potentiality_26 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
potentiality_26) wrote2019-06-24 10:04 am
potentiality_26) wrote2019-06-24 10:04 am
Entry tags:
King Lear
King Lear is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, and I approached the Amazon prime adaptation gingerly, and it was definitely... a mixed bag.
So I guess it's my thing right now to say that I wish actors I like could have had bigger parts, but I wish Tobias Menzies could have had a bigger part. That diction, man. And the cast was (mostly) great. I confess I did not love Andrew Scott as Edgar. I enjoy him when he's playing a "normal" person, but as soon as he has to be all CRAZY it's screechy and ungood and I don't care for it.
But on to larger issues:
Lindsey Ellis did a video essay on The Phantom of the Opera where she talked about how modern cinema has a problem adapting musicals because the current style of hyper-realism doesn't quite jive with people bursting into song every five minutes. I think there's a similar problem happening with Shakespeare. You can slap a modern-ish face on it if you want, but it isn't going to solve your "people have trouble following Shakespeare" problem, because Elizabethan dress was never why people had trouble following Shakespeare. I hate to speak well of Titus because I have such a complicated relationship with that movie, but I do think a mishmash of different periods and styles might be the most effective way to do the tragedies. The comedies are just much easier to stage in modern day.
King Lear has a lot of people going from zero to a hundred real fast, which just makes them all look like monsters in the hyper-realistic context the film was going for. (And again, Tobias Menzies was there making it work for him. Possibly because Outlander either convinced me as a viewer or him as an actor that he's capable of anything.
And speaking of Tobias Menzies I've started watching The Terror and holy shit it's good. It's so good.)
Anyway back to King Lear.
The disconnect between that ultra-serious modern-ish setting and that blood-bath of a plot is a relatively minor problem at first but it gets progressively worse as the film goes. And something really gives in the scene where Gloucester loses his eyes. Since that's also where you lose Tobias Menzies, it's really tragic.
(Also, did I just miss it, or did they cut the part where a messenger tells Albany what happened? Because it's important for two reasons. One, it prepares you for Albany turning out to be team Lear in the end, and two it... you know... explains that Cornwall died? I spent the rest of the movie knowing intellectually that he was dead but also thinking maybe he wasn't dead. Like sure he's been stabbed but he also seems healthy as a horse the last time you see him. Having Regan not help him stand up makes sense for her from a character perspective, but the fact that he's strong enough to chase after her really undermines the theory that he's about to die. I kept imagining him, having been stitched up by some doctor, waking up a few days after everything goes down just like "uh, what???"
But I was pleased to see Anthony Calf, with his well-honed tired boss aesthetic, turn out to be the MVP.
And as much as I love a good "protagonist/viewpoint character is wrong about who the villains are" plotline, there's something so compelling about how, at least before the story starts, Lear absolutely knows who his friends are. Gloucester too, though he could be said to have created his own monster with his treatment of his sons. Gloucester and Kent are Lear's closest advisors, and they stay loyal. Edmund was always at a distance while Edgar was favored. Lear liked Albany better than Cornwall. And Cordelia was his favorite child. It's all so obvious, and that's the tragedy of it. Watching old age, mental illness, and bad influences conspire to completely lead astray people who absolutely know what's right.)
And boy does this movie falter at the end. The tanks and explosions are silly. The final fight between Edgar and Edmond is silly. (I mean, seriously? What is that, a ski mask? This whole story is full of people not being recognized by people who should totally recognize them. Kent's disguise is shaving off his mustache, and sure Lear's senile but why didn't literally anyone else recognize him? Edgar's own father can't recognize his voice! A gazillion other people don't recognize him just because he has a dress on. Which... why? And we accepted all of this because it's Shakespeare and that's what you do. Don't undermine it by suggesting that actually masks are super necessary at this late stage. Edgar, distressed after Gloucester's death, rubs mud on his face and later people aren't sure who he is. Boom. Not hard. Also in a modern setting this needs to be a knife fight. The boxing thing is, say it with me, SILLY. Edmund's death is SILLY) All the people dying off screen is silly. This medium can accommodate those deaths. Stage them without dialogue and some dramatic music. I say again, not hard.
Also, while I know Slings & Arrows has the distinct advantage of only dramatizing the parts of the play it wants to, I generally found William Hutt's acting choices better than Anthony Hopkins'. Especially at the end. There's different interpretations, and then correct choices and not correct choices. Just saying the word "howl" at people is not the correct choice.
Final Assessment: shaky but good in the first half; silly, silly ending.
I will carry on waiting for a good King Lear.
So I guess it's my thing right now to say that I wish actors I like could have had bigger parts, but I wish Tobias Menzies could have had a bigger part. That diction, man. And the cast was (mostly) great. I confess I did not love Andrew Scott as Edgar. I enjoy him when he's playing a "normal" person, but as soon as he has to be all CRAZY it's screechy and ungood and I don't care for it.
But on to larger issues:
Lindsey Ellis did a video essay on The Phantom of the Opera where she talked about how modern cinema has a problem adapting musicals because the current style of hyper-realism doesn't quite jive with people bursting into song every five minutes. I think there's a similar problem happening with Shakespeare. You can slap a modern-ish face on it if you want, but it isn't going to solve your "people have trouble following Shakespeare" problem, because Elizabethan dress was never why people had trouble following Shakespeare. I hate to speak well of Titus because I have such a complicated relationship with that movie, but I do think a mishmash of different periods and styles might be the most effective way to do the tragedies. The comedies are just much easier to stage in modern day.
King Lear has a lot of people going from zero to a hundred real fast, which just makes them all look like monsters in the hyper-realistic context the film was going for. (And again, Tobias Menzies was there making it work for him. Possibly because Outlander either convinced me as a viewer or him as an actor that he's capable of anything.
And speaking of Tobias Menzies I've started watching The Terror and holy shit it's good. It's so good.)
Anyway back to King Lear.
The disconnect between that ultra-serious modern-ish setting and that blood-bath of a plot is a relatively minor problem at first but it gets progressively worse as the film goes. And something really gives in the scene where Gloucester loses his eyes. Since that's also where you lose Tobias Menzies, it's really tragic.
(Also, did I just miss it, or did they cut the part where a messenger tells Albany what happened? Because it's important for two reasons. One, it prepares you for Albany turning out to be team Lear in the end, and two it... you know... explains that Cornwall died? I spent the rest of the movie knowing intellectually that he was dead but also thinking maybe he wasn't dead. Like sure he's been stabbed but he also seems healthy as a horse the last time you see him. Having Regan not help him stand up makes sense for her from a character perspective, but the fact that he's strong enough to chase after her really undermines the theory that he's about to die. I kept imagining him, having been stitched up by some doctor, waking up a few days after everything goes down just like "uh, what???"
But I was pleased to see Anthony Calf, with his well-honed tired boss aesthetic, turn out to be the MVP.
And as much as I love a good "protagonist/viewpoint character is wrong about who the villains are" plotline, there's something so compelling about how, at least before the story starts, Lear absolutely knows who his friends are. Gloucester too, though he could be said to have created his own monster with his treatment of his sons. Gloucester and Kent are Lear's closest advisors, and they stay loyal. Edmund was always at a distance while Edgar was favored. Lear liked Albany better than Cornwall. And Cordelia was his favorite child. It's all so obvious, and that's the tragedy of it. Watching old age, mental illness, and bad influences conspire to completely lead astray people who absolutely know what's right.)
And boy does this movie falter at the end. The tanks and explosions are silly. The final fight between Edgar and Edmond is silly. (I mean, seriously? What is that, a ski mask? This whole story is full of people not being recognized by people who should totally recognize them. Kent's disguise is shaving off his mustache, and sure Lear's senile but why didn't literally anyone else recognize him? Edgar's own father can't recognize his voice! A gazillion other people don't recognize him just because he has a dress on. Which... why? And we accepted all of this because it's Shakespeare and that's what you do. Don't undermine it by suggesting that actually masks are super necessary at this late stage. Edgar, distressed after Gloucester's death, rubs mud on his face and later people aren't sure who he is. Boom. Not hard. Also in a modern setting this needs to be a knife fight. The boxing thing is, say it with me, SILLY. Edmund's death is SILLY) All the people dying off screen is silly. This medium can accommodate those deaths. Stage them without dialogue and some dramatic music. I say again, not hard.
Also, while I know Slings & Arrows has the distinct advantage of only dramatizing the parts of the play it wants to, I generally found William Hutt's acting choices better than Anthony Hopkins'. Especially at the end. There's different interpretations, and then correct choices and not correct choices. Just saying the word "howl" at people is not the correct choice.
Final Assessment: shaky but good in the first half; silly, silly ending.
I will carry on waiting for a good King Lear.