Shakespeare Magazine ~ A Close Look at King Lear on Film

Shakespeare Magazine
Presented November 20, 1998
NCTE Conference
Nashville, TN

King Lear Filmography

1953 (75 min. TV film b&w) directed by Peter Brook with Orson Welles as Lear. Don’t confuse this with the ’71 Peter Brook film (see number 3); this one has eliminated the subplot of Gloucester and his sons and made Poor Tom a character in his own right. After a long absence, this has become available on video.

1970 (140 min. Russian film b&w) directed by Grigor Kozintsev with Yuri Yarvet as Lear. Besides the sweeping outdoor scenes replete with hawks and wolfhounds, what makes this interesting is that the text was translated into Russian and then Boris Pasternak translated it back to English. The subtitles are poetic, but they’re not Shakespeare.

1971 (137 min. British film b&w) directed by Peter Brook with Paul Scofield as Lear. Brook set out to fulfill the vision that the critic Jan Kott had written about in Shakespeare, Our Contemporary. The text has been severely cut and the remainder has been reassembled. All is bleak in this existential experience.

1982 (180 min. BBC TV color) directed by Jonathan Miller with Michael Hordern as Lear. Part of the Shakespeare Plays series, this version follows the text closely. As with all of the BBC series, this video tends to be claustrophobic and risk-free.

1983 (158 min. Granada [UK] TV color) directed by Michael Eliot with Laurence Olivier as Lear. Olivier was 75 when he made this film, his last Shakespearean role. The film begins and ends at Stonehenge, and features Diana Rigg as Regan, John Hurt as the Fool, and Robert Lindsay as Edmund. The best part: Lear eats a rabbit.

1984 (182 min. Bard TV color) directed by Alan Cooke with Mike Kellan as Lear. If American actors are going to put Shakespeare on TV, surely there are more competent actors than David Groh (Rhoda’s husband) as Edmund and Darryl Hickman (brother of Dwayne) as Kent.

1988 (110 minutes Thames [UK] TV color) directed by Tony Davenall with Patrick Magee as Lear. Lots of questionable cuts and Magee’s slow reading of his lines make this version one to avoid.

1998 (150 min. BBC TV color) directed by Richard Eyre with Ian Holm as Lear. After a hugely successful run on the London stage, Eyre recreated his production for the BBC and anyone not fortunate enough to have seen the original. Regan and Goneril have never looked more evil and Holm’s performance is chilling.

Viewing Guide

Visual – responsible for observing camera angles, camera movement, shot selection, shot composition, editing, etc.

Textual – responsible for following along with the text, looking for cuts, rearrangements, etc.

Aural – responsible for listening to the music, sound f/x, background sounds, etc.

Design – studies all the details of the settings, props, lighting and costumes.
Acting – notes movement, vocal dynamics, stress, facial expressions, etc.

For the teacher’s bookshelf….

Teaching editions of Shakespeare

Bain, Elspeth, Jonathan Morris and Rob Smith, eds. King Lear (Cambridge School Shakespeare). Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.

The Cambridge School Shakespeare includes editions of most of the plays and the sonnets.

Brown, John Russell, ed. King Lear (The Applause Shakespeare Library). New York: Applause Books, 1996.

The Applause Shakespeare Library also includes Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, and has or will soon release Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Henry V, Julius Cæsar, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Romeo & Juliet, and Twelfth Night.

Roy, Ken. King Lear (HBJ Shakespeare). Toronto: HBJ Canada, 1990

The HBJ Shakespeare series also includes The Merchant of Vecnie, The Tempest, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Julius Cæsar, and Macbeth.

Shakespeare Reference

McDonald, Russ. The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

On Teaching Movies

Costanzo, William V. Reading the Movies: Twelve Great Films on Video and How to Teach Them. Urbana: NCTE, 1992.

Giannetti, Louis D., John W. Langdon, and Edward H. Judge. Understanding Movies. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1998.

On Teaching Shakespeare

Davis, James E. and Ronald E. Salomone, eds. Teaching Shakespeare Today: Practical Approaches and Productive Strategies. Urbana: NCTE, 1993.

Another King Lear

Pollock, Ian. Ian Pollock’s Illustrated King Lear: Complete and Unabridged. New York: Workman Publishing, 1984.

A comic book version with the complete text of the play. Other titles are Macbeth, illustrated by Von and Othello, illustrated by Oscar Zarate.

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