Hailed as one of the best adaptations of this Shakespearean tragedy, Grigori Kozintsev?s KING LEAR is a striking epic interpretation based on a translation by novelist Boris Pasternak and driven by a stirring score by comp... more »oser Dmitri Shostakovich. Kozintsev transposed the setting to a sparse landscape of moors and marshes, which provides an eerie backdrop to the bare castles and roaming bands of ragged, destitute wanderers. Thin, frail Yuri Yarvet?s unique interpretation of the title role, in which he focuses on the king?s suffering and pain, was internationally acclaimed. Kozintsev, a peer of Eisenstein?s who worked well into the 1960s, was a master of cinematic technique who finally achieved recognition at the end of his career for his stunning interpretations of Shakespeare. According to film historian Richard Dyer: "Paradoxically, the two most powerful films of Shakespeare plays [Hamlet and King Lear] were made not in Great Britain but in the Soviet Union." (Boston Globe)« less
"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."
Little Known Masterpiece
Galina | Virginia, USA | 04/27/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"
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.
"
Yes, finally on DVD but what a transfer ...!
Giuseppe Tulli | Caracas, Distrito Federal Venezuela | 03/03/2007
(3 out of 5 stars)
"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 ..."
KING LEAR - review
A. J. Papprill | Manukau, New Zealand | 05/12/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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.""
More Soviet than I you die
Jacques COULARDEAU | OLLIERGUES France | 08/28/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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