This film is an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear

_____________________________________________________________

"Tone and text are interwoven with an artist's eye and a poet's ear….a strong contender for the greatest adaptation of Shakespeare's greatest play" -- Film4

_______________________________________________

+ Discussion

The film will be introduced by lecturers in English literature from Northumbria University, specialists in Shakespeare, and they will also stay for a discussion with the audience after the screening.

_____________________________________________________________

King Lear from the Soviet Union

Set in a frozen Baltic landscape, this depiction of social and family breakdown is rendered in oppressively dark visual textures that reflect Kozinstev’s Soviet political context, film-making behind the Iron Curtain.

Expect crowd scenes, alienation, incredible music from Shostakovich, and images of nature’s (and man’s) brutality.

_____________________________________________________________

REVIEWS

"Tone and text are interwoven with an artist's eye and a poet's ear….a strong contender for the greatest adaptation of Shakespeare's greatest play" -- Film4

"A commanding title performance by Estonian actor Yuri Yarvet, some striking landscape imagery, and Dmitri Shostakovich's anguished score help make for a spirited adaptation" – BBC

“Black and white cinematography of Gritsius, the music of Shostakovich and the enigmatic face of Jarvet, makes all other versions of King Lear smaller in stature. Don't miss this little known classic.” – LEARN MEDIA

http://www.learmedia.ca/product_info.php/products_id/29

“King Lear was Kozintsev’s last film, and as a meditation on the tragedy of age and wisdom, it’s a moving, accomplished example of cultural transposition.” – Blog Film Journey

http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2004/07/15/kozintsevs-king-lear/

_____________________________________________________________

GREAT CAMERA WORK

“But Kozintsev and cinematographer Jonas Gritsius’ imagery is the main star of the film, the constantly moving camera, deep compositions, and windswept landscapes providing an acutely vivid milieu accentuated by Yenej’s sets and location work (towering castles, shadowy chambers, crowded villages, and hay-strewn barns).

Kozintsev favors reverse tracking shots preceding characters as they stride through the chaotic settings of warring factions and politically-charged interior spaces, and the film’s sense of place offers more than eye candy.”

http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2004/07/15/kozintsevs-king-lear/

Beautiful Black & White

“Kozintsev's Lear is filmed in black and white and set in a stark landscape of windswept moors and marshes, bare castles and wandering beggars. Kozintsev, a master Russian director and contemporary of Eisenstein, who had been making experimental films during the 1920s, assembled a cast of great actors for the project.”

http://www.learmedia.ca/product_info.php/products_id/29

_____________________________________________________________

“Characters linked to nature” says the director

Director Kozintsev says about the film: “When Lear goes mad at the beginning of the storm scene, this is the beginning of an absolutely new relationship with nature. I try to illustrate with this landscape a country which is not bare, not cruel. I try to show Lear himself as a part of nature, in a field of flowers.

His hair spreads like moss, the grey hair of nature. Once man is seen as a part of nature, the movement towards regeneration can begin. Cordelia too has her own landscape–sea and a very wide landscape–with waves and seagulls.

All the important characters have their own atmosphere and there are relationships not just on the level of character but between different aspects of nature.”

Kozintsev in 1973 quoted here http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2004/07/15/kozintsevs-king-lear/

_____________________________________________________________

MUSIC FROM SHOSTAKOVICH

“Another standout feature of the film is the stark and melancholy score by Shostakovich. “I’ve been working with Shostakovich all my life,” Kozintsev remarked, “and I think his understanding of the whole tragic and grotesque imagery in Shakespeare is perfect. And in King Lear I didn’t use just dignifying fanfares and drum-rolls.

There is also the voice of suffering. I love the pipe music he composed for the Fool. I think this is a real voice of Shakespeare and I’m very grateful to Shostakovich. When I hear Shostakovich’s music I think I’ve heard Shakespeare’s verse.”

http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2004/07/15/kozintsevs-king-lear/

_____________________________________________________________

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: GRIGORI KOZINTSEV (1905 -1973)

“Kozintsev was one of the adventurous pioneers of Soviet cinema”

http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2004/07/15/kozintsevs-king-lear/

Grigori Mikhaylovich Kozintsev was a Jewish Ukrainian, Soviet Russian theatre and film director.

He studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts. As a theatre director he was part of Eccentricism, a modernist avant garde movement that spanned Russian futurism and constructivism, which included the theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold and Sergei Eisenstein.

He began making films in 1921. His silent features, including The Overcoat (1926) and The New Babylon (1929), had a ring of Expressionism, while the early sound film Alone (1931) used experimental montage sound techniques.

Kozintsev is most renowned by his adaptations of William Shakespeare (King Lear and Hamlet) and Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

ALTERNATIVE SHAKESPEARE FILM FESTIVAL (17 June - 5 Juy)