mobled queen,
The mobled queen?
That's good,
mobled queen is good.
- This is interesting.
- Shh.
Hamlet: 'Tis well.
Good, my lord, will you see
the players well bestowed?
Do you hear?
Let them be well used,
for they are the abstract and
brief chronicles of the time.
After your death, you were
better have a bad epitaph
than their ill report
while you live.
Polonius: My lord,
I will use them
according to their desert.
Hamlet: God's bodkin,
man, much better!
Use every man after his desert,
and who shall scape whipping?
Use them after your
own honor and dignity.
The less they deserve, the
more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in.
Polonius: Come, sirs.
Hamlet: Follow him, friends,
we'll hear a play tomorrow.
Can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?
Ay, my lord.
Hamlet: We'll have
it tomorrow night.
You could for a need study a
speech of some 12 or 16 lines
which I would set
down and insert in it.
Follow that lord and
look you, mock him not.
My good friends, I'll
leave you till night.
You are welcome to Elsinore.
Good, my lord.
(water running)
(water splashing)
So you've caught up.
Not yet, sir.
Now mind your tongue,
or we'll have it out
and throw the rest of you away
like a nightingale
at a Roman feast.
Took the words
out of my mouth.
- You'd be lost for words.
- You'd be tongue tied.
Like a mute in a monologue.
Like a nightingale
at a Roman feast.
You left us.
Yes, on the road.
You don't understand
the humiliation of it,
to be tricked out of
the single assumption
that makes our
existence bearable.
That somebody is watching.
We are actors, we are
the opposite of people.
- So?
- We need an audience.
- We--
- Had an appointment.
That is true.
The Player: Do you know
why you're here?
We only know what we're told
and for all we know,
it isn't even true.
One acts on assumptions.
What do you assume?
Hamlet is not himself
outside or in.
We have to glean
what afflicts him.
- His melancholy.
- Melancholy?
- Mad.
- The Player: How is he mad?
Ah! How's he mad?
More morose than mad perhaps.
- Melancholy.
- Moody.
- He has moods.
- The Player: Of moroseness?
- Madness and yet.
- Quite.
For instance.
He talks to himself
which might be madness.
If he didn't talk sense,
which he does.
Rosencrantz: Which
suggests the opposite.
Of what?
Guildenstern:
I think I have it.
A man talking sense to himself
is no madder than a man talking
nonsense not to himself.
- Orjust as mad.
- Orjust as mad.
- And he does both.
- So there you are.
Stark raving sane.
The Player: Why?
Ah. Why?
Exactly.
Exactly what?
- Exactly why?
- Exactly why what?
- What?
- Why?
- Why what, exactly?
- Why is he mad?
- I don't know!
- The old man thinks
he's in love with his daughter.
Good God, we're out
of our depth here!
No, no, no,
he hasn't got a daughter,
The old man thinks
he's in love with his daughter.
The old man is?
Hamlet, in love,
with the old man's daughter.
The old man thinks.
Rosencrantz: It's
beginning to make sense.
Unrequited passion.
Where are you going?
I can come and go as I please.
You know your way around.
I've been here before.
Guildenstern: We're
still finding our feet.
I should concentrate
on not losing your heads.
Do you speak from knowledge?
The Player: Precedent.
You've been here before.
And I know which way
the wind is blowing.
Man: Wait! Back!
(indistinct chatter)
This place is a mad house.
(crowd laughing)
(flute music plays)
(dog barking)
(crowd laughing)
(baby crying)
(crowd laughing loudly)
(flute music plays)
(drumming)
(dog barking)
(actor shrieks)
Man: He's behind you!
(crowd groans)
Man: Bravo!
(applause)
(wind blows)
(ocean waves crashing)
(applause)
(suspenseful music plays)
(bell tolls)
(swords swooshing)
(clang)
(swords clashing)
(applause)
(audience gasps)
(swords clashing)
(sniffs)
(swords clashing)
(dramatic music plays)
- (applause)
- (cheering)
The Player: Are you
familiar with this play?
No.
A slaughterhouse,
eight corpses, all told.
Six.
Eight.
What are they?
They're dead.
- (applause)
- (cheering)
Guildenstern: Actors!
What do you know about death?
The mechanics of
cheap melodrama!
Cheap melodrama!
It doesn't bring
death home to anyone!
It's not at home to anyone!
- Shut up!
- Shut up!
You can't do death!
On the contrary,
it's what we do best.
We have to exploit whatever
talent is given to us
and our talent is for dying.
We can die heroically,
comically, ironically,
sadly, suddenly, slowly,
disgustingly, charmingly,
or from a great height.
Audiences know what to expect,
and that is all they are
prepared to believe in.
(musical tones chime)
Next!
Claudius: Can you by
no drift of conference
get from him why he
puts on his confusion?
Rosencrantz: He does confess
he feels himself distracted.
But from what cause he
will by no means speak.
That is the question.
Did he receive you well?
Most like a gentleman.
But with much forcing
of his disposition.
Niggard of question
but of our demands,
most free in his reply.
Gertrude: Did you
assay him to any pastime?
Rosencrantz: Madam, it so
fell out that certain players
we o'er-raught on the
way, of these we told him,
and there did seem in him a
kind of joy to hear of it.
They are here about the court,
this night to play before him.
Polonius: 'Tis most true,
and he beseeched me to
entreat your Majesties
to hear and see the matter.
Good gentlemen,
give him a further edge
and drive his purpose
into these delights.
We shall, my lord.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too.
For we have closely
sent for Hamlet hither,
that he, as 'twere by accident,
may here affront Ophelia.
Do you ever think of
yourself as actually dead
lying in a box with a lid on it?
No.
Nor do I really.
It's silly to be
depressed by it.
I mean, one thinks of it
like being alive in a box,
and one keeps forgetting to
take into account the fact
that one is dead, which should
make all the difference,
shouldn't it?
I mean, you'd never know you
were in a box, would you?
It would be just like
you were asleep in a box.
Not that I'd like to
sleep in a box, mind you.
Not without any air.
You'd wake up dead for a start,
and then where would you be?
In a box. That's the bit
I don't like frankly.
That's why don't think of it.
Because you'd be
helpless, wouldn't you?
Stuffed in a box like that.
I mean, you'd be
in there forever.
Even taking into account
the fact that you're dead,
it isn't a pleasant thought.
Especially if
you're dead, really.
Ask yourself,
if I asked you straight off,
I'm going to stuff
you in this box now,
would you rather
be alive or dead?
Naturally, you
prefer to be alive.
Life in a box is better
than no life at all,
I expect.
You'd have a chance at least.
You could lie there
thinking, well,
at least I'm not dead!
In a minute somebody is
going to bang on the lid
and tell me to come out.
(knocking)
Hey, you! What's your name!
Come out of there!
I think I'm going to kill you.
Nymph, in thy orisons
be all my sins remembered.
I wouldn't think
about it, if I were you.
You'd only get depressed.
My lord,
I have remembrances of yours
that I have long had
long to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them.
No, not I. I never
gave you ought.
My honored lord, you
know right well you did.
And with them words
of so sweet breath
composed as made the
things more rich.
Rosencrantz: Whatever
became of the moment
when one first knew about death?
There must have been one,
a moment,
in childhood,
when it first occurred to you
that you don't go on forever.
It must have been shattering,
stamped into one's memory.
And yet I can't remember it.
It never occurred to me at all.
We must be born
with an intuition of mortality.
Before we know the word for it,
before we know that
there are words,
out we come, bloodied
and squalling,
with the knowledge that for
all the points of the compass,
there's only one direction,
and time is its only measure.
(indistinct voices in distance)
(somber flute music plays)
What is the dumb show for?
The Player: it's
a device, really.
It makes the action that follows
more or less comprehensible.
You understand,
we are tied down to a language
which makes up in obscurity
what it lacks in style.
Is this the
'Murder of Gonzago?
That's the least of it.
Guildenstern: Who was that?
The Player: The king's
brother and uncle to the prince.
Not exactly fraternal.
Not exactly avuncular
as time goes on.
Hamlet: Go to,
I'll no more on't!
It hath made me mad!
I say we will have
no more marriages!
Those that are married already,
all but one shall live.
The rest shall keep as they are.
To a nunnery, go!
That didn't look
like love to me.
Claudius: Love!
His affections do
not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, though
it lacked form a little,
was not like madness.
Polonius How now Ophelia.
You need not tell us what Lord
Hamlet said, we heard it all.
There's something in his soul
o'er which his
melancholy sits on brood.
And I do doubt the
hatch and the disclose
will be some danger,
which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination.
Thus set it down, he shall
with speed to England.
Gentlemen! Gentlemen, it
doesn't seem to be coming.
We are not getting it at all,
what did you think?
What was I supposed to think?
Wasn't that the end?
Do you call that an ending?
With practically everyone
still on his feet?
My goodness, no,
over your dead body.
There's a design at work in
all art, surely you know that?
Events must play themselves
out to an aesthetic,
moral, and logical conclusion.
What's that in this case?
It never varies.
We aim for the
point where everyone
who is marked for death dies.
Marked?
Generally speaking,
things have gone
about as far as
they can possibly go
when things have
got about as bad
as they can reasonably get.
Who decides?
Decides? It is written.
We're tragedians, you see.
We follow directions,
there is no choice involved.
The bad end unhappily,
the good unluckily.
That is what tragedy means.
Next!
Having murdered his brother
and wooed his widow,
the poisoner mounts the throne!
(dramatic fanfare chimes)
Here we see him and his queen
give rein to their
unbridled passion!
(violin music plays)
Enter Lucianus,
nephew to the king!
Usurped by his
uncle and shattered
by his mother's
incestuous marriage,
he loses his reason.
(imitates bird cawing)
Throwing the court into turmoil
and disarray,
staggering from the suicidal
to the merely idle.
He has a plan to catch the
conscience of the king.
(soft, dramatic music plays)
(loud dramatic music plays)
The king rises!
What!
Frighted with false fire!
Gertrude: How fares my lord?
Polonius: Give o'er the play!
Give me some light!
Away!
A-ha! Thou must watch
while some must sleep,
thus runs the world away!
It wasn't that bad!
There's something
they're not telling us.
Guildenstern: What?
There's something
they're not telling us!
(flute music plays)
Polonius: My lord.
My lord.
The queen would speak
with you, and presently.
Do you see yonder cloud
that's almost
in the shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass,
and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Me thinks it is like a weasel.
It is backed like a weasel.
- Hamlet: Or like a whale?
- Very like a whale.
Then I will come to
my mother by and by.
I will say so.
Hamlet: A "by and by"
is easily said.
Leave me, friends.
I like him not,
nor stand it safe with us
to let his madness range.
Therefore prepare you.
I your commission will
forthwith will dispatch,
and he to England
shall along with you.
Hamlet: No, by the rood, not so.
You are the queen,
your husband's brother's wife,
but would you were not so,
you are my mother.
Gertrude: Nay, then I'll set
those to you that can speak.
Hamlet: Come, come and sit
you down, you shall not budge.
You go not till
I sent you up a glass,
where you may see
the in most part of you.
Gertrude: What wilt thou do,
thou wilt not murder me.
Help! Help!
Polonius: Oh! Help! Help!
How now! A rat?
Dead, for a ducat dead!
Oh, I am slain!
Gertrude: Oh, me,
what hast thou done?
Nay, I know not!
Is it the king?
Oh, what a rash
and bloody deed is this!
A bloody deed almost
as bad, good mother,
as kill a king and
marry with his brother.
- As kill a king?
- Ay, lady, it was my word.
Thou wretched, rash,
intruding fool, farewell!
Guildenstern: Is that you?
Rosencrantz: I don't know.
Guildenstern: It's you.
Rosencrantz: We're
not dead yet then?
Guildenstern: Well,
we're here, aren't we?
Rosencrantz: Are we?
I can't see a thing.
- (water sloshing)
- (indistinct voices)
(flute music plays)
Rosencrantz: We're on a boat.
I know.
(waves crashing)
Dark, isn't it?
Not for night.
No, not for night.
It's dark for day.
Oh, yes, it's dark for day.
(sea gulls cawing)
Do you think death could
possibly be a boat?
No, no, no, death is not.
Death isn't.
You take my meaning?
Death is the ultimate negative,
not being.
You can't not be on a boat.
I've frequently
not been on boats.
No, no, what you've
been is not on boats.
Rosencrantz: I wish
I was dead.
I could jump over the side.
That would put a spoke
in their wheel.
Unless they're counting on it.
I shall remain on board.
That will put a spoke
in their wheel.
(clattering)
You all right?
Rosencrantz: Yes, why?
Would you like to come up now?
Rosencrantz: All right,
thank you.
Try to be more careful.
Sorry.
Nice bit of planking that.
- Yes.
- Lovely bilges.
- Yes.
- Beautiful bottom.
Yes. I'm very fond
of boats myself.
I like the way
they're contained.
You don't have to worry
about which way to go,
or whether to go at all.
The question doesn't arise,
does it?
Because you're on a boat,
aren't you?
I think I'll spend
the rest of my life on boats.
Very healthy.
One is free on a boat.
For a time, relatively.
I think I'm going to be sick.
He's there!
What's he doing?
Sleeping.
It's all right for him.
- Rosencrantz: What is?
- He can sleep.
It's all right for him.
He's got us now.
- He can sleep.
- It's all done for him.
- He's got us.
- And we've got nothing.
And we've got nothing.
Why don't you say
something original!
You don't take me
up on anything.
You just repeat everything
I say in a different order.
I can't think of
anything original.
I am only good in support.
I'm sick of
making the running.
There, it's all right,
I'll see we're all right.
But we've got nothing
to go on.
We're out on our own.
We're on our way to England.
We're taking Hamlet
to the English king.
- What for?
- What for?
- Where have you been?
- When?
We've got a letter.
You remember the letter.
Do I?
Everything is
explained in the letter.
- Is that it, then?
- What?
We take Hamlet to
the English king,
we hand over the letter,
what then?
That's it, we're finished.
Who is the English king?
That depends on
when we get there.
So we've got a letter
which explains everything.
You've got it.
- I thought you had it.
- I do have it.
- You have it.
- You've got it.
I don't get it.
You haven't got it.
- I just said that.
- I've got it.
- Oh, I've got it.
- Shut up.
Right.
(bell tolls)
What a shambles!
We're just not getting anywhere!
Not even England!
And I don't believe
in it anyway.
- In what?
- England.
Just a conspiracy of
cartographers, you mean?
I mean I don't believe it.
And even if it's true,
the king of England
won't know what
we're taking about.
What are we going to say?
We say, "Your Majesty,
we have arrived."
And who are you?
We are Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.
Rosencrantz:
Never heard of you!
- Well, we're nobody special.
- What's your game?
- We have our instructions,
- First I've heard of it.
Let me finish!
We've come from Denmark.
What do you want?
Nothing.
We're delivering Hamlet.
Who's he?
You've heard of him.
Oh, I've heard of him,
all right.
Now, I want nothing
to do with it.
You march in here without
so much as a by your leave
and expect me to
take in every lunatic
you try to pass off with
a lot of unsubstantiated--
We've got a letter!
I see, I see.
Well, this seems to support
your story, such as it is.
It is an exact command
from the king of Denmark.
For several different reasons,
importing Denmark's
health and England's too,
that on the reading of
this letter, without delay,
I should have
Hamlet's head cut off!
We're his friends.
How do you know?
From our young days,
brought up with him.
You've only got
their word for it.
But that's what we depend on.
Well, yes,
and then again no.
Let us keep things
in proportion.
Assume, if you like, that
they're going to kill him.
Well, he is a man, he is mortal.
Death comes to us
all, et cetera.
And consequently he would have
died anyway, sooner or later.
And then again, what is
so terrible about death?
As Socrates so
philosophically put it,
since we don't
know what death is,
it is illogical to fear it.
It might be
very nice.
Or to look at it another way,
we are little men,
we don't know the ins
and outs of the matter,
there are wheels within
wheels, et cetera...
All in all, I think
we'd be well advised
to leave well alone.
It's awful.
But it could have been worse.
I was beginning to think it was.
Night.
- (distant explosions)
- (screaming)
(explosion)
- (shouting)
- (swords clashing)
Ah, all in the
same boat, then!
What do you make of it so far?
What's happening?
Pirates.
Everybody on stage!
(man screaming)
Hamlet!
Where's Hamlet?
Gone.
Guildenstern: Gone where?
The pirates took him.
But they can't.
We're supposed to be,
we've got a letter which says,
the whole thing's
pointless without him,
we need Hamlet for our release!
I'll pretend to be,
you pretend to be him and...
Right.
I suppose we just go on.
Go where?
England?
England! I don't believe it!
Or just a conspiracy of
cartographers, you mean.
I mean I don't believe it
and even if it's true
- what do we say?
- We say we've arrived!
The Player: Who are you?
We are Guildenstern
and Rosencrantz.
- Which is which?
- Well, I'm Guildenstern--
- And he's Rosencrantz.
- Exactly.
What does this have to do
with me?
You turn up out of the blue
with some cock and bull story.
We have a letter.
A letter?
(chuckles)
"As England is Denmark's
faithful tributary,
as love between them
like the palm
might flourish, et cetera.
That on the knowing
of this contents,
without delay of any kind,
should those bearers,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
put to sudden death."
Not that letter,
give him the other one.
I haven't got another one.
They're gone!
It's all over!
Where we went wrong,
was getting on a boat.
They had it in
for us, didn't they?
Right from the beginning.
Who'd have thought that
we were so important?
But why?
Was it all for this?
Who are we that so much should
converge on our little deaths?
The Player: You are
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
That is enough.
No, it is not enough.
To be told so little to
such an end and still,
finally, to be denied
an explanation.
In our experience, almost
everything ends in death.
Your experience? Actors?
I'm talking about death.
You've never experienced that.
You die a thousand casual deaths
and come back in
a different hat.
But nobody gets up after death.
There's no applause,
only silence and some
secondhand clothes.
That's death!
If we have a destiny,
then so had he,
and if this is ours,
then that was his
and if there are no
explanations for us,
then let there be none for him.
(applause)
Oh, come, come, gentlemen.
No flattery,
it was merely competent.
You see, it is the
kind you do believe in.
It's what is expected.
Death's for all ages
and occasions!
Deaths of kings
and princes and...
nobodies.
(bell tolls in distance)
That's it then, is it?
We've done nothing wrong.
We didn't harm anyone, did we?
I can't remember.
(sighs)
All right, then.
I don't care.
I've had enough.
To tell you the truth,
I'm relieved.
There must have been a moment
at the beginning where
we could have said no.
But somehow we missed it.
Well, we'll know
better next time.
'Til then.
The sight is dismal.
And our affairs from
England come too late.
The ears are senseless that
should give us hearing.
To tell him his
commandment is fulfilled.
That Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead.
(horse whinnies)
Um...
(horse whinnies)
- (horse whinnies)
- Rosencrantz: Whoa!
Whoa, whoa.
Hmm.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Bet.
Heads I win.
Again...
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Whoops!
(horse whinnies)
(coin pings)
It must be
indicative of something
besides the
redistribution of wealth.
Heads.
A weaker man might be moved
to re-examine his faith,
for nothing else at least
in the law of probability.
Heads.
(bird caws)
Consider.
One,
probability is a factor which
operates within natural forces.
Two, probability is not
operating as a factor.
Three, we are now held within
un-, sub-,
or supernatural forces.
Discuss.
What?
Look at it this way.
If six monkeys...
If six monkeys...
The law of averages, if I
have got this right, means
that if six monkeys were thrown
up in the air long enough
they would land on their
tails about as often
as they would land on their--
Heads.
Getting a
bit of a bore, isn't it?
A bore?
Well...
What about the suspense?
What suspense?
It must be the law
of diminishing returns.
I feel the spell
about to be broken.
Well, it was an even chance.
Seventy eight in a row.
A new record, I imagine.
Is that what you imagine?
A new record?
Well...
No questions,
not a flicker of doubt?
I could be wrong.
No fear?
Fear?
(coin bangs loudly)
Fear.
Seventy nine.
(sighs)
I think I have it.
Time has stopped dead.
The single experience of
one coin being spun once
has been repeated...
156 times.
On the whole, doubtful.
Or, a spectacular
vindication of the principle
that each individual
coin spun individually is
as likely to come
down heads as tails
and therefore should
cause no surprise
each individual time it does.
Rosencrantz: Heads.
I've never known
anything like it.
He's never known
anything like it.
But he has never known
anything to write home about
and therefore it is
nothing to write home about.
What's the first
thing you remember?
Oh, let's see, hm...
The first thing that comes
into my head, you mean?
No, the first
thing you remember.
Ah.
No, it's no good.
It's gone.
It was a long time ago.
You don't get my meaning.
What's the first thing after
all the things you've forgotten?
Oh, I see.
I've forgotten the question.
Are you happy?
What?
Guildenstern:
Content? At ease?
Well, I suppose so.
What are you going to do now?
I don't know.
What do you want to do?
Look.
What about it?
Well.
We have been spinning
coins together since...
I don't know when,
and in all that time,
if it is all that time,
157 coins spun consecutively
have come down heads,
157 consecutive times,
and all you can do is
play with your food.
Wait a minute.
There was a messenger.
(banging)
Man: Rosencrantz!
Guildenstern!
We were sent for.
Rosencrantz: Another
curious scientific phenomenon
is the fact that the
fingernails grow after death
as does the beard.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: Beard.
Guildenstern:
But you're not dead!
Rosencrantz: I didn't say
they only started
to grow after death.
The fingernails also
grow before birth.
Though not the beard.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: Beard!
What's the matter with you?
The toenails on the other
hand never grow at all.
The toenails on the other
foot never grow at all.
No.
Do you remember the first
thing that happened today?
Oh, I woke up, I suppose.
- (banging)
- (shouting)
I've got it now...
That man, he woke us up.
A messenger.
Rosencrantz: That's it.
Pale sky before dawn,
a man standing on his saddle
to bang on the shutters.
But then he called our names.
You remember,
that man woke us up.
We were sent for.
That's why we're here.
Traveling, a matter
of extreme urgency.
"A royal summons"
was his very words.
Official business
no questions asked.
Up, we get and off at the gallop
fearful lest we come too late!
Too late for what?
How would I know?
We haven't got there yet.
(clanging)
What's that?
The Player: Halt!
An audience!
Don't move!
(tambourine beating)
Perfect. Well met, in
fact, and just in time.
Why's that?
Why, we grow rusty.
And you catch us at the
very point of decadence.
This time tomorrow we
might have forgotten
everything we ever knew.
We'd be back where we
started, improvising.
Tumblers, are you?
We can give you a tumble,
if that's your taste,
and times being what they are.
Otherwise, for a jingle of
coin we can do you a selection
of gory romances pirated
from the Italian.
And it doesn't take
much to make a jingle.
Even a single coin has music
in it, should it be gold.
Tragedians!
(dramatic musical intro)
At your command.
My name is Guildenstern,
and this is Rosencrantz.
I'm sorry, his name's
Guildenstern,
and I'm Rosencrantz.
We've played to bigger, but
quality counts for something.
Tragedians.
What exactly do you do?
The Player: Tragedy, sir.
Deaths and disclosures,
universal and particular.
Denouements.
Transvestite melodrama.
We transport you back into a
world of intrigue and illusion.
Clowns if you like.
(groaning)
Murders.
We can do you ghosts.
(ghostly moaning)
And battles.
(swords clashing)
On the skirmish level.
Heroes, villains,
tormented lovers.
Set pieces in the poetic vein.
We can do you rapiers,
or rape,
or both.
By all means, faithless
wives and ravished virgins,
flagrant delicto at a price
for which there
are special terms.
It costs little to watch,
and a little more to get
caught up in the action.
If that's your taste, and
times being what they are.
What are they?
Indifferent.
Bad?
Wicked.
See anything you like?
Lucky thing we came along.
For us?
Also for you.
For some it is performance,
for others patronage.
They are two sides
of the same coin.
Or being as there
are so many of us,
the same side of two coins.
It was luck, then?
Or fate.
Yours or ours?
It could hardly be
one without the other.
Fate then.
You said,
caught up in the action?
I did. I did.
You're quicker than your friend.
For a handful of
coin, I happen to have
a private and uncut performance
of The Rape of the Sabine Women.
Or rather woman.
Or rather Alfred.
And for eight you
can participate.
It could have been...
It didn't have to be obscene.
I was prepared.
But it's this, is it?
No enigma, no dignity,
nothing classical or poetic.
Only this.
A comic pornographer and
a rabble of prostitutes.
The Player: You should have
caught us in better times.
We were purists then.
Excuse me.
Alfred.
Rosencrantz: You're not,
exclusively players, then?
We're inclusively
players, sir.
- I had no idea.
- The Player: No.
I mean, I've heard, but
I've never actually seen.
The Player: No.
I mean, what
exactly do you do?
We keep to our usual stuff,
more or less, only inside out.
We do on stage the things that
are supposed to happen off.
Which is a kind of integrity,
if you look on every exit as
an entrance somewhere else.
Wait a minute.
What will you do for that?
(coin pings and drops)
Do you know any good plays?
Plays? Oh, yes.
One of the Greeks, perhaps?
You're familiar with the
tragedies of antiquity, are you?
The great homicidal classics?
Maidens aspiring to
godheads, or vice versa?
That's your kind
of thing, is it?
I can't say it is, really.
We're more of the love,
blood and rhetoric school.
Well, we can do you blood
and love without the rhetoric
and we can do you blood and
rhetoric without the love
and we can do you all three
concurrent or consecutive.
But we can't give you love and
rhetoric without the blood.
Blood is compulsory.
They're all blood, you see.
Is that what people want?
It's what we do.
Would you like a bet?
Double or nothing.
Heads.
Heads.
Double or nothing.
Come on.
I say that was
lucky. It was tails.
(woman moaning)
Ah!
(door opens)
(indistinct chatter)
(trumpet fanfare plays)
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.
(dog barks)
Moreover that we much
did long to see you.
The need we have to use you
did provoke our hasty sending.
Something have you heard
of Hamlet's transformation.
So call it.
Sith nor the exterior
nor the inward men
resembles that it was.
What it should be,
more than his father's
death, that thus hath put him
so far from the
understanding of himself.
I cannot dream of.
I entreat you both,
that being of so young
days brought up with him,
and sith so neighbored
to his youth and haviour,
that you vouchsafe your rest
here in our court
some little time.
So by your companies to
draw him on to pleasures
and to gather so much as
from occasion you may glean
whether aught to us
unknown afflicts him thus
that opened lies
within our remedy.
Good.
Gentleman, he hath
much talked of you.
And sure I am, two men
there are not living
to whom he more adheres.
If it will please you to
show us so much gentry
and good will as to extend
your time with us awhile
for the supply and
profit of our hope,
your visitation shall
receive such thanks
as fits a king's remembrance.
Both your majesties might
by the sovereign
power you have of us,
put your dread pleasures more
into command than to entreaty.
But we both obey, and
here give up ourselves
in the full bent to lay our
service freely at your feet,
to be commanded.
Thanks, Rosencrantz.
And gentle Guildenstern.
Thanks Guildenstern
and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you
instantly to visit
my too much changed son.
Heaven make our
presence and our practices
pleasant and helpful to him!
Aye, amen.
I want to go home.
Don't let them confuse you.
(dog barks loudly)
(indistinct chatter)
We're in over our steps,
heading out of depth.
Stepping out of our heads,
so heading to a dead stop!
There!
(echoes)
Hasn't it ever happened to
you that all of a sudden
and for no reason at all you
haven't the faintest idea
how to spell the word "which"
or "house"
because when you write it down
you just can't remember
ever having seen
those letters in
that order before?
- I remember.
- What?
I remember when there
were no questions.
There were always questions.
Answers, yes. There were
answers to everything.
- You've forgotten.
- I haven't forgotten!
How I used to remember my
own name! And yours. Oh, yes!
There were answers
everywhere you looked.
There was no question about it.
People knew who we were and
if they didn't they asked,
we told them out names.
We did. The trouble is,
each of them is plausible,
without being instinctive.
Instinctive?
All your life you
live so close to truth,
it becomes a permanent blur
in the corner of your eye,
and when something
nudges it into outline,
it's like being
ambushed by a grotesque.
A man standing in his saddle in
the half-lit, half-alive dawn
banged in the shutters
and called two names.
And when he called we came.
That much is certain, we came.
Rosencrantz:
Well, I can tell you
I'm sick to death of it.
I don't care which one I am.
So why don't you
make up your mind?
Guildenstern:
We didn't come all this way
for a christening.
But we have been
comparatively fortunate.
We might have been left to sift
the whole field of
human nomenclature
like two blind men looting a
bazaar for their own portraits.
At least we are presented
with alternatives.
Well, as from
now my name is--
But not choice.
Your smallest action sets
off another somewhere else,
and is set off by it.
Polonius: And I do think
or else this brain of mine...
Rosencrantz: We're
going round in circles.
Polonius: ...so sure as it
hath use to do that I have found
the very cause of
Hamlet's lunacy.
Oh, speak of that!
That do I long to hear.
Give first admittance
to the ambassadors.
He tells me, my dear Gertrude,
he hath found the head
and source of all your
son's distemper.
I doubt it is no
other but the main.
His father's death
and our o'er hasty marriage.
Well.
We shall sift him.
It's all right.
There's a logic at work.
It's all done for
you, don't worry.
Enjoy it. Relax.
Relax.
Rosencrantz:
We have been briefed.
Rosencrantz: Have we?
Hamlet's transformation,
what do you recollect?
Well, he's changed, hasn't he?
The exterior and inward
man falls to resemble.
Draw him onto pleasures,
glean what afflicts him.
Something more than
his father's death.
He's always talking about us.
There aren't two people living
whom he dotes on more than us.
We cheer him up,
find out what's the matter.
Exactly.
It's just a matter of
asking the right questions
and giving away as
little as we can.
And then we can go?
And receive such thanks as
fits as king's remembrance.
Oh, I like the
sound of that...
What do you think she
meant by remembrance?
He doesn't forget his friends.
Would you care to estimate?
Some kings tend
to be amnesiac,
others the opposite, I
suppose, whatever that is.
How much?
- Elephantine.
- How much?
Retentive. He's a
very retentive king.
A royal retainer.
- What are you playing at?
- Words.
Words. They're all
we have to go on.
Rosencrantz: Look at this.
Leave things alone.
Sorry.
This is interesting.
You would think
this would fall faster
than this, wouldn't you?
(thud)
And you'd be absolutely right.
Fancy a game?
We're spectators.
Do you want to play questions?
- How do you play that?
- You have to ask questions.
Statement, one love.
- Cheating!
- How?
- I hadn't started yet.
- Statement, two love.
- Are you counting that?
- What?
Are you counting that?
Foul! No repetition.
Three love and game.
I'm not going to play if
you're going to be like that.
(sighing)
Whose serve?
- Uh...
- Hesitation! Love one.
- Whose go?
- Why?
- Why not?
- What for?
Foul! No synonyms! One all.
What in God's
name is going on?
Foul! No rhetoric! Two - one.
What does it all add up to?
- Can't you guess?
- Were you addressing me?
Is there anyone else?
- Who?
- How would I know?
- Why do you ask?
- Are you serious?
- Was that rhetoric?
- No.
Statement!
Two all. Game point.
What's the matter
with you today?
- When?
- What?
- Are you deaf?
- Am I dead?
Yes or no?
- Is there a choice?
- Is there a God?
Foul! No non-sequiturs!
Three - two, one game all.
- What's your name?
- What's yours?
- You first.
- Statement! One love.
What's your name
when you're at home?
- What's yours?
- When I'm at home?
Is it different at home?
- What home?
- Haven't you got one?
- Why do you ask?
- What are you driving at?
What's your name?
Repetition! Two love.
Match point.
Who do you think you are?
Rhetoric! Game and match!
(bells chime in distance)
- Rosencrantz!
- What?
There.
How was that?
- Clever.
- Natural?
Instinctive!
Now I'll try you. Guil--
Not yet!
Catch me unawares.
Right... Guil--
No, me, unawares.
(whistles)
Ready?
Guildenstern: Never mind.
Polonius:
...for I will use no art,
mad let us grant him
then and now remains
that we find out the
cause of this effect,
or rather say, the
cause of this defect.
For this effect
defective, comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and
the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter.
Have, while she is mine.
Who in her duty and
obedience, mark,
hath given me this.
Now gather, and surmise.
"To the celestial,
and my soul's idol,
the most beautified Ophelia."
That's an ill phrase,
a vile phrase.
Beautified is a vile phrase.
But that you shall hear, thus,
"In her excellent
white bosom..."
Gertrude: Came this
from Hamlet to her?
Polonius: Good Madam,
stay awhile, I will be faithful.
"Doubt thou,
the stars are fire.
Doubt that the sun doth move,
doubt truths to be a lie,
but never doubt I love."
(bird cawing)
(cow lowing)
(dog barking)
(bird cawing)
(whistling)
(squeaking)
(quacking)
(imitates horn blaring)
Polonius: ...his hot love on
the wing, as I perceived it,
I must tell you that
before my daughter told me,
what might you, or my dear
Majesty, your queen here, think,
if I had played the
desk or table-book.
- Or given my heart...
- (door slamming)
...dumb, or looked upon
this love, with idle sight,
what might you think?
No, I went round to work,
and my young mistress
thus I did bespeak,
Lord Hamlet is a
Prince out of thy star.
This must not be.
(harp chord plays)
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Well, God have mercy.
Do you know me, my lord?
Hamlet: Excellent.
Excellent well.
- You are a fishmonger.
- Not I, my lord.
Hamlet: Then I would
you were so honest a man.
Polonius: Honest, my lord?
What do you read, my lord?
Words, words, words.
Polonius: What is
the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Polonius: I mean the
matter that you read, my lord.
Statement.
Hamlet: Slander, sir.
For the satirical
rogue says here
that old man have grey beards...
Rosencrantz: Who was that?
Guildenstern:
Didn't you know him?
Rosencrantz:
He didn't know me.
Guildenstern:
He didn't see you.
Rosencrantz:
I didn't see him.
Guildenstern: We shall see.
I hardly knew him, he's changed.
- You could see that?
- Transformed.
- How do you know?
- Inside and out.
- I see.
- He's not himself, you know.
- He's changed.
- I could see that.
Glean what afflicts him!
- Me?
- Him.
- How?
- Question and answer.
He's afflicted.
You question, I answer.
He's not himself, you know.
- I'm him, you see.
- Who am I?
You're yourself.
- And he's you?
- Not a bit of it.
Are you afflicted?
That's the idea.
Are you ready?
Let's go back a bit.
- I'm afflicted.
- I see.
Glean what afflicts me.
Right.
Question and answer.
How should I begin?
Address me.
My dear Guildenstern!
You've forgotten, haven't you?
My dear Rosencrantz!
I don't think you
quite understand.
What we are attempting
is a hypothesis
in which I answer for him
while you ask me questions.
Ah. Ready?
- You know what to do?
- What?
- Are you stupid?
- Pardon?
- Are you deaf?
- Did you speak?
- Not now.
- Statement!
Not now!
(echoes)
I say.
- What?
- Well, uh, uh...
Would you like a bite?
No.
Thank you.
Oh, you mean you
pretend to be him.
And I ask you questions.
Very good.
You had me confused.
I could see I had.
How should I begin?
Address me.
My honored lord!
My dear Rosencrantz!
Am I pretending
to be you, then?
Certainly not. Well,
if you like, shall we continue?
- My honored lord!
- My dear fellow!
- How are you?
- Afflicted!
- Really? In what way?
- Transformed.
- Inside or out?
- Both.
I see. Not much new there.
Look go into details! Delve!
(echoes)
Probe the background.
Establish the situation.
So your uncle's
the king of Denmark?
That's right.
And my father before him.
His father before him?
No, my father before him.
- But surely...
- You may well ask.
Let me get it straight.
Your father was king.
You were his only son.
Your father dies. You are of
age. Your uncle becomes king.
- Yes.
- Unusual.
- Undid me.
- Undeniably.
- He slipped in.
- Which reminds me.
- Well, it would.
- I don't want to be personal.
It's common knowledge.
- Your mother's marriage.
- He slipped in.
- His body was still warm.
- So was hers.
- Extraordinary.
- Indecent.
- Hasty.
- Suspicious.
- It makes you think.
- Don't think I haven't.
- And with her husband's brother.
- They were close.
- She went to him.
- Too close.
- For comfort.
- It looks bad.
- It adds up.
- Incest to adultery.
- Would you go so far?
- Never!
To sum up!
Your father, whom
you love, dies.
You are his heir.
You come back
to find that hardly
was the corpse cold
before his young brother
popped onto his throne
and into his sheets,
thereby offending
both legal and natural practice.
Now, why exactly
are you behaving
in this extraordinary manner?
I can't imagine!
And yet we were sent for.
And we did come.
Rosencrantz.
- What?
- Guildenstern.
What?
Don't you discriminate at all?
What?
Nothing.
Look at this.
Watch closely.
Interesting.
(clucking)
Will you walk out
of the air, my lord?
Into my grave?
Indeed, that is out of the air.
(clucking)
Polonius: My honorable lord.
I would, most humbly,
take my leave of you.
You cannot, sir,
take from me anything
that I will more
willingly part with all.
Except my life.
Except my life.
Except my life.
Fare you well, my lord.
These tedious old fools.
You go to seek
the Lord Hamlet?
There he is.
What's he doing?
Talking.
To himself.
- Guildenstern: My honored lord!
- My most dear lord!
My excellent good friends!
How dost thou, Guildenstern?
- Ah, Rosencrantz!
- Pleased, sir!
Oh, good lads, how do you both?
As the indifferent
children of the earth.
Happy that we are
not over-happy.
On fortune's cap we are
not the very button.
- Nor the soles of her shoes.
- Neither, my lord.
Then you live about her waist,
or in the middle of her favors?
Faith, her privates we.
In the secret
parts of fortune?
O, most true! She is a strumpet.
Well, what news?
None, my lord, but that
the world's grown honest.
Then is doomsday near.
But your news is not true.
Let me question
more in particular.
What have you, my good friends,
deserved at the hands of
fortune that she sends you
to prison hither?
Prison, my lord?
Denmark's a prison.
Then is the world one?
Hamlet: A goodly one,
in which there are many
confines, wards and dungeons,
Denmark being one of the worst.
We think not so, my lord.
Why, then 'tis none to you,
for there is nothing either
good or bad but
thinking makes it so.
To me it is a prison.
Why then your
ambition makes it one.
'Tis too narrow for your mind.
Oh, God, I could be
bounded in a nutshell
and count myself a
king of infinite space
were it not that
I have bad dreams.
But in the beaten
way of friendship,
what make you at Elsinore?
To visit you, my lord.
No other occasion.
Beggar that I am,
I am even poor in thanks,
but I thank you.
Were you not sent for?
Is it your own inclining?
Is it a free visitation?
Well, come, come, nay, speak.
What should we say, my lord?
Why, anything
but to the purpose.
You were sent for.
And there is a kind of
confession in your looks
which your modesties have
not craft enough to color.
I know the good king and
queen have sent for you.
To what end, my lord?
That you must teach me.
Be even and direct with me,
whether you were sent for or no.
My lord, we were sent for.
Aha.
I will tell you why.
I know he finds it striking
too short at Greeks.
His antique sword
rebellious to his arm
lies where it falls,
repugnant to command.
I have of late,
but wherefore I know not,
lost all my mirth,
foregone all custom
of exercises,
and indeed, it goes so
heavily with my disposition
that this goodly
frame, the earth,
seems to me a
sterile promontory.
This most excellent
canopy, the air,
look you, this brave
o'er hanging firmament
this majestical roof
fretted with golden fire...
Why,
it appeareth nothing to me
but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors.
What piece of work is man?
How noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties,
in form and moving how
express and admirable,
in action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god.
The beauty of the world.
The paragon of animals,
and yet to me,
what is this
quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me.
Nor woman neither, though by
your smiling you seem to say so.
My lord, there was no
such stuff in my thoughts.
Why did you laugh then,
when I said "Man
delights not me"?
To think, my lord, if
you delight not in man,
what Lenten
entertainment the players
shall receive from you.
We coted them on the way,
and hither are they coming
to offer you service.
He that plays
the king shall be welcome.
Gentleman, you are
welcome to Elsinore.
Your hands, come then.
You are welcome.
But my uncle-father and
my aunt-mother are deceived.
In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-northwest.
When the wind is southerly
I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Well be with you, gentleman.
Hark you, Guildenstern.
And you too,
at each ear a hearer.
That great baby you see there
is not yet out of
his swaddling clouts.
I will prophesy he comes
to tell me of the players.
Polonius: My lord,
I have news to tell you.
My lord, I have
news to tell you!
When Roscius was
an actor in Rome--
The actors are
come hither, my lord.
Buzz, buzz.
Upon my honor.
Then came each
actor on his ass.
Polonius: The best
actors in the world,
either for tragedy, comedy,
history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral...
- I thought you...
- No.
I say, look at this!
I think we can say
we made some progress.
- You think so?
- I think we can say that.
I think we can say he
made us look ridiculous.
We played it close
to the chest of course.
Question and answer!
He was scoring off
us all down the line.
He caught us on the
wrong foot once or twice,
but I think we
gained some ground.
- He murdered us.
- He might have had the edge.
27-3, and you think
he might have had the edge?
- He murdered us.
- What about our evasions?
Oh, our evasions were lovely.
"You were sent for?" he says.
"My lord, we were sent for."
I didn't know
where to put myself.
He had six rhetoricals.
It was question
and answer, all right?
And two repetitions.
27 questions he got
out and answered three.
I was waiting for you to delve.
When is he going to start
delving, I asked myself.
We got his symptoms, didn't we?
Rosencrantz: Half of what
he said meant something else,
and the other half didn't
mean anything at all.
Thwarted ambition,
a sense of grievance,
that's my diagnosis.
Six rhetorical
and two repetition,
leaving nineteen of which
we answered fifteen.
And what did we get in
return? He's depressed!
Denmark's a prison and he'd
rather live in a nutshell.
Some shadow play about
the nature of ambition
and finally one direct question
which might've led somewhere
and led in fact to
his illuminating claim
to tell a hawk from a handbag.
- Handsaw.
- Handsaw.
- When the wind is southerly.
- And the weather's clear.
And when it isn't he can't.
He's at the mercy
of the elements.
- (wind blows)
- (doors bang)
Is that southerly?
We came from roughly south.
Which way is that?
In the morning the
sun would be easterly.
I think we can assume that.
That it's morning?
If it is,
and the sun is over there,
for instance,
that would be northerly.
On the other hand,
if it is not morning
and the sun is over there,
that would still be northerly.
To put it another way,
if we came from down there,
and it's morning,
the sun would be up there.
But if is actually over there,
and it's still morning,
we must have come
from back there.
And if that is southerly,
and the sun is
really over there,
then it's the afternoon.
However, if none of
these is the case--
Why don't you go
and have a look?
Pragmatism.
Is that all you have to offer?
I merely suggest the position
of the sun, if it is out,
would give you a rough
idea of the time.
Alternatively, the clock,
if it is going,
would give you a rough idea
of the position of the sun.
I forget which you are
trying to establish.
I am trying to establish
the direction of the wind.
There isn't any wind.
(wind blows)
Draft, yes.
(bangs)
(indistinct voice in distance)
The Player: Pyrrhus at Priam
drives, in rage strikes wide.
But with the whiff and
wind of his fell sword,
the unnerved father falls.
Then senseless Ilium,
seeming to feel his blow,
with flaming top,
stoops to his base,
and with a hideous crash
takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear.
For lo, his sword
which was declining
on the milky head
of reverend Priam...
Mind the bottom...
step.
Sorry.
(thunderous rumbling)
The Player: Aroused
vengeance sets him new awork,
and never did the Cyclops'
hammers fall on Mars's armor,
forged for proof eterne,
with less remorse than
Pyrrhus bleeding sword
now falls on Priam.
Out! Out, thou
strumpet Fortune!
All you gods, in general Synod
take away her power,
break all the spokes and
fellies from her wheel,
and bowl the round knave
down the hill of Heaven,
as low as to the fiends.
This is too long.
It shall to the barber's,
with your beard.
Prithee say on:
he's for a speech,
or a tale of bawdry,
or he sleeps.
Say on, come to Hecuba.
The Player: But who, oh, who,
had seen the mobled queen,
The mobled queen?
That's good,
mobled queen is good.
- This is interesting.
- Shh.
Hamlet: 'Tis well.
Good, my lord, will you see
the players well bestowed?
Do you hear?
Let them be well used,
for they are the abstract and
brief chronicles of the time.
After your death, you were
better have a bad epitaph
than their ill report
while you live.
Polonius: My lord,
I will use them
according to their desert.
Hamlet: God's bodkin,
man, much better!
Use every man after his desert,
and who shall scape whipping?
Use them after your
own honor and dignity.
The less they deserve, the
more merit is in your bounty.
Take them in.
Polonius: Come, sirs.
Hamlet: Follow him, friends,
we'll hear a play tomorrow.
Can you play the
Murder of Gonzago?
Ay, my lord.
Hamlet: We'll have
it tomorrow night.
You could for a need study a
speech of some 12 or 16 lines
which I would set
down and insert in it.
Follow that lord and
look you, mock him not.
My good friends, I'll
leave you till night.
You are welcome to Elsinore.
Good, my lord.
(water running)
(water splashing)
So you've caught up.
Not yet, sir.
Now mind your tongue,
or we'll have it out
and throw the rest of you away
like a nightingale
at a Roman feast.
Took the words
out of my mouth.
- You'd be lost for words.
- You'd be tongue tied.
Like a mute in a monologue.
Like a nightingale
at a Roman feast.
You left us.
Yes, on the road.
You don't understand
the humiliation of it,
to be tricked out of
the single assumption
that makes our
existence bearable.
That somebody is watching.
We are actors, we are
the opposite of people.
- So?
- We need an audience.
- We--
- Had an appointment.
That is true.
The Player: Do you know
why you're here?
We only know what we're told
and for all we know,
it isn't even true.
One acts on assumptions.
What do you assume?
Hamlet is not himself
outside or in.
We have to glean
what afflicts him.
- His melancholy.
- Melancholy?
- Mad.
- The Player: How is he mad?
Ah! How's he mad?
More morose than mad perhaps.
- Melancholy.
- Moody.
- He has moods.
- The Player: Of moroseness?
- Madness and yet.
- Quite.
For instance.
He talks to himself
which might be madness.
If he didn't talk sense,
which he does.
Rosencrantz: Which
suggests the opposite.
Of what?
Guildenstern:
I think I have it.
A man talking sense to himself
is no madder than a man talking
nonsense not to himself.
- Orjust as mad.
- Orjust as mad.
- And he does both.
- So there you are.
Stark raving sane.
The Player: Why?
Ah. Why?
Exactly.
Exactly what?
- Exactly why?
- Exactly why what?
- What?
- Why?
- Why what, exactly?
- Why is he mad?
- I don't know!
- The old man thinks
he's in love with his daughter.
Good God, we're out
of our depth here!
No, no, no,
he hasn't got a daughter,
The old man thinks
he's in love with his daughter.
The old man is?
Hamlet, in love,
with the old man's daughter.
The old man thinks.
Rosencrantz: It's
beginning to make sense.
Unrequited passion.
Where are you going?
I can come and go as I please.
You know your way around.
I've been here before.
Guildenstern: We're
still finding our feet.
I should concentrate
on not losing your heads.
Do you speak from knowledge?
The Player: Precedent.
You've been here before.
And I know which way
the wind is blowing.
Man: Wait! Back!
(indistinct chatter)
This place is a mad house.
(crowd laughing)
(flute music plays)
(dog barking)
(crowd laughing)
(baby crying)
(crowd laughing loudly)
(flute music plays)
(drumming)
(dog barking)
(actor shrieks)
Man: He's behind you!
(crowd groans)
Man: Bravo!
(applause)
(wind blows)
(ocean waves crashing)
(applause)
(suspenseful music plays)
(bell tolls)
(swords swooshing)
(clang)
(swords clashing)
(applause)
(audience gasps)
(swords clashing)
(sniffs)
(swords clashing)
(dramatic music plays)
- (applause)
- (cheering)
The Player: Are you
familiar with this play?
No.
A slaughterhouse,
eight corpses, all told.
Six.
Eight.
What are they?
They're dead.
- (applause)
- (cheering)
Guildenstern: Actors!
What do you know about death?
The mechanics of
cheap melodrama!
Cheap melodrama!
It doesn't bring
death home to anyone!
It's not at home to anyone!
- Shut up!
- Shut up!
You can't do death!
On the contrary,
it's what we do best.
We have to exploit whatever
talent is given to us
and our talent is for dying.
We can die heroically,
comically, ironically,
sadly, suddenly, slowly,
disgustingly, charmingly,
or from a great height.
Audiences know what to expect,
and that is all they are
prepared to believe in.
(musical tones chime)
Next!
Claudius: Can you by
no drift of conference
get from him why he
puts on his confusion?
Rosencrantz: He does confess
he feels himself distracted.
But from what cause he
will by no means speak.
That is the question.
Did he receive you well?
Most like a gentleman.
But with much forcing
of his disposition.
Niggard of question
but of our demands,
most free in his reply.
Gertrude: Did you
assay him to any pastime?
Rosencrantz: Madam, it so
fell out that certain players
we o'er-raught on the
way, of these we told him,
and there did seem in him a
kind of joy to hear of it.
They are here about the court,
this night to play before him.
Polonius: 'Tis most true,
and he beseeched me to
entreat your Majesties
to hear and see the matter.
Good gentlemen,
give him a further edge
and drive his purpose
into these delights.
We shall, my lord.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too.
For we have closely
sent for Hamlet hither,
that he, as 'twere by accident,
may here affront Ophelia.
Do you ever think of
yourself as actually dead
lying in a box with a lid on it?
No.
Nor do I really.
It's silly to be
depressed by it.
I mean, one thinks of it
like being alive in a box,
and one keeps forgetting to
take into account the fact
that one is dead, which should
make all the difference,
shouldn't it?
I mean, you'd never know you
were in a box, would you?
It would be just like
you were asleep in a box.
Not that I'd like to
sleep in a box, mind you.
Not without any air.
You'd wake up dead for a start,
and then where would you be?
In a box. That's the bit
I don't like frankly.
That's why don't think of it.
Because you'd be
helpless, wouldn't you?
Stuffed in a box like that.
I mean, you'd be
in there forever.
Even taking into account
the fact that you're dead,
it isn't a pleasant thought.
Especially if
you're dead, really.
Ask yourself,
if I asked you straight off,
I'm going to stuff
you in this box now,
would you rather
be alive or dead?
Naturally, you
prefer to be alive.
Life in a box is better
than no life at all,
I expect.
You'd have a chance at least.
You could lie there
thinking, well,
at least I'm not dead!
In a minute somebody is
going to bang on the lid
and tell me to come out.
(knocking)
Hey, you! What's your name!
Come out of there!
I think I'm going to kill you.
Nymph, in thy orisons
be all my sins remembered.
I wouldn't think
about it, if I were you.
You'd only get depressed.
My lord,
I have remembrances of yours
that I have long had
long to redeliver.
I pray you now receive them.
No, not I. I never
gave you ought.
My honored lord, you
know right well you did.
And with them words
of so sweet breath
composed as made the
things more rich.
Rosencrantz: Whatever
became of the moment
when one first knew about death?
There must have been one,
a moment,
in childhood,
when it first occurred to you
that you don't go on forever.
It must have been shattering,
stamped into one's memory.
And yet I can't remember it.
It never occurred to me at all.
We must be born
with an intuition of mortality.
Before we know the word for it,
before we know that
there are words,
out we come, bloodied
and squalling,
with the knowledge that for
all the points of the compass,
there's only one direction,
and time is its only measure.
(indistinct voices in distance)
(somber flute music plays)
What is the dumb show for?
The Player: it's
a device, really.
It makes the action that follows
more or less comprehensible.
You understand,
we are tied down to a language
which makes up in obscurity
what it lacks in style.
Is this the
'Murder of Gonzago?
That's the least of it.
Guildenstern: Who was that?
The Player: The king's
brother and uncle to the prince.
Not exactly fraternal.
Not exactly avuncular
as time goes on.
Hamlet: Go to,
I'll no more on't!
It hath made me mad!
I say we will have
no more marriages!
Those that are married already,
all but one shall live.
The rest shall keep as they are.
To a nunnery, go!
That didn't look
like love to me.
Claudius: Love!
His affections do
not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, though
it lacked form a little,
was not like madness.
Polonius How now Ophelia.
You need not tell us what Lord
Hamlet said, we heard it all.
There's something in his soul
o'er which his
melancholy sits on brood.
And I do doubt the
hatch and the disclose
will be some danger,
which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination.
Thus set it down, he shall
with speed to England.
Gentlemen! Gentlemen, it
doesn't seem to be coming.
We are not getting it at all,
what did you think?
What was I supposed to think?
Wasn't that the end?
Do you call that an ending?
With practically everyone
still on his feet?
My goodness, no,
over your dead body.
There's a design at work in
all art, surely you know that?
Events must play themselves
out to an aesthetic,
moral, and logical conclusion.
What's that in this case?
It never varies.
We aim for the
point where everyone
who is marked for death dies.
Marked?
Generally speaking,
things have gone
about as far as
they can possibly go
when things have
got about as bad
as they can reasonably get.
Who decides?
Decides? It is written.
We're tragedians, you see.
We follow directions,
there is no choice involved.
The bad end unhappily,
the good unluckily.
That is what tragedy means.
Next!
Having murdered his brother
and wooed his widow,
the poisoner mounts the throne!
(dramatic fanfare chimes)
Here we see him and his queen
give rein to their
unbridled passion!
(violin music plays)
Enter Lucianus,
nephew to the king!
Usurped by his
uncle and shattered
by his mother's
incestuous marriage,
he loses his reason.
(imitates bird cawing)
Throwing the court into turmoil
and disarray,
staggering from the suicidal
to the merely idle.
He has a plan to catch the
conscience of the king.
(soft, dramatic music plays)
(loud dramatic music plays)
The king rises!
What!
Frighted with false fire!
Gertrude: How fares my lord?
Polonius: Give o'er the play!
Give me some light!
Away!
A-ha! Thou must watch
while some must sleep,
thus runs the world away!
It wasn't that bad!
There's something
they're not telling us.
Guildenstern: What?
There's something
they're not telling us!
(flute music plays)
Polonius: My lord.
My lord.
The queen would speak
with you, and presently.
Do you see yonder cloud
that's almost
in the shape of a camel?
Polonius: By the mass,
and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Me thinks it is like a weasel.
It is backed like a weasel.
- Hamlet: Or like a whale?
- Very like a whale.
Then I will come to
my mother by and by.
I will say so.
Hamlet: A "by and by"
is easily said.
Leave me, friends.
I like him not,
nor stand it safe with us
to let his madness range.
Therefore prepare you.
I your commission will
forthwith will dispatch,
and he to England
shall along with you.
Hamlet: No, by the rood, not so.
You are the queen,
your husband's brother's wife,
but would you were not so,
you are my mother.
Gertrude: Nay, then I'll set
those to you that can speak.
Hamlet: Come, come and sit
you down, you shall not budge.
You go not till
I sent you up a glass,
where you may see
the in most part of you.
Gertrude: What wilt thou do,
thou wilt not murder me.
Help! Help!
Polonius: Oh! Help! Help!
How now! A rat?
Dead, for a ducat dead!
Oh, I am slain!
Gertrude: Oh, me,
what hast thou done?
Nay, I know not!
Is it the king?
Oh, what a rash
and bloody deed is this!
A bloody deed almost
as bad, good mother,
as kill a king and
marry with his brother.
- As kill a king?
- Ay, lady, it was my word.
Thou wretched, rash,
intruding fool, farewell!
Guildenstern: Is that you?
Rosencrantz: I don't know.
Guildenstern: It's you.
Rosencrantz: We're
not dead yet then?
Guildenstern: Well,
we're here, aren't we?
Rosencrantz: Are we?
I can't see a thing.
- (water sloshing)
- (indistinct voices)
(flute music plays)
Rosencrantz: We're on a boat.
I know.
(waves crashing)
Dark, isn't it?
Not for night.
No, not for night.
It's dark for day.
Oh, yes, it's dark for day.
(sea gulls cawing)
Do you think death could
possibly be a boat?
No, no, no, death is not.
Death isn't.
You take my meaning?
Death is the ultimate negative,
not being.
You can't not be on a boat.
I've frequently
not been on boats.
No, no, what you've
been is not on boats.
Rosencrantz: I wish
I was dead.
I could jump over the side.
That would put a spoke
in their wheel.
Unless they're counting on it.
I shall remain on board.
That will put a spoke
in their wheel.
(clattering)
You all right?
Rosencrantz: Yes, why?
Would you like to come up now?
Rosencrantz: All right,
thank you.
Try to be more careful.
Sorry.
Nice bit of planking that.
- Yes.
- Lovely bilges.
- Yes.
- Beautiful bottom.
Yes. I'm very fond
of boats myself.
I like the way
they're contained.
You don't have to worry
about which way to go,
or whether to go at all.
The question doesn't arise,
does it?
Because you're on a boat,
aren't you?
I think I'll spend
the rest of my life on boats.
Very healthy.
One is free on a boat.
For a time, relatively.
I think I'm going to be sick.
He's there!
What's he doing?
Sleeping.
It's all right for him.
- Rosencrantz: What is?
- He can sleep.
It's all right for him.
He's got us now.
- He can sleep.
- It's all done for him.
- He's got us.
- And we've got nothing.
And we've got nothing.
Why don't you say
something original!
You don't take me
up on anything.
You just repeat everything
I say in a different order.
I can't think of
anything original.
I am only good in support.
I'm sick of
making the running.
There, it's all right,
I'll see we're all right.
But we've got nothing
to go on.
We're out on our own.
We're on our way to England.
We're taking Hamlet
to the English king.
- What for?
- What for?
- Where have you been?
- When?
We've got a letter.
You remember the letter.
Do I?
Everything is
explained in the letter.
- Is that it, then?
- What?
We take Hamlet to
the English king,
we hand over the letter,
what then?
That's it, we're finished.
Who is the English king?
That depends on
when we get there.
So we've got a letter
which explains everything.
You've got it.
- I thought you had it.
- I do have it.
- You have it.
- You've got it.
I don't get it.
You haven't got it.
- I just said that.
- I've got it.
- Oh, I've got it.
- Shut up.
Right.
(bell tolls)
What a shambles!
We're just not getting anywhere!
Not even England!
And I don't believe
in it anyway.
- In what?
- England.
Just a conspiracy of
cartographers, you mean?
I mean I don't believe it.
And even if it's true,
the king of England
won't know what
we're taking about.
What are we going to say?
We say, "Your Majesty,
we have arrived."
And who are you?
We are Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern.
Rosencrantz:
Never heard of you!
- Well, we're nobody special.
- What's your game?
- We have our instructions,
- First I've heard of it.
Let me finish!
We've come from Denmark.
What do you want?
Nothing.
We're delivering Hamlet.
Who's he?
You've heard of him.
Oh, I've heard of him,
all right.
Now, I want nothing
to do with it.
You march in here without
so much as a by your leave
and expect me to
take in every lunatic
you try to pass off with
a lot of unsubstantiated--
We've got a letter!
I see, I see.
Well, this seems to support
your story, such as it is.
It is an exact command
from the king of Denmark.
For several different reasons,
importing Denmark's
health and England's too,
that on the reading of
this letter, without delay,
I should have
Hamlet's head cut off!
We're his friends.
How do you know?
From our young days,
brought up with him.
You've only got
their word for it.
But that's what we depend on.
Well, yes,
and then again no.
Let us keep things
in proportion.
Assume, if you like, that
they're going to kill him.
Well, he is a man, he is mortal.
Death comes to us
all, et cetera.
And consequently he would have
died anyway, sooner or later.
And then again, what is
so terrible about death?
As Socrates so
philosophically put it,
since we don't
know what death is,
it is illogical to fear it.
It might be
very nice.
Or to look at it another way,
we are little men,
we don't know the ins
and outs of the matter,
there are wheels within
wheels, et cetera...
All in all, I think
we'd be well advised
to leave well alone.
It's awful.
But it could have been worse.
I was beginning to think it was.
Night.
- (distant explosions)
- (screaming)
(explosion)
- (shouting)
- (swords clashing)
Ah, all in the
same boat, then!
What do you make of it so far?
What's happening?
Pirates.
Everybody on stage!
(man screaming)
Hamlet!
Where's Hamlet?
Gone.
Guildenstern: Gone where?
The pirates took him.
But they can't.
We're supposed to be,
we've got a letter which says,
the whole thing's
pointless without him,
we need Hamlet for our release!
I'll pretend to be,
you pretend to be him and...
Right.
I suppose we just go on.
Go where?
England?
England! I don't believe it!
Or just a conspiracy of
cartographers, you mean.
I mean I don't believe it
and even if it's true
- what do we say?
- We say we've arrived!
The Player: Who are you?
We are Guildenstern
and Rosencrantz.
- Which is which?
- Well, I'm Guildenstern--
- And he's Rosencrantz.
- Exactly.
What does this have to do
with me?
You turn up out of the blue
with some cock and bull story.
We have a letter.
A letter?
(chuckles)
"As England is Denmark's
faithful tributary,
as love between them
like the palm
might flourish, et cetera.
That on the knowing
of this contents,
without delay of any kind,
should those bearers,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
put to sudden death."
Not that letter,
give him the other one.
I haven't got another one.
They're gone!
It's all over!
Where we went wrong,
was getting on a boat.
They had it in
for us, didn't they?
Right from the beginning.
Who'd have thought that
we were so important?
But why?
Was it all for this?
Who are we that so much should
converge on our little deaths?
The Player: You are
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
That is enough.
No, it is not enough.
To be told so little to
such an end and still,
finally, to be denied
an explanation.
In our experience, almost
everything ends in death.
Your experience? Actors?
I'm talking about death.
You've never experienced that.
You die a thousand casual deaths
and come back in
a different hat.
But nobody gets up after death.
There's no applause,
only silence and some
secondhand clothes.
That's death!
If we have a destiny,
then so had he,
and if this is ours,
then that was his
and if there are no
explanations for us,
then let there be none for him.
(applause)
Oh, come, come, gentlemen.
No flattery,
it was merely competent.
You see, it is the
kind you do believe in.
It's what is expected.
Death's for all ages
and occasions!
Deaths of kings
and princes and...
nobodies.
(bell tolls in distance)
That's it then, is it?
We've done nothing wrong.
We didn't harm anyone, did we?
I can't remember.
(sighs)
All right, then.
I don't care.
I've had enough.
To tell you the truth,
I'm relieved.
There must have been a moment
at the beginning where
we could have said no.
But somehow we missed it.
Well, we'll know
better next time.
'Til then.
The sight is dismal.
And our affairs from
England come too late.
The ears are senseless that
should give us hearing.
To tell him his
commandment is fulfilled.
That Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are dead.