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24 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the Finest Films Ever Made, 26 July 2005
10/10
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.

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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Little Known Masterpiece, 7 October 2004
10/10
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.

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16 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
A finer version than that of Laurence Olivier!, 1 September 2000
10/10
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.

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11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Assured and deeply moving treatment of Lear, 5 April 2001
10/10
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

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8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
powerful visual experience, 10 December 2006
10/10
Author: tsf-1962 from United States

*** This comment 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.

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8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
A brilliant, harrowing adaptation., 22 October 2006
10/10
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.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best cinematic interpretations, 15 March 2009
9/10
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.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
marvelous feast for the eyes and intellect, 28 March 2008
10/10
Author: Oslo Jargo (osloj@yahoo.com) from FINLAND

*** This comment 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.

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Admirably Soviet, 28 August 2008
10/10
Author: Dr Jacques COULARDEAU from Olliergues, France

*** This comment 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

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6 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best Shakespeare's filmings, 18 October 2002
10/10
Author: Alex Goldstein (alex-149) from Atlanta

This is one of rare Shakespeare's filmings, where "filming" doesn't sound as a common noun. Of course Kozintsev is one of the greatest Russian director's, but Jarvet is just genious in his phylosophical interpretation.

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