Shakespeare "King Lear"-Kozintsev (1971)- Act 1, scene iv

a clip from the celebrated film version of King Lear by Russian director Grigori Kozintsev. English subtitles. Oleg Dal ... Fool Jüri Järvet ... King Lear Elza Radzina ... Goneril Donatas Banionis ... Albany Vladimir Yemelyanov ... Kent Director: Grigori Kozintsev (1905-1973, this was his last film) and Iosif Shapiro (co-director) adaptation by Kozintsev, and Boris Pasternak translated the Shakespeare text into Russian Original Music by Dmitri Shostakovich Cinematography by Jonas Gritsius--his beautiful camerawork comes thru even in this very average transfer, but the compression here at YouTube ruins much of it....you need to see this on a DVD, in the very least!! Olivier's version of this scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQzDIYdFIy0 Ian Holm's version of this scene here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tURpNRYakMk Ian Johnston of Malaspina-University College, Nanaimo, BC, ends his "Lear" lecture with this: At the presentation of his film, Kozintsev spoke eloquently about how his vision of Lear had been shaped by the experience of the siege of Leningrad, the site of particularly painful and sustained suffering in World War II. And, as I recall, he referred to how a sense of the recuperative powers of humanity, as presented in King Lear, had sustained him during that horrific time. In the light of that, his subsequent comments on the music in the closing moments of his film were particularly significant. And I can think of no better last word for this lecture than the reflections of this wise artist on Shakespeare's most famous fool: Symbols change. The Fool's cap and bells have long since gone out of fashion. Perhaps the Fool's foolery isn't quite what it used to be either? I imagined a paradoxical situation. The Fool is laughed at, not because he is foolish, but because he speaks the truth. He is the one who shams idiocy--no longer a court comedian but an urchin taken from among the most humble. The least significant tells the most mighty that he's a fool because he doesn't know the nature of his own daughters. Everyone laughs--but it is the truth. For these people nothing is funnier than the truth. They roar with laughter at the truth, kick it like a dog, hold it on a leash and make a laughing stock of it--like art under a tyrannical régime. I am reminded of stories about how, in a Nazi concentration camp, an orchestra of prisoners was got together. They were forced to play outside in the compound. They were beaten so that they would play better. This was the origin of the Fool-musician--a boy taken from an orchestra composed of men condemned to death. This was the origin of the particular tone of the film, its voice. In King Lear, the voice of human suffering is accorded more significance than the roar of thunder. Working on the score with Dmitri Shostakovitch, I dismissed the idea of dignified fanfares and the roll of drums. We were carried away by ideas of a completely different kind of instrumentation--the sound of a wooden pipe, which the Fool has made for himself. I'd asked for the film titles to be written on coarse, torn sacking. This linkage of ideas acted as kind of key. Rags, and the soft sound of the pipe--the still voice of suffering. Then, during the battle scenes, a requiem breaks out, then falls silent. And once again the pipe can be heard. Life--a none too easy one--goes on. Its voice in King Lear is a very quiet one, but its sad, human quality sounds distinctly in Shakespeare's work. (from "'Hamlet' and 'King Lear': Stage and Film," in Shakespeare 1971: Proceedings of the World Shakespeare Congress Vancouver, August 1971 [Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1972]: 190-199). Король Лир Korol Lir Григорий Михайлович Козинцев