Lear, monarch of ancient Britain, divides his kingdom between his daughters, but banishes his youngest and favorite, Cordelia. The two remaining daughters, Goneril and Regan, quickly tire of him and eventually drive him out into a storm where he loses his mind. Similarly, the Earl of Gloucester's illegitimate son Edmund manages the disinheritance of his honest and true half-brother Edgar, who joins the mad king along with his faithful servant the Earl of Kent and his fool on the moor. The great British stage director Peter Brook filmed his version of Shakespeare's massive tragedy as if Samuel Beckett and Ingmar Bergman were collaborating behind the camera: It has a pared down and cold feel, shot in stark black and white, with huge closeups of faces rather than majestic landscapes and castles. (Some of the location shooting occurred in Denmark.) It's a bleak 137 minutes, but powerful for all of that. Great British stage actors fill the roles: for example, Scofield as Lear (best known to film buffs as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 "A Man for All Seasons"), and Magee as Cornwall, the villainous husband of Regan (the liberal writer Mr. Alexander, whose wife is raped by the droogs and who ultimately gets his revenge on Alex in "A Clockwork Orange").
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
