Peter Brook dressed his characters in animal skins, loaded them into wagons, and set them in a black-and-white, minimalist world. The verse is lopped and hacked rather than merely cut, and it is spoken with a brutality that sometimes seems to smash it into prose. This Lear is expressionist and absurdist, cruel and bleak.
Except for the Fool's songs and some electronic sounds, the film features no music, only harsh human voices.
Sometimes beautiful, sometimes hateful, this production at times reaches the levels of pain that Shakespeare built into the play. However, the bleakness is so uninterrupted that it occasionally becomes boring.
The cast is powerful, with Paul Scofield especially impressive.
Except for the Fool's songs and some electronic sounds, the film features no music, only harsh human voices.
Sometimes beautiful, sometimes hateful, this production at times reaches the levels of pain that Shakespeare built into the play. However, the bleakness is so uninterrupted that it occasionally becomes boring.
The cast is powerful, with Paul Scofield especially impressive.