I was really not looking forward to King Lear. In fact, I'm not really looking forward to any of the tragedies, because well...they're tragic. And yet, they're so undeniably compelling when you begin to watch...
I started off this one with the audiobook again. It turns out Folger Shakespeare Library has not dramatized all of the plays into audiobooks. I hope they change this because Hamlet's audiobook was nearly as good as watching it. So instead, I listened to the version in which Geoffrey Giuliano, Emmy Award nominee played King Lear.
It was terrible. If he read his part well, which I suspect he did, it did not overcome the fact that almost everyone else read their parts in a deadpan. I had only a very rough idea of the story by the end, very rough.
I will say Shakespeare did play a role in this. Edgar and Edmund. Good and bad brother. Oh, alliteration! There's at least three people spouting literal nonsense, sometimes all at once: The Fool, Tom O' Bedlam who it turns out isn't even another character, but Edgar pretending to be insane, and then King Lear, actually going mad. There's too many people giving weird snail metaphors and talking to foot stools for it to make sense until you see it. I think Tom O' Bedlam was a bit generous when he blessed King Lear's "five wits."
I also listened to the Great Courses and the lecture that stood out to me the most was about love. How love may be enough but it may not overcome.
We watched the Anthony Hopkins version which takes place in a militarized modern version of Britain. The Hopkins casting had me leery. He gives me creepy vibes because of Hannibal. But no, he didn't play it like Hannibal speaking Old English.
By the way, I again watched this movie on a small screen and mostly in daylight. What stuck out to me was how dark they made the lighting and then it got progressively darker until it was sepia and then almost black and white.
The character I liked most was Edgar played by Andrew Scott. I silently cheered when I saw him first because I knew he'd do a good job. Also it was easy to like him. He wasn't complex, but he was sincerely good. The kind of character I tend to gravitate to like Horatio in Hamlet. He did an amazing job of playing mad while showing his real emotions. He had the only scene that made me laugh when he showed up in a dress and King Lear says compassionately, madman to madman, I know you think you're wearing Persian attire, but let's get you something else to wear. He had another great scene in which Lear thinks dogs are barking at him and Edgar, fake madman to madman, pretends to shoo them. It was a little funny, but a little touching.
A couple of points of discussion. This is only my second play of Shakespeare's and I am struck by how male his worlds are. And I don't mean that he is misogynist but rather this is a very male perspective we get. It's how I feel when reading male authors where the world feels just a bit unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable. Also, sometimes I can tell that certain scenes were just written for men to enjoy. When the soldiers were whooping and howling during the last fight scene, I thought I know a man or two that would love this movie if they didn't know it was Shakespeare.
The way the movie was made, it gave some very strong interpretations or context to certain ambiguities. Goneril possibly was abused by her father. Both Goneril and Regan started off more just annoyed at having to take care of an older parent and his one hundred guests rather than power hunger, scheming, and conniving. I mean it did quickly descend into a power grab. And Lear's madness as senility rather than that ambiguous "madness" that I discussed in my last post.
Here I am discussing madness again, but I thought it was interesting that Edmund and Lear had parallel egos that were leading them down the paths of their destructions. Lear's ego was almost immediately identified as madness and yet Edmund's wasn't. Why, so? Ultimately, both resulted in poor decisions that led to their deaths. In a way, I am presenting the opposite of what I did in Hamlet. There I said that I needed a clear pathology to explain to me someone's madness. But here, I wonder if there isn't a little madness in ego, vengeance, fragility, jealousy, even humor. The line can sometimes become fine between certifiable and not.
Oh, Missy and I had another discussion about how media, especially government sponsored, is propaganda. I do wonder, you think old James told Shakespeare to write a play in which everyone dies if the king steps down, or Shakespeare took a hint? *takes notes for my future writing aspirations in these interesting times*
The movie lies heavily on me. I had planned on watching Ran, a Japanese version of King Lear, that Missy said was one of the best movies ever made (!!) but I think perhaps, I cannot take that right now. Since I've finished the movie, I've been seeking out my parents and dawdling aimlessly in their vicinity to some odd looks from them.
I've been surprisingly finding a lot of relatability in Shakespeare. A friend shares some crazy in-law story and I think "Gertrude would have done that". The line I've been thinking about in Lear is Edgar's last line:
"The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, and not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long."
Maybe I'm not taking his exact meaning from it, but close enough.
Well after that monster, we're on to Much Ado About Nothing. Missy and I could do with a comedy.
We have not chosen which one yet, but our options are:
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