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King Lear More at IMDbPro »Korol Lir (original title)
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| Index | 12 reviews in total |
29 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
One of the Finest Films Ever Made, 26 July 2005
Author:
theelegantdandyfop from United States
Shakespeare's plays are difficult to realize on stage or on film.
Reading through his plays, one gets the impression that they are
greater than they can ever be performed. But there are those few
productions that hit the mark and do his works justice. So it is with
Korol Lir (King Lear), Grigori Kozintsev's final film.
In 1964, Kozintsev's Hamlet was released and earned high praise both in
Russia and the West. As a consequence, Kozintsev was invited to and
attended many western film festivals including Cannes. Kozintsev
cherished these trips to the west as he was able to see many films that
were not shown in the Soviet Union. He was particularly eager to see
the films of Kurosawa, Ford, Capra and Fellini. But it was the films of
Orson Welles, Citizen Kane in particular, that made the deepest
impression on him. In fact it was Citizen Kane that inspired Kozintsev
to film King Lear in black-and-white rather than in color.
There are so many wonderful touches in this film starting with Yuri
Yarvets' harrowing portrayal of the mad Lear. His Lear always leaves me
feeling crushed at the end of the film. Superb as well is the eerie,
haunting performance of Galina Volchek as Regan and the outstanding
cinematography of Jonas Gritsius. Of course there is also the
translation used which is itself a masterpiece, by Boris Pasternak no
less (the fool's songs were performed with translations by Samuil
Marshak however). Dmitri Shostakovich's score is exactly what you would
expect: genius. Here is no simple sonic wallpaper to play along as
images move about the screen. Neither does this dark score overwhelm
the on-screen action but rather acts as a wordless narrator, commenting
on the drama as it unfolds. At the heart of all this is Kozintsev's
bleak and powerful vision of King Lear. There are no gimmicks here, no
attempts to "update", no trace of the portentousness and pomposity that
mars many films based on Shakespeare. Here, the tragedy is revealed
with a brutal and simple honesty. It is not only Lear and those around
him who suffer but his whole nation suffers and decays alongside him.
Seeing this film from first to final scene is a draining emotional
experience.
You probably won't find the DVD of this great film at your local video
store but it is available from the Russian Cinema Council's (RUSCICO)
website for about $35. Their transfer of this film is decent but it
does leave a bit to be desired. One can only hope and pray that
Criterion will release it one day (don't hold your breath). Still, any
fan of great cinema should make the effort to acquaint themselves with
this film, one that I personally consider to be one of the greatest
films ever made.
21 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
A finer version than that of Laurence Olivier!, 1 September 2000
Author:
Jugu Abraham (jugu_abraham@yahoo.co.uk) from Trivandrum, Kerala, India
Black and white cinematography of Gritsius, the music of Shostakovich
and the enigmatic face of Jarvet, make all other versions of King Lear
smaller in stature. Lord Olivier himself acknowledged the stark
brilliance of this film. Oleg Dal's fool lends a fascinating twist to
the character. The "Christian Marxism" of Kozintsev can knock-out any
serious student of cinema and Shakespeare.
Kozintsev is one of least sung masters of Russian cinema. His cinema is
very close to that of Tarkovsky and Sergei Paradjanov. Kozintsev's Lear
is not a Lear that mourns his past and his daughters--his Lear is close
to the soil, the plants, and all elements of nature. That's what makes
Kozintsev's Shakespearean works outstanding.
I fell in love with Kozintsev's King Lear some 30 years ago and I
continue to be enraptured by the black-and-white film shot in
cinemascope each time I see it. Each time you view the film, one
realizes that a creative genius can embellish another masterpiece from
another medium by providing food for thought---much beyond what
Shakespeare offered his audiences centuries ago. Purists like Lord
Laurence Olivier and Peter Brook offered cinematic versions of the play
that remained true to what the Bard originally intended, only refining
performances within the accepted matrices.
But Kozintsev's cinema based on the Russian translation of Nobel
laureate Boris Pasternak added a "silent ghost" that was always present
in Shakespeare's play—nature. Mother nature is present as a visual and
aural force in the two Shakespeare films of Kozintsev, more so in King
Lear. Shakespeare had intended to draw parallels in nature and human
beings—only Kozintsev saw the opportunity in highlighting this. The
team of Kozintsev and Pasternak took another liberty—the last shot of
the film includes the Fool playing his pipe, while the Bard had got rid
of the Fool in Act IV of the play. Kozintsev had more than one reason
for it—the Fool is akin to the chorus of Greek stage and much of Dmitri
Shostakovich's haunting musical score for the film involved woodwind
instruments. Further, the poor, beyond the portals of the army and the
courts, occupy "screen-space" never intended in the play. Kozintsev and
Pasternak remained true to the basic structure of Shakespeare only
adding details that offer astounding food for thought.
I recommend this version to serious viewers. Don't miss this little
known classic.
18 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Little Known Masterpiece, 7 October 2004
Author:
Galina from Virginia, USA
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.
16 out of 18 people found the following review useful:
Assured and deeply moving treatment of Lear, 5 April 2001
Author:
Joseph Couch from Sydney, Australia
Even, relaxed performances. Tasteful, non-intrusive direction. No
gimmicks. And finally a clear, even obvious! result.
This might seem like damning with faint praise, except that
Kozintsev has done what Brook didn't, what Olivier's BBC
production didn't, and what every stage production I have ever
seen resolutely and spectacularly failed to do. That is to create
order and clarity and meaning within arguably the greatest and
arguably the most difficult play ever written. It seems easy to do in
Kosintsev's version, which is one of his great triumphs.
see it
11 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
powerful visual experience, 10 December 2006
Author:
tsf-1962 from United States
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Grigori Kozintsev must have been a man of unbridled self-confidence. Few directors have successfully met the challenge of filming "Hamlet," perhaps the most important single work in western literature; fewer still have sought to tackle the one Shakespeare play arguably superior to "Hamlet," "King Lear." Kozintsev was up to the challenge: there has probably never been a more visceral and disturbing adaptation of a Shakespeare play in any language. In contrast to the psychological approach appropriate to "Hamlet," here Kozintsev has chosen an epic portrayal of unsurpassed sweep and grandeur. Gone are any vestiges of the Elizabethan theater: here is perhaps the most compelling depiction of the Middle Ages in film history, a world of mud and filth inhabited by brutal, corrupt nobles and starving peasants. Kozintsev has in mind obvious modern parallels (the Holocaust, Vietnam) but he wisely keeps the story in a historic setting, allowing the audience to make the connection themselves. There has never been an odder-looking actor to play Lear than Juri Jarvets, who resembles nothing so much as Yoda from "Return of the Jedi," but few actors have ever portrayed the pain and loneliness of old age with such force. Oleg Dal's Fool is an eerie creation, an Auschwitz survivor adrift in fourteenth-century England; the two evil daughters are not portrayed as sexy vixens but as dirty old harridans hardened by a life spent holding and maintaining feudal power. Dmitri Shostakovich's score surpasses his score for "Hamlet." It's incredible this film could have been made in Brezhnev-era Russia, since it contains a surprising number of Christian religious images. Ironically, most of the actors in the film were Latvian or Estonian and their voices had to be dubbed by Russians, but it doesn't detract from the total experience. Of all the western films I have seen the closest match is Pasolini's "Gospel According to Saint Matthew," but while Pasolini's visual style is static and contemplative Kozintsev's is full of violent and discordant images, representing nature at the height of its fury.
9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
A brilliant, harrowing adaptation., 22 October 2006
Author:
D. Hall from Australia
Back in high school, I had to watch this as we were studying King Lear
in class.
Having watched both the Brooks and Olivier versions, I went in somewhat
cautiously- I wasn't too fond of either, finding the Olivier version to
be too colourful, and the Brooks version sombre.
This proved a sobering reminder of how truly spectacular cinematography
can be if done correctly. This film gripped me like no other, and I
watched riveted throughout.
The added Soviet focus on the peril of the peasant's, and the splendor
of the palace helped to further heighten Lear's downfall. Chock-a-block
full of brilliant performances, this has swiftly become one of my most
treasured VHS tapes.
The only fault I could find was the somewhat tinny quality of the
sound- but for a movie of the time, the quality was excellent.
A remarkable, truly moving film I recommend to everyone.
5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
One of the best cinematic interpretations, 15 March 2009
Author:
Howard Schumann from Vancouver, B.C.
William Shakespeare's King Lear is a medieval morality play that weaves
a web of complexity and intrigue based on a misjudgment of character
and a struggle for succession. Containing Shakespeare's favorite
themes: succession, legitimacy, and bastardy, King Lear has some of the
author's most elevated poetry. It is one of Shakespeare's most
difficult plays and has been filmed only a handful of times. One of the
best cinematic interpretations is that of Russian directors Grigori
Kozintsev and Iosif Shapiro's 1971 film, King Lear (Korol Lir), based
on a translation by novelist Boris Pasternak and propelled by a
dramatic score by composer Dimitri Shostakovich and memorable images by
cinematographer Jonas Gritsius.
While Kozintsev does little to clarify the convoluted succession
battles and internecine warfare, the overall effect is one of epic
sweep and power, with the blindness of the leading protagonists being
an apt metaphor in the Russian interpretation for oppressive feudal
rule and its results on the downtrodden masses ("A generalized picture
of a civilization heading towards doom", is how Kozintsev described his
King Lear).
At a royal banquet, an aging king of ancient Britain plans to vacate
his throne and divide his kingdom equally among his three daughters,
Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Before he does this, he asks each
daughter to tell him how much they love him. Both Goneril and Regan are
effusive in their flattery but Cordelia is much less forthcoming,
telling him that she loves him but has no words to describe her love.
To that King Lear responds, "Nothing will come of nothing", and disowns
Cordelia, leaving her without estate but still courted by the king of
France. Sadly, Goneril and Regan both proceed to scheme against their
father and each other until the wheel turns.
In a sub-plot, an elderly nobleman named Gloucester is tricked by his
illegitimate son Edmund into thinking that his legitimate son Edgar is
out to kill him. Fleeing the manhunt that his father has set for him,
Edgar disguises himself as a crazy beggar and heads out onto the heath
in a driving thunderstorm. Lear yields completely to his rage against
his daughters who have turned him out and, like Edgar, rushes out into
the storm. When they meet, it will be on the Dover Cliffs where each
awaits their fate.
Kozintsev's Lear is filmed in black and white and set in a stark
landscape of windswept moors and marshes, bare castles and wandering
beggars. Kozintsev, a master Russian director and contemporary of
Eisenstein, who had been making experimental films during the 1920s,
assembled a cast of great actors for the project. King Lear is the
thin, tall, gaunt-looking Estonian actor Yuri Yarvet who fully conveys
Lear's power and his growing madness and despair. Also Leonhard Merzin
and Regimantis Adomaitis as Edgar and Edmund, rival sons of the Duke of
Gloucester perform admirably as does Karl Sebris as the Duke of
Gloucester.
Accolades must also be given to Oleg Dal as the Fool whose only job is
to amuse the King but does so by telling him the truth, using songs and
riddles like Feste in Twelfth Night. In a smaller role, Valentina
Shendrikova excels as Cordelia. In one of the most touching scenes,
"good son" Edgar, pretending to be the madman "Tom o' Bedlam" finds his
now blinded father The Duke of Gloucester wandering on a heath in pain
and leads him to the Dover cliffs where he walks him to the edge and
allows his father to think he is committing suicide, but saves him in a
scene of the utmost tenderness. In another memorable scene, after
having been banished by both Goneril and Regan, Lear wanders with the
Fool and Kent, a nobleman in disguise, on the moors in a
vividly-imagined driving thunderstorm until he takes shelter in a
hovel, only to find the disguised Edgar.
As recounted by Kozintsev, "When Lear goes mad at the beginning of the
storm scene, this is the beginning of an absolutely new relationship
with nature. I try to illustrate with this landscape a country which is
not bare, not cruel. I try to show Lear himself as a part of nature, in
a field of flowers. His hair spreads like moss, the grey hair of
nature. Once man is seen as a part of nature, the movement towards
regeneration can begin. Cordelia too has her own landscape–sea and a
very wide landscape–with waves and seagulls. All the important
characters have their own atmosphere and there are relationships not
just on the level of character but between different aspects of
nature." Kozintsev's King Lear has the look and feel of an epic in the
tradition of Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, and though it has been given a
Marxist slant, it is true to Shakespeare's vision. As the aging monarch
confronts the wrongness of his own decision, he also realizes how
little he has done to help others. "I've taken too little care of
this", he laments as he confronts the suffering of his people.
Faithfully accompanied by his shaven-headed Fool, Lear moves from a
monarch blinded by his own arrogance in misjudging his children to a
pitiful presence who finally discovers his own compassion and
ultimately evokes ours.
3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
marvelous feast for the eyes and intellect, 28 March 2008
Author:
Oslo Jargo (osloj@yahoo.com) from FINLAND
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Grigori Kozintsev's Korol Lir (1971), "King Lear", is a marvelous feast
for the eyes and intellect. It resembles a 1960's film, complete with
surreal, odd landscapes that look like the Baltic ocean coast. It is
surprising it was made in (1971) though, as it is in black and white
and rather moody, resulting in torrential flows of anguish.
The tale is about a selfish, superficial king who loses everything in
his kingdom. The acting is superb. The costumes exquisite, and
everything looks real and fresh.
Don't expect to come out of this happy, as it is a boastful tragedy and
yet is is very beautiful and even some type of humanity is injected
into it that wasn't censored out by the Zoviet central committee.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Admirably Soviet, 28 August 2008
Author:
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU from Olliergues, France
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
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
English to written Russian to spoken EstoRussian to English subtitles, 31 March 2012
Author:
Dr. P from United States
I agree with most of the prior reviewers (save the one who doesn't seem to understand cinema), and was especially struck by the art direction and cinematography. The B/W palette fit perfectly in both the castle and in the desolate moors, as Lear wandered mad with his fool. The acting was superb. However, I was completely flummoxed listening to it. I studied Russian for 3.5 years in school and on a high school summer trip to the USSR. Sadly I have forgotten most of it. However, the viewing I saw in 2009 certainly brought a lot of back in a strange way. I had read parts of Pasternak's Russian translation, and he did a wonderful job capturing the iambic pentameter, puns, and subtleties of Elizabethan English. However, the film, as others pointed out, used Estonian or Latvian actors whose Russian was so bad that much had to be looped after the filming by Russian speakers. Consequently, a long and flowery phrase in the Pasternak translation-- dutifully subtitled back into English-- is truncated. E.g., "Mend your speech a little, Lest it may mar your fortunes" is translated well in subtitles, but what is spoken is "govoreet prosto" ("speak simply"). I tried to read the subtitles instead of listen to the Russian, but came out of the theater pretty confused!
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