I love Shakespeare. But I have to confess I’m not much of a fan of theater, and prefer to enjoy my Shakespeare from the page. However, this production with Ian McKellen, adapted from the stage for television on PBS, has won me over. I was struck with admiration for the whole thing. It retained the on-stage look and feel, too, which I found a good touch. I also enjoyed the spare yet somehow convincing sets, and that the Cossack-style cherkessa coat (below)
was the men’s wear among the upper eschelons; other clothing and props drew on a variety sources (Victorianesque lounging caps (is that it?), neckties, suit vests, rags, firearms as well as swords) and yet it wasn’t so much a chaos as like a dream.
While I enjoyed all the main actors and McKellen in particular for their very physical, and detailed, performances, McKellen especially does the madness thing with riveting brilliance, IMHO. Apparently in the stage production there was a full frontal of McKellen that was cut from the PBS version, and apparently he’s fine with that. Actually, so am I.
Yeah, this is a completely different animal from Kurosawa’s treatment.
Some of the lines get a bit mushy and hard to catch in their more rapid-fire moments, but again, the physicality of the performances made up for that for me.
Glad to hear the good review, Nano. I really wanted to watch it, but it was on way past my bedtime. According to Amazon.com, the DVD should be released April 21st, so I’ll probably go that route.
Speaking of “King Lear”, and Shakespeare in general… I highly recommend the Canadian TV series “Slings & Arrows”. (Only 3 seasons.) It’s about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of a fictional Shakespearean theater company. It is by turns hilarious, moving, thoughtful, and fantastical. (There’s even a ghost.) And the “King Lear” episode is very powerful.
What’s the deal with carrying all those cigars on the outside of your coat? And is that one of those Nazi Cossacks? BTW I started watching it and there must have been something wrong with the TV because I only remember seeing the beginning and my wife shaking me at the end.
I saw Lear at a pub, either the Black Swan or the Dirty Duck, I can’t remember which one. He seemed very alive to me at the time. Sorry to hear he passed on.
Nailed it in one, Peter! I always thought Lear was a class-A pillock and needlessly the architect of his own woe. A boring premise to begin with, really.
Didn’t stop me from enjoying the play, though. Maybe it’s sort of an exalted Schadenfreude.
I only saw the end of this (from the time Edgar finds his blinded father). Though I’ll want to see the whole thing, what I saw was very well done.
In one of my grad school courses, we studied only King Lear for the whole semester–the course took a rhetorical, socio-linguist, philological approach and was fascinating. Another semester (with the same professor and theater directors, drama students, English majors, etc.) we read Lear closely and watched two different film versions as we went along–Olivier and a BBC version with Hordern–comparing and contrasting. King Lear doesn’t grow old for me (though some productions might). I’m always gripped by its chaos/terror (surpassing No Exit and Waiting for Godot)and the moments of reconciliation.
From what I saw the other night, McKellen plays a better Lear than Olivier or Hordern. I haven’t yet seen Ian Holm’s version to say how it compares.
Being woefully ill-experienced with theater, I’m gratified that my liking for this particular production may not be without merit.
There’s a fellow I enjoy having good talks with at a local watering hole, an Irishman, worldly and up to his neck in theater (says he’s partied with Eugene Levy and Kathryn Erbe back when, that sort of thing, and what would be the good in lying about that? ), and I was pleased to be able for once to actually get on the subject with him. He was pleasantly surprised at my enthusiasm, having assumed I had no interest whatsoever in theater. Not exactly true; I just don’t have a lot of it.
If you’re comparing similar films, Richard Harris once spoke of his preformance in The Field as “My Lear”, and he was right; it’s a very similar role in a very different film, but worth seeing.
