Grigori Kozintsev, King Lear (USSR, 1971; 132 minutes)

After his Hamlet (1964), it took Kozintsev seven years to direct another film. It would also be his last. His Lear (played by the Estonian Jüri Järvet [1919–1995], who could not speak one word of Russian) has expressive and pleading eyes (perhaps even more so when he is silent), which gives him an air of loss and fragility, possibly more in line with his character than some other versions which underline his regal and wrathful side. There are touches of Kozintsev being interested in a ‘collective tragedy’ (the film has been labelled as giving a ‘socialist interpretation’ to the play), such as the group of limping peasants around Lear’s castle during the opening sequence, or the obvious example of the tearful Fool being kicked by Lear’s retinue (carrying the corpses of Lear, Cordelia, Goneril and Regan) at the end. A more nuanced, less obvious and probably even more subversive account of this ‘socialist’ interpretation may be given by the happy, even tranquil way in which Lear delivers the lines ‘Come, let’s away to prison. / We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage. / […] / so we’ll live, / And pray, and sing, and tell old tales / […] / and we’ll wear out, / In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones / That ebb and flow by th’ moon’ (5.3.8–19) to Cordelia when they are both taken prisoners, under Edmund’s extremely anxious and uncomfortable gaze after his newly achieved (and usurped) power – his angry ‘take them away!’ says it all. Animals are present throughout the film, as if to underline the descent into savagery. There are close-ups of dogs in Lear’s retinue: after Lear departs from his castle; after Edmund betrays Edgar; after Lear departs from Regan and prays not to go mad (in this case, they gnarl, and then the film cuts to howls of wolves during Gloucester’s disturbed sleep); there are barking dogs when Edmund captures Edgar. There are tracking shots of wild animals (wolves, bears, boars on the snow, a pack of wild horses galloping across the windy steppe) before the tempest scene. There are cattle running before the final battle. At the end of the film, we are given a brief peaceful glimpse of seagulls over the sea. All is not well, but ‘the oldest’, who ‘hath borne most’, will now have respite. The exceptional score was, as for Hamlet, composed by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975).

Part of the Medieval Film Club, for more information go to the website.

This screening is open to all and free to attend. No booking required.

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