Family strife.
Power. Ambition. Lust. Cruelty. Violence. Treason. Betrayal. Loss.
King
Lear stands as a monolith concerning all these events and far more.
Often hailed as Shakespeare’s greatest accomplishment, the
play encompasses a full gamut of social ills as manifested in the
human experience.
The existential problem of coexistence,
coupled with the reality of aloneness in an indifferent and meaningless
world. The sins of the father visited upon sons and daughters. The
malevolent maw of Pandora’s box cracked wide open and gaping.
Seen in terms
of its nihilistic themes, King Lear may be aligned with Sartre’s
No Exit and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Thus, the machinations of the gods are absent from our purview. Indeed,
it seems we are often left waiting for Divine intervention that never
occurs, scrabbling sense from senseless events.
Aging monarch
Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters,
obliging each to declare her love for him in pleasing speech. The
two eldest offer grand oration, while the youngest refuses to flatter
on command, earning herself only disinheritance and exile...
The Earl of Gloucester has two
sons, one legitimate and prized, the other ambitious to gain legitimacy
by any means necessary...
Enter the odyssey of this compelling
psychological study of power and its tragic consequences.
Link
to Lear Cinema
