Shakespeare: Mothers, Monarchs and Murders in Shakespeare’s Drama & Film Adaptations
William Shakespeare, King Lear
William Shakespeare, King Lear
“Nothing will come of nothing: speak again” (I.i.92)
It is likely that Shakespeare wrote King Lear in 1605 or 1606. It was performed at court in 1606, and published in 1608 as a quarto, and in 1623 in the Folio. Shakespeare used the legendary story of the British king Leir – from a time of pre-Christian British history. This story can be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s medieval History of the British Kings (first pub. 1138). Shakespeare’s sources include an anonymous play, The True Chronicle History of King Leir, Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and The Mirror for Magistrates.
Girgori Kozintsev, Korol Lir (1971)
In December 1921 Kozintsev, with Leonid Trauberg and Sergei Yutkevitch, formed The Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS). Their manifesto proclaimed a new direction within the avant-garde somewhere between Futurism, Surrealism and Dada.
Kozintsev (Ukranian by birth) used a Russian translation of King Lear by Nobel Laureate, Boris Pasternak (author of Doctor Zhivago) and an original score by Dmitri Shostakovich. The actors were all of Baltic origin.
In December 1921 Kozintsev, with Leonid Trauberg and Sergei Yutkevitch, formed The Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS). Their manifesto proclaimed a new direction within the avant-garde somewhere between Futurism, Surrealism and Dada.
Kozintsev (Ukranian by birth) used a Russian translation of King Lear by Nobel Laureate, Boris Pasternak (author of Doctor Zhivago) and an original score by Dmitri Shostakovich. The actors were all of Baltic origin.
Seminar Questions:
How does Kozintsev’s Korol Lir use the music of Shostakovich to express emotion? How does the landscape tie into this expression?
In his book, King Lear, the Space of Tragedy, Kozintsev explores the relation between film-making and art. In what way(s) is his Konig Lir more an expression of individual art than an adaptation of Shakespeare’s text?
Kozintsev’s Lir evades a Marxists political viewing and instead focuses on the eternal question on the nature of evil. Discuss.
How, if at all, do social, industrial, and/or intellectual problems shape Korol Lir?
Kozintsev’s Korol Lir adds emphasis on nature in this film (taking his cue from Pasternak’s translation). How does Nature come to the fore as both a visual and aural force?
What is the significance of the final shot with the Fool?
Bibliography:
Catania, Saviour. “ ‘Darkness rumbling:’ Kozintsev’s Karol Lier and the visual acoustics of nothing.” Literature-Film Quarterly, April 1, 2008.
Kozintsev, Grigori. Shakespeare: Time and Conscience , New York, 1966. (In the U of W library)
- - -. King Lear: The Space of Tragedy, Berkeley, California, 1977.
- - -. King Lear: The Space of Tragedy, Berkeley, California, 1977.
Barteneva, Yevgeniya, “One Day with King Lear.” Soviet Film (Moscow), no. 9, 1969.
Berghaus, Günter. International futurism in arts and literature. Walter de Gruyter: Berlin, 2000.
Kolocotroni, Vassiliki, Jane Goldman, and Olga Taxidou eds. Modernism: an anthology of sources and documents. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. (reprints a section of the FEKS manifesto).
Gillespie, D., 2005. Adapting Foreign Classics: Kozintsev's Shakespeare. In: Hutchings, S. and Vernitski, A., eds. Russian and Soviet Film Adaptations of Literature, 1900-2001: Screening the Word. Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon, 75--88.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “ ‘Is This the Promised End?’: The Tragedy of King Lear.” Originally published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Fall 1974. Reprinted: http://usf.usfca.edu/fac_staff/southerr/lear.html.
Robinson, David, “Grigori Kozintsev, 1905–1973.” Sight and Sound (London), Summer 1973.
Schneider, Ben Ross, Jr. “King Lear in Its Own Time: The Difference that Death Makes.” Early Modern Literary Studies 1.1 (1995): 3.1-49 http://purl.oclc.org/emls/01-1/schnlear.html>.
Schwehn, Mark R. “King Lear Beyond Reason: Love and Justice in the Family.” First Things 36 (October 1993): 25-33. http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9310/articles/schwehn.html
Tsikounas, M., and Leonid Trauberg, “La Nouvelle Babylone” in Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), 1 December 1978.
Yutkevitch, Sergei, “The Conscience of the King.” Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1971.
Some film reviews/interviews: “Director of the Year,” in International Film Guide 1972 , London, 1971; “Grigori Kozintsev,” in Film Dope (London), January 1985; “A Meeting with Grigori Kozintsev.” in Film (London), Autumn 1967.
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