Customer Reviews

Grigori Kozintsev's King Lear

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Pay no attention to the previous comments. This is not a "second tier" film which "could be good." It is one of the best, if not *the* best filmed versions of Shakespeare. Not sure why the product description emphasizes Yuri Yarvet's being "thin" and "frail." Most commentators note the great energy of his performance, which makes his fall into madness all the more poignant. Also notable is the Shostakovich score, which together with the muddy, rustic backdrops heightens the sense of tragedy approaching. Think of this as great Russian filmmaking, combined with a great Shakespearean play, to the benefit of both.

This version of "King Lear" is an incredible achievement due to the masterful adaptation from the Shakespeare original by one of the best Russian poets, writers, and translators of the last century, Boris Pasternak; elegant and powerful images by the cinematographer Jonas Gritsius (he also worked with Grigori Kozintsev on the earlier Shakespeare's adaptation, "Hamlet", 1964), the music of Dimity Shostakovich, and the great performances from all actors.

Estonian actor Jüri Järvet is masterful as the mad king in a performance which is reminiscent of Kinski as another brilliant madman - Aguirre. They were even the same age when they played Aguirre and Lear. The whole cast is amazing: Kozintsev chose the best actors possible for his project and everyone delivers. I'd like to mention Oleg Dal as the touching Fool; Karl Sebris as the Duke of Gloucester, whose scenes with his son Edgar after having been blinded are very moving; Regimantas Adomaitis as Edmund, a treacherous son and brother but a brilliant man; and Donatas Banionis (who played the main character in Tarkovsky's Solaris) as an intelligent and noble Albany. But like I said, everyone and everything is just perfect in this little known but IMO, the Best adaptation of the beloved and one of the most wrenching tragedies in the English and in the world literature.

This version of LEAR is rightly regarded as seminal in the history of films made of Shakespeare's plays. The sparse, bare sets, the spiritual torment of the characters as Kozintsev explores Lear's fall from power endorses the NEW YORKER's declaration that the film would "stand as one of the unshakeable edifices of Shakespearean imagination."

King Lear is a tragedy that had to appeal to Soviet film-makers. It is dense and extreme. A whole world is destroyed in a couple of years because of an unwise decision of the king doubled with an unwise blindness about the real feelings of his daughters. That's dramatic and that appeals to the good old Russian soul. But there is in this play by Shakespeare what we find in all the tragedies of that author: a full cycle of elimination of all the participants in the drama and the future falls then in the hands of some nearly outsider that comes back by chance and manages to survive through the swords and the poison that runs freely in the wine. The new leader appointed by fate is there to clean up the mess, bury the dead and then try to rebuild some kind of a human world. That too can but attract the Soviet mind of old for whom change can only come through a tabula rasa, a full elimination of the past and change can only the result of an effort to reconstruct after the violent destruction of what was. What's more there is in this play a general structure that can only please a dialectic mind: the destruction comes from inside and the third party that comes from outside is defeated by the two parties that are fighting one against the other inside and unite just long enough to defeat the third sister and her husband. But this film is a lot more interesting than just that story we know by heart. It is the phenomenal acting of the actors in a setting that wants to recreate the dreary drab misery of the ninth century and the horror of a constant civil war that ensues the departure of the king. The war does not even aims at looting but just at destroying everything and everybody. The vision is so extreme that we wonder if it is realistic or just a nightmare in the director's mind. In fact it is beautiful and the king is really crazy and his clown is the most fascinating suffering toy I have ever seen in that part. His job is to annoy with truth in order to become the outlet of the anger of others who will make him suffer to regain some peace of mind. And in this case he does not even pretend to be joyful, he is suffering all along and showing it because that is exactly why he is there and that is why other people are appealed to him, to make him suffer if they can but let him live for more.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Priceless masterpiece but unwatchable on my 16:9 TV because it was encoded in 4:3 aspect ratio. Of course I could zoom the picture to fill the screen but lost the subtitles (I don't speak Russian). Ultimately I had to reencode the movie in 16:9, adding ripped subtitles.

But that's not all. The DVD is 29.97 fps (video) and not 23.976 (film), as if encoded from S-VHS (picture quality is good-old-VHS like). So if your DVD player or display's deinterlacing is sub-par you get bonus picture artifacts.

I also bought the also priceless Hamlet of Kosintzev from the same publishers and has the same problems (but with burnt-in subtitles).

Well, in the end it's better than nothing ...

For years I owned an unrestored, grainy , distorted videotape of this film, which I bought from Facets Multimedia in Chicago. Evidently that was the only version available at the time. Even in its sadly deteriorated condition, I loved this film and watched it periodically, even growing to cherish some of its familiar distortions the same way we might regard the imperfections of an old friend. Now that Facets has brought out this beautiful pristine-appearing edition I am delighted to renew my acquaintance with it in its new incarnation. I have watched it twice since I received it for a Christmas present two weeks ago and my opinion of the greatness of this film has only intensified. The cinematography is beautiful in its starkness, the acting is superb, and the appearance and mannerisms of the actors fit their characters to a Tee. First of all, I think Shakespeare's play was great in itself. It examines the yin-yang aspect of human affairs with a relentless intensity. Good versus Evil, Wisdom versus Folly, Truth versus Deceit, Loyalty versus Treachery. And what a stable of memorable characters with pithy, ironic sayings Shakespeare unleashed to give life to his drama. To my mind this film of Kozintsev's has enlarged rather than diminished in any way the play on which it is based. The use of scenery to reinforce the mood of the drama, and short footages of animals to echo the human emotions at play, add greatly to the effect; as does the magnificent score by Dmitri Shostakovich. The onlooking crowds of peasants in some large scenes seem to suggest an undeveloped mass of humanity out of which these larger than life players have been extruded to give expression to cosmic themes of existence. If you haven't guessed by now, I am highly recommending that you see this film if you are at all interested in such things, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Finally Giorgy Kosintzev got to decipher, express and make us capture the essential core of this play with ferocius intensity and stark realism the last boundaries of the human depravity.

All the cast shines with magical splendor. Specially Yuri as the King and galina Volchek as Regan, Regimantas Adomaitis as Edmund and Vladimir Yemelyanov as Kent.

If you are looking for a well rounded version for your desert island, this one would be selected together with Peter Brook's version.

One of the 100 best film ever!!!

Any afficionado of King Lear will appreciate the nuances developed in any performance of the play. While this version is the bare bones of the play's plot, with much left out, this production comes closest to what Shakespeare could have done writing for the screen rather than the stage. The feeling of place, the condition of the kingdom's impacted peasantry unrepresented in the Dramatis Personae, is the finest of all filmed performances of this play, and I've seen them all. The cinematography is a work of art in its own right, sometimes as stunning and disturbing as the play's most compelling dialogue. For one unfamiliar with the play, this film would be an adequate introduction, but for a student with a deepening and abiding interest, it is a Must Have.

Kosintzev's King Lear is as good as Kosintzev's Hamlet. The problem is Shakespeare's King Lear is NOT as good as Shakespeare's Hamlet. It's a weak play. But Kosintzev's screen adaptation is excellent.

Please get the product details right. Is this is the Peter Brook or the Grigori Kozintsev film? It can't be both.