A Gigantic
Pile of Pseudo-Intellectual but Genuinely Tedious Junk
Not since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 have I been so disappointed with a
movie. But there is an important difference. Arthur Clarke’s book being one of
my greatest favourites, I expected a lot from Kubrick’s movie version. Not so
with Tom Stoppard. Thrice have I tried to read his eponymous play, thrice have
I failed to complete even half of it. Nevertheless, I had hopes that the screen
could rescue what on paper – and most probably on the stage – is painfully
dull. In vain.
In case you
care, be aware that the following paragraphs contain spoilers.
It is sad to see fine actors like
Gary Oldman and Tim Roth wasting their considerable talents with something so
inane. The idea to retell Hamlet
through the eyes of two of its minor characters is ingenious. But it does
require genius to make interesting characters out of nitwits like Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern. Tom Stoppard doesn’t have it. Gary and Tim are not to blame.
Nobody could pull off decently an opening scene that violates the law of
probability itself. Things improve but slightly further on.
It is difficult to find any redeeming
qualities in this movie. It is visually very well-done, but nowadays this means
no more than the crystal clear sound on a CD; it’s there by default. The plot
of Shakespeare’s original is cleverly and rather amusingly interwoven with the
adventures of the two schmucks, especially the players foreshadowing the “real”
end of the play, but that’s nothing to write home, either. If I understand
properly the ending of the movie, there is a charming twist in it.
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| Richard Dreyfuss as The Player |
The only thing that redeems – partly
– this mess of a movie is The Player, brilliantly played by Richard Dreyfuss,
and his colleagues from the theatre company. Their scenes are the only
genuinely funny ones, a godsend amidst the desert of dullness. The words of The
Player are virtually the only ones that do make some sense and thus stimulate
reflection or a smile:
There's a design at work
in all art... events must play themselves out to an aesthetic, moral and
logical conclusion. We aim at the point where everyone who is marked for
death... dies. 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.
We're actors! We're the
opposite of people!
We are tragedians, you
see? We follow directions. There is no choice involved. The bad end unhappily,
the good, unluckily. That is what tragedy means.
But The Player is a supporting
character, and so are all of his colleagues. If only Tom Stoppard had made
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern smart men of the world like The Player, this would
have been a great movie! But he either wouldn’t or couldn’t. Instead, he turned
them into infantile creatures as intelligent as your cat, quite incapable of
bringing some depth to his concept.
 |
| Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern |
Virtually all scenes with Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are duds. The funny ones are tedious to the extreme, with
rapid and clumsy conversation that tells a great deal less than its vivacity
may suggest. Indeed, it tells next to nothing. The few poignant moments towards
the end fare better but are not enough to justify nearly two hours of acute
boredom. Still, occasionally – very
occasionally indeed – there is a couple of lines worth noting:
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. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't
remember it. It never occured 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 squawking, with the knowledge that for all the
points of the compass, there’s only one direction. And time is its only
measure.
Guildenstern: 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.
These are fine, stirring, brilliant
lines. But they are virtually lost in what, for want of a better word, can only
be described as trash. Examples are countless and not really worth quoting. But
here are some anyway:
Guildenstern: I think I
have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking
nonsense not to himself.
Rosencrantz: Or just as
mad.
Guildenstern: Or just as
mad.
Rosencrantz: And he does
both.
Guildenstern: So there you
are.
Rosencrantz: Stark raving
sane.
Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we
be doing something... constructive?
Guildenstern: What did you
have in mind? A short, blunt human pyramid?
Rosencrantz: Oh! You mean
- you pretend to be him, and I ask you questions!
Guildenstern: Very good.
Rosencrantz: You had me
confused.
Guildenstern: I could see
I had.
Rosencrantz: How should I
begin?
Guildenstern: Address me.
Rosencrantz: My honoured
Lord!
Guildenstern: My dear
Rosencrantz!
Rosencrantz: ...Am I
pretending to be you, then?
Guildenstern: Certainly
not. Well, if you like. Shall we continue?
Rosencrantz: My honoured
Lord!
Guildenstern: My - dear
fellow!
Rosencrantz: How are you?
Guildenstern: Afflicted.
Rosencrantz: Really? In
what way?
Guildenstern: Transformed.
Rosencrantz: Inside or
out?
Guildenstern: Both.
Rosencrantz: I see. Not
much new there!
Guildenstern: [shouting]
Well, go into detail! Delve!
Are these supposed to be funny? Hilarious?
Perceptive? Profound? You may rest assured that Gary and Tim do their best with
every line. But what’s the use when the screenplay is gibberish?
But the worst thing in this movie are
the author’s pseudo-intellectual and pretentious aspirations. Stoppard’s blatant
attempts to infuse his creation with a serious message under the “comic”
surface are simply pathetic. What does it tell us that Rosencrantz rediscovers
the steam power or that an apple falling from a tree hits him on the head? Only
that not everybody can become James Watt or Isaac Newton. Isn’t that a trifle
too obvious? Likewise with his uncomprehending toddling in the footsteps of
Galileo or Archimedes. We all know that discovery is a very different thing
than description, explanation and invention. The great scientists from the past
weren’t just curious and observant fellows; they were a great deal more. They had
the right minds to describe certain natural
laws, to explain certain hitherto mysterious
phenomena, and to put both of them to practical
use.
The attempts for discussion of even
weightier issues like chance and probability, appearance and reality, life and
death, fare even worse. These things have been done so much better before, not
least by Shakespeare himself. The numerous discourses on death, such as the one
that Rosencrantz delivers while lying on a sarcophagus, are nothing but a
vastly inferior and intolerably verbose version of Hamlet’s justly famous “To
be or not to be”. The several drawn-out and repetitive conversations between
the two morons, or the constant confusion who’s who, that address the elusive
relationship between mere labels like names and the essence of personality are
something very much like nonsense. Juliet’s “What’s in a name?” is a much more
succinct and greatly superior expression of the same conundrum.
To say that I am baffled by the huge
amount of praise lavished on this movie would be an understatement. It may be,
of course, that I have misunderstood it. Beneath all the verbiage there may be
a core of profoundness that I am just too dumb to grasp. I do not think this is
the case, but if you wish to adopt the snobbish attitude to the opposite, you
have my blessing. The saddest thing is that the idea does have potential, and
issues like the ones timidly raised here comedy is generally well-equipped to
deal with. In some other hands, it might have spawned a masterpiece. Not in
Stoppard’s hands, not as far as I am concerned.
