King Lear is a 1987 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and produced by Cannon Films, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play in the avant-garde style of French New Wave cinema. The script was originally assigned to Norman Mailer but Mailer's text was not used. The working script was written by Godard, assisted by Peter Sellars and Tom Luddy. It is not a typical cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare's eponymous tragedy, although some lines from the play are used in the film. Only three characters – Lear, Cordelia and Edgar – are common to both, and only Act I, scene 1, is given a conventional cinematic treatment in that two or three people actually engage in relatively meaningful dialogue.
King Lear is set in and around Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland, where Godard went to primary school. While many of Godard's films are concerned with the invisible aspects of cinematography, the outward action of the film is centred on William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth, who is attempting to restore his ancestor's plays in a world where most of human civilization—and more specifically culture—has been lost after the Chernobyl catastrophe.
Rather than reproducing a performance of Shakespeare's play, the film is more concerned with the issues raised by the text, and symbolically explores the relationships between power and virtue, between fathers and daughters, words and images. The film deliberately does not use conventional Hollywood filmmaking techniques which make a film 'watchable', but instead seeks to alienate and baffle its audience in the manner of Bertolt Brecht.
Cast (in order of appearance) The film itself contains no credits or credit sequence at all, although there is a cast list on the packaging insert. Menahem Golan (uncredited) as himself (voice off) Jean-Luc Godard as himself (voice off) Tom Luddy (uncredited) as himself (voice off) Norman Mailer as himself / King Lear Kate Mailer as herself / Cordelia Peter Sellars as William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth, a descendant of William Shakespeare Burgess Meredith as Don Learo Molly Ringwald as Cordelia Suzanne Lanza (uncredited) as a goblin Leos Carax as Edgar Julie Delpy as Virginia Jean-Luc Godard as Professor Pluggy (uncredited) as Journalist ("Miss Halberstadt") Freddy Buache as Grigori Kozintsev ("Professor Quentin") Woody Allen as Mr. Alien
Adaptation of the text Script
The film was written for screen by Godard, assisted by Peter Sellars and Tom Luddy. It includes only a few of Shakespeare's lines from King Lear, and these are often fragmentary and generally not heard in the order as they appear in the play. Many of the lines are not actually spoken by the characters on-screen (i.e. diegetically), but are often heard in voice-over, or spoken by another character or voice, perhaps almost incomprehensibly, or barely whispered, repeated, echoed.
Extracts from three of Shakespeare's sonnets, numbers 47, 138 and 60 are heard during the film. There is also a single line from Hamlet: "Inside me there is a kind of fighting which will not let me sleep." (Act V, scene 2:5)
"[This] film, not at all tragic, is intellectualized and does not offer the [casual] spectator the possibility of full understanding. As the filmmaker makes clear in the film, he does not intend to give it a comprehensive treatment, since it is only an approach, a study, which is obviously partial. There is nothing definitive about the text; it is constantly interrupted, discontinuous, a disordered mix of images, a true chaos..."
Literary sources Apart from lines from Shakespeare's play, extracts from a number of modern literary sources are also heard during the film: some are spoken by an on-screen character, some in voice-over on the deliberately confusing soundtrack. They are listed in the order in which they appear in the film.
"A picture, such as you could put it in a cell..." Simone Weil (1948). La Pesanteur et la Grâce. Paris, Plon. "Be sure that I have exhausted everything..." Robert Bresson (1975). Notes sur le cinématographe.Paris: Éditions Gallimard. Folio n°2705. "If an image, looked at separately...": Robert Bresson, Notes sur le cinématographe. "I am alone," the world seems to say...": Jean Genet (1958). L'Atelier d'Alberto GiacomettiParis: Éditions Gallimard. "Now, even if Lansky and I are as awesome...": Albert Fried (1980). The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. "A violent silence for silence of Cordelia..." Viviane Forrester (1980). La violence de la calme.Paris: Editions du Seuil. "The image is a pure creation of the soul...": Pierre Reverdy (1918). L'image.Revue Nord-Sud, n°13, March 1918. "A violent silence. The silence of Cordelia": Viviane Forrester, La violence de la calme. "And in me too, the wave rises, it swells, it arches its back..." Virginia Woolf (1931). The Waves.London: Hogarth Press.
Plot "The film does not present a linear story; rather, diegetically, this nearly does not exist. It is a mass of images, texts, voices without logical sequence. It has dozens of allusions to other works and quotes from famous texts [...] Each quotation, analogy, demands from the spectator great extra-textual knowledge. It is as if Godard concentrated centuries of art and culture in this film, reviewing all of history [...] What is derived from the [play's] text are only a few characters, vaguely associated with those of Shakespeare, and some speeches totally out of context."
Synopsis
Opening sequence The film begins with a sequence of extended inter-titles: 'The Cannon Group / Bahamas', 'A Picture Shot In The Back', 'King Lear / Fear and Loathing', 'King Lear / A study', 'An Approach'. A three-way telephone conversation is heard between the film's producer, Menahem Golan, Godard, and Tom Luddy. Golan complains about how long Godard is taking to make the film and insists that it must be ready for the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
At the Hotel du Rivage in Nyon, Norman Mailer discusses his new script for King Lear with his daughter Kate Mailer, and why the characters have Italian Mafia-like names like Don Learo, Don Gloucestro. He wants to go back to America. They sip orange juice. The whole scene is then repeated in a second take.
William Shakespeare Jr. William Shakespeare Junior (Will Jr.) sits at a table in the deserted hotel restaurant, overlooking Lake Geneva. There are some red tulips on the table. He wonders why he has been chosen to make this film, rather than a better-known director ("...some gentleman from Moscow or Beverly Hills. Why don't they just order some goblin to shoot this twisted fairy tale?"). In voice-over, Godard reads extracts from Robert Bresson's Notes sur le cinématographe. Will Jr. imagines 'auteurs' who could have made this film, like Marcel Pagnol, Kenji Mizoguchi, François Truffaut ("No"), Georges Franju, Robert Bresson, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fritz Lang, Georges Méliès, Jaques Tati, Jean Cocteau.
Junior wonders about Luchino Visconti (assistant to Jean Renoir), and about Auguste Renoir's attraction to young girls in later years. The name of Mr Alien is heard in voice-over with an image of Sergei Eisenstein editing on his death-bed. Will Jr. is now in a hotel bedroom, looking at an album with images of Orson Welles, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Power and Virtue (inter-title) Rembrandt's Saint Paul, Rubens' Young Woman Looking Down,Young Woman Looking Down, (Study for the Head of Saint Apollonia), early 1628. Artnet.com. Retrieved January 18, 2017. Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son. At the same time, in voice-over, Cordelia reads from sonnet 47: and Lear - foreshadowing the last scene of the play - mourns the death of his daughter.
Seen at a restaurant table with yellow flowers, Will Jr. explains in voice-over that he is on duty for the Cannon Cultural Division. Everything had disappeared after the Chernobyl explosion. Saturn Devouring His Son by Goya. After a while everything came back: electricity, houses, cars—everything except culture and William Junior. Emerging from a reed bed, he explains (in voice-over) that—by special arrangement with the Cannon Cultural Division and the Royal Library of Her Majesty, the Queen he was engaged to recover what had been lost, starting the works of his famous ancestor.
In the restaurant, Will Jr. (very noisily slurping his soup) overhears Cordelia talking with a waiter. Learo interrupts (with words taken from Act 1, Scene 1, from Shakespeare's play), and Will Jr. realises that Learo is speaking lines from one of his ancestor's lost works. But Learo starts reminiscing about Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, two Jewish mobsters in Las Vegas. Lear reproves Cordelia for not having professed her love for him effusively enough, and says she will lose her inheritance ("You may mar your dollars"). Will Jr. goes to thank Cordelia ("my lady"), but Learo accuses him of "making a play for my girl", and silently leads her away. "Characters!"
Goblins William Junior is seen walking in a wood. He begins writing in a notebook, silently followed by some well-dressed young people who mimic his actions. He seems not to notice them. He runs away towards someone, followed closely by the others. Will Jr. meets a man holding an elephant gun and a fishing net - Edgar, "a man poorly dressed", and Virginia (who wasn't there). Edgar says they are in Goodwater/Aubonne/Los Angeles. Will Jr. learns about Pluggy, whose "research was moving in parallel lines to my own".
Don Learo and Cordelia are in the hotel room. He dictates from Fried's book while she types ("Now, even if Lansky and I are as awesome...") She is very patient. Telexes arrive from his other daughters, and Lear reads their preposterous lines from Act I, scene 1. Cordelia sinks to the floor on hearing their words: "Then poor Cordelia." NO THING. The music speeds up and sinks back to a dirge. The well-dressed young people from the woods appear on the hotel balcony. Will Jr in voice-over calls them goblins, "the secret agents of human memory."
Edgar, Will Jr. and Virginia who is picking up flowers, walk past a large red skip. Crow sound. Virginia picks up a white flower beside an apple tree. Express train sound. Sound of bells. Will Jr., engrossed in writing, suddenly looks up.
On the hotel balcony, a goblin, invisible to Lear, taps him on the shoulder (while Will Jr. in voice-off speaks Lear's words, wondering who he is): breaking the fourth wall, the goblin says out loud, on screen, "Lear's shadow!". In the hotel bedroom, a maid opens the french windows and two goblins enter. The man chants the words "Abracadbra! Mao Tse-tung. Che Guevara," and they disappear. The maid starts to change the bed sheets, but they are covered in blood. Will Jr. comes in, looking for Mr. Learo and stares aghast at the mess. Brief shot of Learo with Cordelia by the river in the woods.
Plato's cave And then we are back in the half-finished house [in reality belonging to Anne-Marie Miéville]. Pluggy mutters lines from sonnet 138. Will Jr. asks Pluggy about his research. "Just what are you aiming at, Professor?" Pluggy farts loudly in Will Jr.'s direction. Virginia explains cryptically that "When the professor farts, the mountains are trembling."
Fire scene inside the house/Plato's cave. Virginia is ironing Cordelia's nightgown (she wears it in the Joan of Arc sequence. NO THING (inter-title). Music starts slowly. Edgar lights a little bonfire with sticks and paper he gathered up on the way in. Will Jr: "It is born, and it is burnt. It begins from the thing it ends. At the same time." The music accelerates to nearly full speed. "Then what is it? (Looking straight at Virginia) TELL ME THE NAME! Look, no names, no lines. No lines, no story!" Virginia: "To name things makes the Professor pee." (or just 'P') Thinking with your hands ("penser avec les mains"). Edgar: "Poor things. Who are they, to need a name? To exist?" Discussion of colour. Red and yellow tulips.