Week 11: King Lear (BBC Production 1982)



King Lear poster & movie trailer link



While I can appreciate and applaud the actor’s abilities to memorise the Bard’s poetry and perform it scene by scene with no mistakes, I missed the modern day filmic rendering’s use of music and settings. This production was filmed as it would have been seen by the original Elizabethan audiences on stage. Sparse set designs, historically accurate costumes, and a complicated play that really relied only on the words of the script to tell the story. It was confusing for me, and very complicated. The contrast of the Gloucester sub-plot was clever.

Vanity:

King Lear is vane. Deciding to step down from the throne and divide the kingdom between his three daughters, he arranges a love test between his three daughters,asking each to tell him how mush she lobes him. Th first two daughters barrge the king with flattery.

Leadership/power:

King Lear enjoys the power of commanding the people below him. He commands his daughters to tell him how much they love him, commands the banishment of his third daughter and a loyal subject, commands dinner on the table after a day of hunting. However he so easily gives up his responsibilities to his country to his scheming daughters, only to regret it later when they no longer follow his commands.

Ambition:

·         Edmund is dissatisfied with the attitude toward bastard children, and that they cannot claim estates from the family as an heir. He plots an elaborate scheme in order to discredit his legitimate half brother and stand to inherit his father’s estate. Also enters an affair with the married Regan, now queen of half the realm, in an effort to obtain more power.

·         Regan and Goneril, even with full control over the kingdom, still plot to damage the reputation of the rule of their father by claiming Lear is unreliable in his old age..

Loyalty and betrayal:

Edgar is loyal to his father Gloucester.

Edmund betrays Edgar by framing him.

Cordelia is loyal to King Lear, King Lear betrays Cordelia.

King of France is loyal to Cordelia and marries her

King Lear betrays Kent and banishes him.

Kent & The Fool are loyal to King Lear, following him.

Discussion Question: Our first impression of Lear is of a grumpy old man grown tired of being in charge: ''tis our fast intent/ To shake all cares and business from our age; /Conferring them on younger strengths, while we/ Unburden'd crawl toward death' (I, i, 35-37). Were Lear's intentions so unreasonable? Was there anything he had forgotten?

It is not unreasonable for an aging man to want to retire. I believe his intentions were good, he wanted to divide the kingdom up evenly between his daughters and spend his remaining days visiting them at their homes and enjoying life. What was unreasonable was his estimate of his conniving daughter’s honesty and love to him. He did not see that they were conspiring against him until it was too late to do anything about it.

What he had forgotten was his love of power. Giving up his kingdom meant giving up his power. He cannot command anyone to do his biddings, and he cannot even command his daughters as a father, as they do not respect him.

What he also did not take into consideration is if he was ready to give it all up. His weird retirement plan was a sound idea, however, just because people tell you you’re old and senile does not mean that you are. I believe it was the constant referral to this, and King Lear’s fear of it, that lead him to his senility.