Above the Language Barrier

GRIGORY KOZINTSEV'S 1971 screen version of King Lear is living, breathing evidence of the schoolroom adage that Shakespeare's plays were meant to be seen and not read. With the familiar sounds of Cordelia's solemn "nothing, my lord," and Lear's famous tirade "Blow, winds, blow," translated into Russian, much of the play's impact depends on the actors' ability to reinforce their foreign words with physical gestures, tones of voice, facial expressions and other universally understood signs. And it is greatly to director Kotzintsev's credit that the play's primordial, elemental power is strengthened--not diluted--by this process.

The movie begins with a closeup of feet--bare feet, mud-covered feet, crippled feet--in short, feet in their most humble form. It then expands to show a procession of peasants trudging across a barren, almost lunar landscape of huge rocks and cracked terrain. Immediately we see that we have entered the surreal, prehistoric kingdom of Shakespeare's Lear. The next shot shows Lear's huge, imposing castle which rises suddenly and rather unnaturally out of the ground, dwarfing the peasants who in comparison look like a bunch of ants swarming on an anthill. Heightened by the effective use of Dmitry Shostakovich's operatic score, the feeling of impending doom is made clear even before a word of the script has been said.

Kozintsev's bold direction and swift timing are perfectly suited to the play's central image of the "unaccomodated man" who ultimately, all alone, must confront the basic elements of nature and his soul. The play has been cut down, leaving only those scenes which further the plot's course of destruction. For example, the fool's part is shorn of its lighter scenes, leaving only the bitter social commentary. Thus the movie presents a Lear of pure and seemingly inevitable tragedy.

One of the most satisfying aspects of the movie is the physical appearance of the actors, each of whom seems to be the archetype of his role. After seeing the unbelievably bovine face of Regan, played by Galina Volchek, who seems dementedly swollen with her own evil, any other face for the wicked sister is impossible to imagine. By contrast, Edmund (Regimantas Adomaitis) oozes with so much dark sexuality that it's no wonder Regan and Goneril are eventually destroyed by their unrequited lust for him. The fool is aptly played by Otar Dal who with his frail, bony body and shorn head bears a haunting resemblance to a concentration camp victim.

And finally there is Lear, a white, tousle-haired man whose crinkled face and impish carriage remind one more of an elf than a king. But this is not unintentional, for Kozintsev's Lear emphasizes correctly the humanness of its central character. Lear's fall is not of the same grandeur as Oedipus in Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus-Tyrannus. Rather it is the fall of a vain, petty man whose self-centered need for flattery destroys his only loving daughter and ruins his sacred kingdom.

Not only does the character of Lear himself emphasize the lower, more humble forms of humanity, but so does the entire movie. The film begins with a procession of peasants going to hear the awful proclamation of their king and ends with these same beggars stoically picking up remnants of their ravished land. In between there are numerous scenes of peasants and cripples, the most disturbing and effective of which is the scene on the heath when Lear comes upon Edgar and a crowd of other beggars who have taken refuge from the storm in a miserable, leaky hovel. Looking upon the unintelligible mass of bodies whose plight is so similar to our modern day "bag people," the audience finds new meaning in Lear's realization that when it rains, poor people get wet--"O, I have ta'en too little care of this!" the king exclaims.

EVERY INTERPRETATION of King Lear must finally decide on the overall pessimism or optimism of the tragedy's ambivalent ending. Does Lear die for joy at the end, imagining that Cordelia returns to life, or rather does he die with a broken heart unable to bear the loss of his beloved daughter?

Kozintsev's version finds a credible and effective medium between the two choices. Against the hellish background of a black and smoldering castle, the camera shows Lear's death and then curiously turns towards the open gateway of the castle, giving a view of the white-capped water over which a few seagulls lazily fly. It is as if the camera were following the heavenly acensions of Lear's and Cordelia's souls, the only characters to whom redemption is finally offered.

The lyrical black and white photography of stormy skies, barking dog and the imposing grandeur of the Russian landscape play no small role in the overall success of the film in which visual images rise above the language barrier. King Lear is not suitable viewing material for a restless Saturday night; but for an audience willing to participate actively in the drama, it is nothing short of breath-taking.