Left Field Cinema

Whilst others favour the tragedy of Hamlet, the comedy of Midsummer Nights Dream, or the manipulation of history in Richard III – I have always preferred the duality and complexity of King Lear above all other Shakespearean plays. It is the zenith of Shakespeare’s career for a number of reasons; James II vocally objected to plays being written about Kings, but he let Shakespeare do it, which in itself might say more than anything I could conjure in my prose. For the uninitiated the story follows the titular Lear, an elderly and tired monarch of England who decides to retire from the running of his nation and divide the land between his three daughters, due to a dramatically ironic misunderstanding the one daughter who truly loves Lear – Cordelia – is banished from the country by her father because she does not articulate her love of Lear to his standards. As a result the manipulative and evil sisters Gonerill and Regan are given control over the land; who along with their husbands Albany and Cornwall set about limiting what little power Lear has left and eventually cause Lear’s retreat into a violent storm whilst Cordelia and the King of France plan to restore power to Lear before it’s too late. The play was written in around 1606 and is based on the mythical pre-Roman King Leir of Britain. It is one of Shakespeare’s later and more famous tragedies, its darker tone distinguishes it from most of his other plays with only MacBeth and Titus Andronicus coming closer to the film barren and hopeless outlook.

In general terms there are two types of Shakespearian film adaptations, the traditional and the experimental – this falls quite clearly into the latter type. Whilst traditionalists have their place and we could never do without the great films of Olivier or Branagh, it is the experimentalists who usually have the most fun and create the more memorable adaptations, often memorable for no other reason than their cataclysmic failure. Roman Polanski’s MacBeth for instance with it’s over the top gore and blood shed, Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Julliet with it’s contemporary setting and MTV inspired editing and camera work, or even the great Akira Kurosawa’s own radical take on King Lear entitled Ran which kept the basic story but changed several key components such as the gender of Lear’s offspring and moving the action to Japan. What director Peter Brook does with this production is combine William Shakespeare and Ingmar Bergman along with his own set of unique visual and stylistic tricks. Brook’s Lear is set in a cold and brutal world, the constant howl of wind and breath on the air are substitutes for music and score. The film is a wash of long silences and lacks any non-diegetic sound, placing emphasis on the detachedness of its occupants. Brook’s distinct opening title sequence is demonstrative - completely and mercilessly silent as the camera passes across the endless sea of peasant faces and then back again, all awaiting the news of Lear’s inciting land divisions. Minutes pass before the silence is broken by the first line of dialogue, with this opening Brook draws our attention to the lack of music and from here on in we are always aware of its absence.

The style is very Bergman-esque, from the deliberately bleak black and white photography and bleaker locations and weather, it reminds of the very best Bergman and Sven Nykvist collaborations. Location is an interesting point as well, although the location is referred to as England on several occasions, it is not a England we’re particularly familiar with, yes it is cold and wet but the landscape and architecture are unfamiliar, they appear almost post-apocalyptic at times. The film is a UK/Danish co-production and portions of the film were shot in Denmark giving the film its un-English exteriors. The film is a bizarre mixture of Shame and Shakespeare with twinges of Mad Max – but it functions perfectly.

Brook was accused by critics of making a soulless film, one which resembled a horror movie more than Shakespeare and relied on style over substance. Whilst I don’t concur with the criticism, the roots of these views are very clear. Brook’s style is particularly distinct; this looks and feels unlike any Shakespearian film adaptation that has come before or since. Dynamic camera work and compositions are breathtakingly innovative, becoming increasingly erratic as the film continues and Lear’s madness deepens. Employing shifting focus and cropping faces, for example when Lear realises his daughters are evil, his face often only half visible and filling one side of the frame or the other. The prolonged storm sequence is particularly impressive, the storm being perhaps the most famous of events in the play, in this version water continually flows over the lens. The line is broken deliberately disorientating the viewer by crippling our perspective of where people are in relation to one and other. Rats lie dead in the water; all other sounds drown out except Lear’s voices. Jump cuts and out of focus imagery take hold as the character of Kent arrives in disguise as poor Tom. People miraculously move from one side of the room to another on account of an edit, whilst lightening flashes relentlessly. This deliberate visual disharmony becomes difficult to watch in places but the dedicated viewer will persist on account of Brook’s commitment to his visual flourishes.

The edit of the film is as astounding as the photography, during Kent’s transformation for example, the camera zooms in, falls out of focus and fades to black before returning to the first camera position, again and again. Another famous scene is here edited particularly well as Gloucester has his eyes plucked. The scenes editing choices are as precise as they are cruel. Gloucester can be heard but not seen as the spoon approaches his retina, his face is obscured from view by his assailant and we cut to black. When we feel secure, when we feel safe that Brook has spared us the sight of this ghastly and heinous act of mutilation - Brook unexpectedly cuts back onto the most gruesome of images as the eye is gouged out and Gloucester screams in agonising pain.

The role of Lear has long been sought after by older male actors for its complex and demanding character arc. It is viewed as one of the great stage parts, coveted by many but mastered by few. Actors such as Brian Cox, Michael Gambon, John Gielgud, Ian Holm, Anthony Hopkins, James Earl Jones, Kevin Kline, Ian McKellen, Laurence Olivier, John Hurt, Christopher Plummer, Pete Postlethwaite, and Orson Welles have all taken on this titanic part in the past. Here the part is taken by the late great Paul Scofield who’d played memorable parts in films like The Crucible and Quiz Show, as well as other Shakespearian adaptations like Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, and Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V. Whilst always in supporting duties in those films mentioned, here he takes arguably his greatest lead role on film, his face seems worn down by the ravages of time but his energy is not deterred as he boisterously acts merry with his men or chastises those who stand in his way. His gruff voice and larger than life on screen presence make him instantly memorable – in a part which has been played by so many great actors this is surely the highest compliment of all. Although this is clearly Scofield’s film, the rest of the cast made up of relatively unknown performers are praise and mention worthy, each one down playing their parts and resisting the theatrical urges that are so often attached to Shakespeare. This of course leading to what some critics described as an underwhelming and detached production, but their cold and subtle performances are consistent with Brook’s chosen tone.

King Lear is a complex film, inheriting from Shakespeare a duel plot line which reinforces its themes of family betrayal and the blindness caused by ones own ego. King Lear’s subplot serves to deepen the texts probing of fractured family relations and through mirroring events and characters the message of Shakespeare’s tragedy is exposed with little doubt about the play and films intended reception - the breaking of kinship and the loss perspective caused by a ballooning egos. The films main subplot follows the Earl of Gloucester and his two sons, Edgar and the bastard Edmund. Edmund is tired of his bastard status and so connives his father that Edgar intends to kill him in an attempt to usurp Edgar and take a more favourable position within the family. After Edgar is banished, Edmund also betrays his father to Gonneril and Regan leading to the aforementioned eye gouging scene. Gloucester is blinded and sent into the wilderness to die, there he meets Edgar once again who pretends to be someone else in order to help his father, eventually Gloucester realises what he’s done and how he’s trusted the wrong son and cast out the man who would help him. The sub plot is basically a boiled down version of the main plot, both Gloucester and Lear trust the wrong offspring and banish their goodly children. Gloucester is blinded and he sees the truth, correspondingly Lear is banished to the storm, goes mad and sees the truth. Both stories are identical in terms of character arcs and Gloucester and Lear share the same tragic mistake which brings about their eventual doom. The text is loaded with reversals, Lear’s and Gloucester’s clarity through injury or breakdown being two of them; Lear also travels everywhere with a Fool to amuse him, the Fool in his cryptic fashion is the one who sees the truth clearest and can say whatever he likes to Lear without fear of being castigated at the hands of his master. Lear never listens to him, but he consistently speaks the truth. The two plot strands do marry up as the story continues and Edmund begins relationships with both Gonneril and Reagan fuelling sororicidal actions. Also within the text both the characters of Kent and Edgar adopt false persona’s to win over and help Gloucester and Lear, they are outwardly false as they use disguise and deception to achieve their goals, but ironically they are two of the most truthful characters. They shed themselves and consequently their egos which allow them to help those who can not shed their egos.

Brook’s version of King Lear is a fairly full version of the text, relatively little is cut – in fact several key events are accentuated in the film. In the original play for example Edmund convinces Gloucester of Edgar’s betrayal using a forged letter, in the film this is combined with a faked attack and a set-up so that Gloucester hears Edgar speak the words himself. Other scenes which take place off stage in the text including several key character death scenes which are here presented to us on screen. The manner of certain characters deaths are also modified and brutalised, where one character is poisoned off stage, here they have there head cracked against a rock, where another character stabs themselves here they deliberately slam their head into the side of a boulder. Brook’s Lear is relentlessly brutal and all the better for it. Not a film for the Shakespearian purist and not a film for the weak stomached, but for the viewer who enjoys a challenging take on the words of Britain’s greatest export – it doesn’t get much more challenging than this.

M.Dawson