King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.
Direction
Kozintsev's stark Baltic landscapes become characters of desolation.
Acting
Järvet's Lear: volcanic rage calcifying into heartbreaking fragility.
Cinematography
Black-and-white misery shot with brutal, beautiful clarity.
Director
Grigori Kozintsev
Jüri Järvet
King Lear
Galina Volchek
Regan
Elza Radziņa
Goneril
Valentina Shendrikova
Cordelia
Oleg Dal
Fool
Donatas Banionis
Albany
Regimantas Adomaitis
Edmund
Aleksandr Vokach
Cornwall
Aleksey Petrenko
Oswald
Juozas Budraitis
King of France
Karlis Sebris
Gloster
Vladimir Yemelyanov
Kent
Leonhard Merzin
Edgar
Roman Gromadskiy
Gloster's Servant
Zinoviy Gerdt
King Lear (voice)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kozintsev made this under Brezhnev's stagnation; Soviet censors missed its political bite about tyrants and flatterers.
Järvet spoke no Russian—learned entire role phonetically while Kozintsev filmed him like a silent movie icon.
SU
