King Lear
Tags: tragedy, avant garde

Plot synopsis:
King Lear of Britain, elderly and wanting to retire from the duties of the monarchy, decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and declares he will offer the largest share to the one who loves him most. The eldest, Goneril, speaks first, declaring her love for her father in fulsome terms. Moved by her flattery Lear proceeds to grant to Goneril her share as soon as she has finished her declaration, before Regan and Cordelia have a chance to speak. He then awards to Regan her share as soon as she has spoken. When it is finally the turn of his youngest and favorite daughter, Cordelia, at first she refuses to say anything ("Nothing, my Lord") and then declares there is nothing to compare her love to, nor words to properly express it; she speaks honestly but bluntly, which infuriates him. In his anger he disinherits Cordelia and divides her share between Regan and Goneril.
The Earl of Gloucester and the Earl of Kent observe that, by dividing his realm between Goneril and Regan, Lear has awarded his realm in equal shares to the peerages of the Duke of Albany (Goneril's husband) and the Duke of Cornwall (Regan's husband). Kent objects to Lear's unfair treatment of Cordelia; enraged by Kent's protests, Lear banishes him from the country. Lear then summons the Duke of Burgundy and the King of France, who have both proposed marriage to Cordelia. Learning that Cordelia has been disinherited, the Duke of Burgundy withdraws his suit, but the King of France is impressed by her honesty and marries her nonetheless. The King of France is shocked by Lear's decision because up until this time Lear has only praised and favored Cordelia ("That she, women even but now was your best object, the argument of your praise, balm of your age"). Meanwhile, Gloucester has introduced his illegitimate son Edmund to Kent.
Lear announces he will live alternately with Goneril and Regan, and their husbands. He reserves to himself a retinue of one hundred knights, to be supported by his daughters. Goneril and Regan speak privately, revealing that their declarations of love were fake, and that they view Lear as a foolish old man.
Edmund resents his illegitimate status, and plots to dispose of his legitimate older brother Edgar. He tricks their father Gloucester with a forged letter, making him think Edgar plans to usurp the estate. Kent returns from exile in disguise (calling himself Caius), and Lear hires him as a servant. At Albany and Goneril's house, Lear and Kent quarrel with Oswald, Goneril's steward. Lear discovers that now that Goneril has power, she no longer respects him. She orders him to reduce the number of his disorderly retinue. Enraged, Lear departs for Regan's home. The Fool mocks Lear's misfortune.
Edmund learns from Curan, a courtier, that there is likely to be war between Albany and Cornwall, and that Regan and Cornwall are to arrive at Gloucester's house that evening. Taking advantage of the arrival of the duke and Regan, Edmund fakes an attack by Edgar, and Gloucester is completely taken in. He disinherits Edgar and proclaims him an outlaw.
Bearing Lear's message to Regan, Kent meets Oswald again at Gloucester's home, quarrels with him again, and is put in the stocks by Regan and her husband Cornwall. When Lear arrives, he objects to the mistreatment of his messenger, but Regan is as dismissive of her father as Goneril was. Lear is enraged but impotent. Goneril arrives and supports Regan's argument against him. Lear yields completely to his rage. He rushes out into a storm to rant against his ungrateful daughters, accompanied by the mocking Fool. Kent later follows to protect him. Gloucester protests against Lear's mistreatment. With Lear's retinue of a hundred knights dissolved, the only companions he has left are his Fool and Kent. Wandering on the heath after the storm, Edgar, in the guise of a madman named Tom o' Bedlam, meets Lear. Edgar babbles madly while Lear denounces his daughters. Kent leads them all to shelter.
Edmund betrays Gloucester to Cornwall, Regan and Goneril. He reveals evidence that his father knows of an impending French invasion designed to reinstate Lear to the throne; and in fact a French army has landed in Britain. Once Edmund leaves with Goneril to warn Albany about the invasion, Gloucester is arrested, and Regan and Cornwall gouge out Gloucester's eyes. As he is doing so, a servant is overcome with rage by what he is witnessing and attacks Cornwall, mortally wounding him. Regan kills the servant, and tells Gloucester that Edmund betrayed him; then she turns him out to wander the heath too. Edgar, in his madman's guise, meets his blinded father on the heath. Gloucester, not recognising him, begs Tom to lead him to a cliff at Dover so that he may jump to his death.
Goneril discovers that she finds Edmund more attractive than her honest husband Albany, whom she regards as cowardly. Albany has developed a conscience—he is disgusted by the sisters' treatment of Lear, and the mutilation of Gloucester, and denounces his wife. Goneril sends Edmund back to Regan; receiving news of Cornwall's death, she fears her newly widowed sister may steal Edmund and sends him a letter through Oswald. Now alone with Lear, Kent leads him to the French army, which is commanded by Cordelia. But Lear is half-mad and terribly embarrassed by his earlier follies. At Regan's instigation, Albany joins his forces with hers against the French. Goneril's suspicions about Regan's motives are confirmed and returned, as Regan rightly guesses the meaning of her letter and declares to Oswald that she is a more appropriate match for Edmund. Edgar pretends to lead Gloucester to a cliff, then changes his voice and tells Gloucester he has miraculously survived a great fall. Lear appears, by now completely mad. He rants that the whole world is corrupt and runs off.
Oswald appears, still looking for Edmund. On Regan's orders, he tries to kill Gloucester but is killed by Edgar. In Oswald's pocket, Edgar finds Goneril's letter, in which she encourages Edmund to kill her husband and take her as his wife. Kent and Cordelia take charge of Lear, whose madness quickly passes. Regan, Goneril, Albany, and Edmund meet with their forces. Albany insists that they fight the French invaders but not harm Lear or Cordelia. The two sisters lust for Edmund, who has made promises to both. He considers the dilemma and plots the deaths of Albany, Lear, and Cordelia. Edgar gives Goneril's letter to Albany. The armies meet in battle, the British defeat the French, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Edmund sends Lear and Cordelia off with secret-joint orders from him (representing Regan and her forces) and Goneril (representing Albany's) for the execution of Cordelia.
The victorious British leaders meet, and the recently widowed Regan now declares she will marry Edmund. But Albany exposes the intrigues of Edmund and Goneril and proclaims Edmund a traitor. Regan falls ill, having been poisoned by Goneril, and is escorted offstage, where she dies. Edmund defies Albany, who calls for a trial by combat. Edgar appears masked and in armour, and challenges Edmund to a duel. No one knows who he is. Edgar wounds Edmund fatally, though he does not die immediately. Albany confronts Goneril with the letter which was intended to be his death warrant; she flees in shame and rage. Edgar reveals himself, and reports that Gloucester died offstage from the shock and joy of learning that Edgar is alive, after Edgar revealed himself to his father.
Offstage, Goneril, with all her evil plans thwarted, commits suicide. The dying Edmund decides, though he admits it is against his own character, to try to save Lear and Cordelia; however, his confession comes too late. Soon after Albany sends men to countermand Edmund's orders, Lear enters bearing Cordelia's corpse in his arms, having survived by killing the executioner. Kent appears and Lear now recognises him. Albany urges Lear to resume his throne, but like Gloucester, the trials Lear has been through have finally overwhelmed him, and he dies. Albany then asks Kent and Edgar to take charge of the throne. Kent declines, explaining that his master is calling him on a journey. Finally, Albany (in the Quarto version) or Edgar (in the Folio version) implies that he will now become king.

Review: I liked this film quite a lot and I thought it was interesting.
I think it is very innovative and ahead of it's time; it almost seems like a multimedia project more than a film.
It's Godard's own Finnegan's Wake-like dreamscape of the making of a film on the theme of King Lear, beginning with the contract, ending with the editing - a project that apparently turned into a nightmare.
Just as Godard's film about Lausanne, Lettre a Freddie Buache, consists of his refusal to make a film about Lausanne, so King Lear is his refusal to make the Lear required of him, while contract bound to make something.It opens with an actual phonecall from the producer giving Godard a roasting for failing to deliver the film.
The film that follows is Godard's response and is basically a middle finger to the Cannon Group and everyone else, focussing as it does, on the key word in the play: Nothing.In the opening scenes, Norman Mailer and his daughter discuss the King Lear script he has just finished.
It's unclear whether Mailer's actual script was ever going to be used, assuming he wrote one, or why Mailer himself would want to act the part, or why Godard would ever have agreed to make a film written and acted by Norman Mailer.
That's one hell of an opening for a film, leaving us blinking and wondering what is going to happen, or not happen, next.A kind of story pops up.
A descendant of Shakespeare (Peter Sellars) is trying to recreate the Bard's works after all art has been lost in a nuclear catastrophe.
In a Swiss hotel he finds Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald, vaguely recognised as Lear and Cordelia (power and virtue in contest), and from whom he gradually reconstructs the play.
Meanwhile, Sellars is in pursuit of the mad Professor Pluggy (Godard, in a truly bizarre performance) who has crucial knowledge of how images should complement the words.Pluggy's long and solemn thesis on words, images and reality is at the centre of the film.
Their coming together in image form releases the emotive power.
Contrary realities (Lear and Cordelia) don't come together.
Barely understandable on a single viewing - perhaps complete gibberish - yet key to what the film is about: the struggle of the artist to create.At the end, Woody Allen is splicing the film with safety pins while reciting an irrelevant Sonnet - a final swipe at the Americans who clearly should never have messed with Godard in the first place.
Godard is probably my second favorite director (right behind Kitano), and this isn't his first really weird film or anything (I'd go so far as to say all of his films in his unfairly-neglected-but-superior "late period" are quite strange in some way, either in their fractured narrative, or in their hardcore deconstruction of typical movie-making -- "Where's the story?" indeed...).
People usually get interested in this film for its genesis and some of the bizarre happenings in this film (Godard signs a contract on a napkin; Godard recorded telephone conversations with producer and put it in the film, which peeved the producer off; Godard never actually reads past page 3 of King Lear itself; this film was made from like 4 or 5 different aborted scripts cobbled together; a father and daughter sign on to do this movie, do 5 takes or so, and then walk off the set in disgust, all of which is captured in the movie, with a voice-over explaining this; Woody Allen was hired to be in this film and he had no idea what he was doing so he drinks some coffee, puts some safety pins in some film, recites a few verses from the play King Lear and that's about it).Well, it goes far beyond that, as far as strangeness is concerned...
seeing Molly Ringwald in a Godard film is just bizarre, first of all (keep in mind she was HUGE at the time; Pretty In Pink and all that stuff).
I mean, you can barely even tell what he's saying, in English (this is also his only English film from beginning to end!).
Since Godard never actually read King Lear, the film instead asks if King Lear is even an important work of art, if it's even valid a radioactive, post-Chernobyl landscape.
So, the main actor (who actually says the line, "Oh yeah, by the way, my name is William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth." in a comical tone) is "searching" for, uh, something, and he encounters a bunch of crazy characters, in an extremely, EXTREMELY fractured narrative, with scenes ending abruptly, double (sometimes triple) voices of characters constantly on the soundtrack, and pretty much everything crashing, colliding, and being completely out of sequence, out of time, out of tune.
Oh, let's not forget the soundtrack, which is made of slowed-down and electronically-manipulated versions of Beethoven symphonies; also, there is a loud, annoying, seagull sound about every 3 minutes in the movie.Sounds like a disaster, doesn't it?
Well, I gotta say, it's one of the best films -- not just by Godard -- but EVER.
Godard designed the film to fail, but he did so in a way that's really, really interesting, and is actually extremely experimental, especially when you consider that this was designed to be a mainstream film!
Godard himself said he never got page 3 of King Lear, it didn't interest him at all...
he said the film was the first 3 pages of King Lear and the rest of it is him trying to "Get past" the rest of the play.
Which is hilarious, absurd, and reason enough to check it out...A powerful film, misunderstood to be certain, groundbreaking and unconventional in every way, I'd say anyone into Jodorowsky and stuff like that should probably want to seek this out and have their mind blown..
It's interesting that director Jean-Luc Godard flashes up the title card King Lear: Fear and Loathing throughout this film, as he himself appearing on the screen looks like Hunter S.
Upon watching Godard's King Lear the first time, I understood this much - William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth (Peter Sellars) is in the process of writing something for the Cannon Group in a post-Chernobyl mind-f*ck parallel universe, where art and movies are faded memories and where Don Learo (Burgess Meredith) and his daughter Cordelia (Molly Ringwald) talk of separate philosophies and emotional struggles.
And yet there was something about the film that intrigued me, how there was such a height of intellectualism going on from Godard's head to the celluloid that it almost reverberated to ludicrous-ness, so I watched it again, giving it another shot.What King Lear does accomplish, at least up to a point, is that Godard's trying to get inside the mind of a writer (if not himself, which is more than likely the case, then of the spawn of Shakespeare), as he tosses about various ideas and nonsense to pound out a story and characters.
The film also gives some interesting and true improvisation time for an actor like Meredith, and once in a while Godard's Professor Pluggy makes a point of fascination (i.e. the significance of images and emotions).
Godard's basically making a film for himself, delving into themes and stylistic techniques that only he would understand, and since he limits what the audience can latch onto and comprehend of what philosophical goals and meanings he's derived from Shakespeare's classic, it's pretentious more often than not.
The sounds of seagulls are practically inexplicable (unless he's trying to have the POV of the character every time a seagull chirps, which is over-the-line for me), the over-lapping of puzzling Shakespearian-esquire philosophy over some of the dialog is too much to concentrate on and digest, and the way Godard talks he might as well be speaking through a voice box.So, I think that King Lear is a bit of a mess, but for some reason I don't think it's a failure.
It's the kind of mess that only a director like Godard could go for and make his own.
A hack wouldn't even KNOW how to use such weird narrative devices like this man does.
The film could even be of use to be dissected by someone scene-by-scene (although it could perplex someone enough to destroy the videotape their watching and curse Godard for all eternity), and as an experiment of treating Shakespeare it's not the worst in history.
Even Woody Allen (who bookends the end of the film with only minimal Shakespeare dialog and hands amusingly fiddling on the film) must've been scratching his head through most of this.
but if you want to have several insights concerning issues like authorship, patriarchy, literacy, the entertainment industry (hey, this is a Golan-Globus production!), the mafia, crime (anyone read Albert Fried's Rise and fall of the Jewish gangster in America?).....don't miss Godard's King Lear!.
But the second time gelled this movie for me and now I truly love this film.
It's a wonderful brainstorm about the nature of film and the inherent capacity of art to reform itself.
It's one of the weirdest films of all time - It's not just surreal but a tiny bit minimalistic too.
As most of Godards films he's trying new things out.
One of the characters, the one played by Godard actually, mumbles a lot, also in his narrations, this seem to be more of a comic relief after a while but at the opening it can be found as annoying and it seems to be the most criticized part of the film.If you don't object to any of these things and have liked/loved other Godards of the 80's, 90's, you will like/love this.
I mean- it's fine if you want to pick one scene from a play and analyse it for an hour and a half; it's fine if you want to do this in an obscure semi-story way that only become the tiniest bit clear after having watched the whole thing.But when it's constructed as an endurance test, with the director holding the audience in contempt- I mean, why waste your time?
(To the end of making your experience as unpleasant as possible, Godard shows up as a "professor", mumbling unintelligible profundities.
I did think a little about Lear, but more to keep myself occupied than from any theses the film presented.And a caveat to anyone considering seeing this because the IMDB credits list Woody Allen: don't bother; he's only in the flick for a few minutes at the end and barely says anything.To review: avoid.Rating: 3 out of 10 (very poor).
And what does any of this have to do with 'King Lear'?
Most of the great works are lost, and it is up to people like William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth to restore the lost artwork of the human race.
He finds strange goings-on at a resort enough to remind him of all the lines of the play, dealing with mob boss Don Learo and his daughter Cordelia, a strange professor named Jean Luc-Godard, who repeatedly xeroxes his hand for no particular reason.I gave this film a low rating primarily because of the way I saw it, with a low quality of picture and sound.
Oddly, I don't think any people have seen this film, despite the names involved.
You couldn't even use this if you were doing a thesis of King Lear at college because this is faeces.
Not to mention that it has hardly anything to do with the play King Lear.
Quotes and sayings repeated endlessly, terrible seagull sound effects that 1) happen in scenes where there are no seagulls and even scenes when we are indoors 2) happen in scenes when there is other dialogue going on and 3) are so loud that your ears begin to bleed (well, nearly).I went to see this film because 1) I had only seen one other Godard movie Bande à Part (1964) and 2) I am a great Woody Allen fan.
Godard (in my opinion the most over rated director in cinema history) has almost become drunk with power, power gained from years of critics kissing his ass, and now believes he can do no wrong as long as he entertain and excites himself (i.e. masturbation).
Another celluloid masturbator (for want of a better word) is Woody Allen, this shared hobby probably bringing the two together.
But the one difference between these two is this, Woody Allen still has the gift to entertain and excited others as well as himself, whereas Godard lost this gift along long time before King Lear.Now I have wasted enough time talking about this catastrophe.I give it 0 out of 10.P.S. If you want a really good Shakespeare adaptation try Throne of Blood (1957)..
Weird characters and the fact that there's NO-THING really going on made this film interesting for me.
Other people might find this film pointless and totally boring, but for me it's a treasure.
I don't know anything about Shakespeare's 'King Lear' so I can't say if this film has anything to do with the actual play at all.
This is exactly the kind of film that makes you think.
After seeing this film you wonder what did the director want to tell me?
The same goes to another Godard film 'Numero Deux'..
Zen Buddhists think we can have direct contact with the mysterious outside reality--not merely contact with images that those objects helped produced (satori).
Godard is concerned with satori, but he is also concerned with experiencing the projector of the series of still pictures that he is experiencing.
Your mind is working incredibly hard organizing everything you are experiencing 24 times a second.
The incredible amount of organization it takes for you to read this sentence is but a small fraction of what your mind has just done.If a child were very bored with a movie, he might look around and see that it all comes from this light in the back of the room.
If you had no interest in the images thrown up on your private movie screen by the ground of your being, perhaps you too could turn around and experience this projector.
But (Oh no!)they are not innocent, and we get caught up with these images (which together their relationship to other images Kant calls reality); they are like the child who is too interested in the movie to look around.Now it is like choosing the first fruit from a cornucopia.
I had some understanding of the ending this time, so let's start there.
It significance is just that: it's merely in our minds, but it comes from an outside reality that is trying to makes its presence known.
The movie ends with that reminder.The visual image at the end is merely the words: King Lear A Study.
Godard is saying that he has figured out something about King Lear.
But now there might be something that is not a mere image on the looking glass--the mist or stain.
An image is strong (which means that it has greater emotive force) if the association of ideas is distant and true.
When Godard goes back and forth between images that tend to merge into each other, we are relating to them as two dimensional.
Cordelia could not heave her heart into her mouth, but if Lear had been perceptive her silence could have shown him about her inner reality.
He could relate to her inner reality through the representation.It is not Lear's voice that reads the lines at the very end of the film, but the same resonant female voice that is associated with the symbolism of the white horse.
The waves would be the 24 times a second movement that throws itself onto the movie screen.
In a way, this is Jean-Luc Godard"s "Wasteland": in a manner not unlike the T.S. Eliot poem, Godard fills his work with quotes, allusions, and sometimes outright plagiarisms of his favorite works of art, literature, and film, including hommages to Robert Bresson's "Trial of Joan of Arc" and Grigori Kozintsev's "King Lear"; there's even a character named Kozintsev in the movie.
Of the international cast, Molly Ringwald gives a touching performance as Cordelia, conveying much of her character's anguish through body language alone; Burgess Meredith reads Lear's lines with authority, and one wonders how he would have measured up in a more traditional interpretation of the play.
Godard is an experimentalist -- a theorist -- but not a great artist, and it shows here.
Therefore, to expect that his film "King Lear" was a passable film adaptation typical of Shakespeare's tragedy, it is at least the public's total lack of knowledge about the director or incoherence on the part of critics.Although some lines of Shakespeare's play are used in the film, only three characters (Lear, Cordelia, and Edgar) are, so to speak, "presented." King Lear is, without any confessionals, a difficult film, and so it is, if we consider Godard an insane director (in the positive sense), we have in this his visual experiment, the apex of human insanity when questioning art in a new world Of a major nuclear disaster (in reference to the Chernobyl episode).I view Godard's films as a laudable experimentation, which makes it unmistakably unique to each film.
Godard is one of the rare, almost sole director who succeeds in affirming cinema through denial, thus more than presenting or affirming what cinema is, Godard discusses the various possibilities of being and making movies.
And it does this by laughing and mocking the audience, but not in a gratuitous and unnecessary mockery instead, laughter is in front of our lack of care in assimilating the narratives of a film, seeking understanding and logic for everything, including in art, that historically sought Always breaking with the conventional, taking into account the very incoherence that is humanity and its disastrous way of living.