King Lear has been interpreted over its 400 year history with greater variety than any other play from Shakespeare. Described alternately as Shakespeare’s “Everest”, and his deepest plunge into the human soul, there is no intrinsic, coherent view of the play’s meaning. In attempting to stage King Lear, a director must decide at least three things: to emphasize the spectacle of Lear’s behavior, or his state of mind; how to characterize the changes in Lear’s state of mind as the play progresses; and how to portray Lear’s condition in the context of the human spirit —hopeful, or hopeless? Meaningful, or meaningless? Known or unknown? Should the 80 year-old king be be portrayed as majestic, yet enraged (as opposed to mad); childish and mad; or enfeebled by age to the point of senility; or somewhere in between?
Trevor Nunn chooses the last of these alternatives. This helps to makes sense of the play’s opening scenes, but it creates the most difficult task for the actor; Lear has to be clear and quite rational at crucial moments, he must develop and change, and he must in the end be responsible for what he says and does. On the human spirit Nunn chose a kind of agnosticism, symbolized most graphically by Edgar’s plea to heaven at the end, which goes unanswered. (The film cuts Edgar’s line, “the gods are just.”) But it is less a declaration of hopelessness than a suspicion. Nunn steers clear of both the unmitigated darkness of Peter Brook’s 1971 film version and the of the virtual beatitude ending Olivier’s 1985 film version. But he also avoids the hope of rebuilding the world one feels at the end of Kozintsev’s 1971 Russian film. The bodies pulled into the mist ending Ian Holm’s 1998 film create an impression much like Nunn’s, but Holm’s Lear is radically different from McKellen’s. Fortunately, we have all these films to see, each rewarding, each expanding our own sense of the play’s many possibilities. To this library we can only welcome Nunn’s prodigious effort.
Nunn’s film production departs considerably from his stage production, particularly the one at Stratford-on-Avon. The latter created a considerable degree of spectacle, including half the side-rear wall crashing down mid way through. The film is comparatively quiet. It is played with backgrounds dissolved in darkness until the beginning of Act IV when we see Gloucester, blinded, wandering towards Dover; suddenly the sky is bright and blank, the ground visible. Between this and persistent close-ups, the film loses a sense of spectacle but gains a sense of chiseled psychological space. While the film has cut at least a thousand lines from the full play, it has taken them from longer speeches, retaining all but one of the scenes, and all of the relevant action. (See the comparison of the play’s full text and that of the film for comparison. The British release of the film is half an hour longer, but still a good hour short of the play with every word.)
The minimal sets and costuming reflect a number of periods, hence no period at all (guns appear from time to time amidst the candles and suggestions of a pre-Christian era). The film does retain Nunn’s most shocking innovation relative to Shakespeare (not to be disclosed here). And to remove any curiosity about the film’s most publicized but least interesting possibility, McKellen does appear to undress completely, but the film cuts him off at the waist; there is no spectacle here. For those fond of Waiting for Godot, look for the tree—the connection must be intended.
Finally, without giving a real review of the film until it has been broadcast on 25 March, it can be said that this film works, and any film of King Lear that works is a great film.
There are presently ten film versions of King Lear on DVD. Each is worthwhile, but each differs from the others, at times considerably. For a first film, one should not choose Orson Wells or Paul Scofield. Rather, one should see Ian Holm or Lawrence Olivier. However, after the first taste, one should see the Kozintsev Russian version, Scofield (really Peter Brook) in the darkest version, and Orson Wells (also directed by Brook) in a radically abbreviated version, but with the words spoken like no other.
Note that the McKellen version will likely be released in DVD this year. Next year Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino will release their versions of King Lear for theaters, both in performances that begin life as screen plays, not stage plays.
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