Korol Lir (1971) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Ed. by William M. Hamlin, Washington State University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Domains

Cinema/ Film/ TV

Dates

Date of occurrence 1971

Places

Russia (Location)

Genres and Modes

Adaptation

Resources

Recommended Reading

Adapted from William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Directed by Grigori Kozintsev. Starring Jüri Järvet, Valentina Shendrikova, Elza Radzina, and Galina Volchek. Russian with English subtitles. Black and white. 140 minutes.

Korol Lir was shot mostly during 1970 and released in 1971. It turned out to be Kozintsev’s last film. The screenplay is based on a translation of King Lear into modern Russian by Boris Pasternak from 1919. (The English subtitles on both DVD versions are, however, derived from the original Shakespearean script.) The score was composed especially for the film by Dimitri Shostakovich.

The film is set in a pre-modern Russia with sets and costumes eclectically evocative of the …

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948 words

Citation: Vyroubalova, Ema. "Korol Lir (1971) - film adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 September 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19369, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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