King Lear -- Kozintsev (1971)

Korol Lir -- Grigori Kozintsev & Iosif Shapiro (1971)



AKA King Lear



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Spoken language: Russian

English subs (idx/sub)

Original rip from Karagarga (igorert)



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Script: Grigori Kozintsev & Boris Pasternak

From the play by W. Shakespeare

Camera: Jonas Gritsius

Original Music: Dimitri Shostakovitch



Cast

Jüri Järvet ... King Lear (as Yuri Yarvet)

Elza Radzina ... Goneril (as E. Radzina)

Galina Volchek ... Regan (as G. Volchek)

Valentina Shendrikova ... Cordelia (as V. Shendrikova)

Oleg Dal ... Fool (as O. Dal)

Karl Sebris ... Glocester (as K. Sebris)

Leonhard Merzin ... Edgar (as L. Merzin)

Regimantas Adomaitis ... Edmund (as R. Adomaytis)

Vladimir Yemelyanov ... Kent (as V. Yemelyanov)

Aleksandr Vokach ... Cornwall (as A. Vokach)

Donatas Banionis ... Albany (as D. Banionis)

Aleksei Petrenko ... Oswald (as A. Petrenko)

Juozas Budraitis ... King of France (as I. Budraytis)



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SOME OPINIONS FROM IMDB

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Shakespeare's plays are difficult to realize on stage or on

film. Reading through his plays, one gets the impression that they are

greater than they can ever be performed. But there are those few

productions that hit the mark and do his works justice. So it is with

Korol Lir (King Lear), Grigori Kozintsev's final film.



In 1964, Kozintsev's Hamlet was released and earned high praise both

in Russia and the West. As a consequence, Kozintsev was invited to and

attended many western film festivals including Cannes. Kozintsev

cherished these trips to the west as he was able to see many films

that were not shown in the Soviet Union. He was particularly eager to

see the films of Kurosawa, Ford, Capra and Fellini. But it was the

films of Orson Welles, Citizen Kane in particular, that made the

deepest impression on him. In fact it was Citizen Kane that inspired

Kozintsev to film King Lear in black-and-white rather than in color.



There are so many wonderful touches in this film starting with Yuri

Yarvets' harrowing portrayal of the mad Lear. His Lear always leaves

me feeling crushed at the end of the film. Superb as well is the

eerie, haunting performance of Galina Volchek as Regan and the

outstanding cinematography of Jonas Gritsius. Of course there is also

the translation used which is itself a masterpiece, by Boris Pasternak

no less (the fool's songs were performed with translations by Samuil

Marshak however). Dmitri Shostakovich's score is exactly what you

would expect: genius. Here is no simple sonic wallpaper to play along

as images move about the screen. Neither does this dark score

overwhelm the on-screen action but rather acts as a wordless narrator,

commenting on the drama as it unfolds. At the heart of all this is

Kozintsev's bleak and powerful vision of King Lear. There are no

gimmicks here, no attempts to "update", no trace of the portentousness

and pomposity that mars many films based on Shakespeare. Here, the

tragedy is revealed with a brutal and simple honesty. It is not only

Lear and those around him who suffer but his whole nation suffers and

decays alongside him. Seeing this film from first to final scene is a

draining emotional experience (IMDB theelegantdandyfop).



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This version of King Lear is an incredible achievement due to the

masterful adaptation from the Shakespeare original by one of the best

Russian poets, writers, and translators of the last century, Boris

Pasternak; elegant and powerful images by the cinematographer Jonas

Gritsius (he also worked with Grigori Kozintsev on the earlier

Shakespeare's adaptation, "Hamlet", 1964), the music of Dimity

Shostakovich, and the great performances from all actors.



Estonian actor Jüri Järvet is masterful as the mad king in a

performance which is reminiscent of Kinski as another brilliant madman

- Aguirre. They were even the same age when they played Aguirre and

Lear. The whole cast is amazing: Kozintsev chose the best actors

possible for his project and everyone delivers. I'd like to mention

Oleg Dal as the touching Fool; Karl Sebris as the Duke of Gloucester,

whose scenes with his son Edgar after having been blinded are very

moving; Regimantas Adomaitis as Edmund, a treacherous son and brother

but a brilliant man; and Donatas Banionis (who played the main

character in Tarkovsky's Solaris) as an intelligent and noble

Albany. But like I said, everyone and everything is just perfect in

this little known but IMO, the Best adaptation of the beloved and one

of the most wrenching tragedies in the English and in the world

literature (IMDB Galina)



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Black and white cinematography of Gritsius, the music of Shostakovich

and the enigmatic face of Jarvet, make all other versions of King Lear

smaller in stature. Lord Olivier himself acknowledged the stark

brilliance of this film. Oleg Dal's fool lends a fascinating twist to

the character. The "Christian Marxism" of Kozintsev can knock-out any

serious student of cinema and Shakespeare.



Kozintsev is one of least sung masters of Russian cinema. His cinema

is very close to that of Tarkovsky and Sergei Paradjanov. Kozintsev's

Lear is not a Lear that mourns his past and his daughters--his Lear is

close to the soil, the plants, and all elements of nature. That's what

makes Kozintsev's Shakespearean works outstanding (IMDB Jugu Abraham)



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SPECS



File Name .............: Korol.Lir..Kozintsev.*.avi (*=1,2)

File Size (in bytes) ..: 1,012,027,930/1,061,963,854 bytes

Runtime (# of frames) .: 1:06:52/1:04:56 (100280/97386 frames)



Video Codec ...........: XviD 1.0 RC4 (Hola)

Frame Size ............: 704x304 [=2.316]

FPS ...................: 25.000

Video Bitrate .........: 1880/2043 kb/s

Bits per Pixel ........: 0.351/0.382 bpp

B-VOP, N-VOP, QPel, GMC ......: [B-VOP]...[]...[]...[]



Audio Codec ...........: 0x0055 MPEG-1 Layer 3

Sample Rate ...........: 48000 Hz

Audio bitrate .........: 128 kb/s [2 channel(s)] CBR audio

Interleave ............: 40 ms

No. of audio streams ..: 1



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