in a moment of irony that could occur only in cinema, the definitive version of Shakespeare's 'king Lear' is Kurosawa akira's 1985 'ran'. only Kurosawa - at the end of his own career and looking back at at a century of blindness socially and politically, that dragged his culture through the horrors of the Tojo regime and the second world war - could grasp the essential insight of Shakespeare's vision of political perversion arising from simple but fundamental personal mistakes in judgment.
brook, of course, doesn't go after that. in fact, the issues just noted have been missed just about entirely by every American and British version of the play i've seen, even Laurence Olivier's farewell performance on television just before he died.
so when we come to brook's film, we have to let go of the hope that this will be the 'ur-Lear' that we seem to have misplaced in the west ever since the Elizabethan era.
in fact, let's let go of Shakespeare completely, here - this is a peter brook film, and brook is actually after something fundamentally cinematic - but not necessarily Shakespearean.
brook's film is a relentless portrayal of the world turned upside down. the most memorable quality of the film - and it stuck to me for many years - is the camera work, that gets unsteadier and more rapidly cut as the film goes on, until the audience feels trapped inside a house in a hurricane - and one that's quickly falling apart.
to find some ground in this visual catastrophe, the audience will desperately grab onto Shakespeare's words or the fine performances by the wonderful cast - but be warned - that's not really going to help much, and it's not supposed to.
brook, who made his name by approaching theatrical stage performances in a rather daring visual style, clearly wanted to see how far he could push the medium - the audience will have to decide whether he's successful - but the effort itself is worthy of respect.
