King Lear: The Play and a Film Version
William Shakespeare's great drama King Lear, tells the story of a father who fails to understand what true filial devotion is and of the devastation wrought by the actions of a man that Shakespeare (896) describes as a sad, foolish old man. One of the interesting aspects of Shakespeare's plays is that they provide filmmakers, including Peter Brooks, with numerous opportunities to deviate from the text while remaining true to its central theme (Saunders, 317). This is precisely what occurs with respect to the characters of Edmund and Edgar in Brooks' 1996 film. This report will answer a series of questions regarding the differences between the play and the film.
The main loss observed in Brook's rendition of Shakespeare's play is that whereas the play emphasizes the relationship between Lear and his daughters, Brooks focuses on the relationship between Gloucester's two sons -- Edmund the bastard and Edgar the legitimate son (Saunders, 318). This did not achieve greater clarity, but did refocus the film on sibling relations rather than on child-parent relations.
The second question is whether anything was added by Brooks to the play. Saunders (318) says that Brooks added many new lines and phrases and in other instances redirected lines attributed by Shakespeare to one character to another character in the film. Brooks also transformed some of Shakespeare's language into more contemporary terms, substituting "planetary influence" for "spherical predominance (Saunders, 320; Shakespeare, 890).
Third, the physical setting used by Brooks was relatively similar to that used by Shakespeare though the film is certainly more modern. Fourth, Edmund and Edgar were played as the text depicted them, but Edmund becomes even more malevolent and Edgar more passive than was the case in the play. Gloucester assumes a greater significance in the film.
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