Screening the Tragedies

• Main Author: Jackson, MacDonald P.
• Other Authors: Neill, Michael, Schalkwyk, David
• Format: Book
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2016
• Subjects: Elliott; Tundra
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198724193.013.37

Jonathan Miller’s BBC TV production of King Lear and Michael Elliott’s version for Granada TV, starring Laurence Olivier, illustrate contrasting approaches to the small-screen medium, with Miller recording lengthy takes of characters artfully choreographed within bare sets, and Elliott employing a montage technique to view individuals in expressive close-ups. The near-monochrome BBC costumes suggest the world of Jacobean politics, whereas Granada’s pastel colours suit the ‘Once upon a time’ quality of Shakespeare’s opening. The cinematic adaptations by Peter Brooke and Grigori Kozintsev better convey the play’s vastness, bleakness, and grandeur, Brooke filming in the snow-bound tundra of Northern Jutland, Kozintsev in a primitive rock-strewn Russian landscape, through which peasants trudge. Brooke’s style is New Wave, his vision unsparing. Kozintsev draws on both traditional epic convention and Christian-humanist tradition. Several other screen versions merit attention, notably Akiro Kurosawa’s Ran and Brian Blessed’s undervalued movie with himself as Lear.