About a month ago I treated myself to a tall order of Shakespeare.
"King Lear" arrived in my mailbox (via Netflix) and went straight into the DVD player. This particular performance was videotaped in 1983 for release on British television and directed by Michael Elliott. Most notably, Lear was played by the seventy-five year old Lawrence Olivier in what was to be his last Shakespearean appearance.
Elliott's staging is quite good with a stark musical background well suited to the unfolding drama of the mad king and his misunderstood daughter. While there is much to admire in the direction and in Olivier's acting, I was devistated by the scene in which loyal Gloucester is tied to a chair in order for Cornwall to gouge out his eyes. For the remainder of the play we must watch Gloucester led about with a bloody rag tied around his head as if we could forget the violence done to him by Cornwall.
A couple of days after watching the DVD, my three year old daughter rounded the living room corner with a gift for Daddy. She had taken one of the blocks from a "Changeable Charlie" toy (the kind that makes a million faces) and presented it to me in a splendid pink plastic teacup. For whatever reason, she selected a block of eyes--happy, sad, angry, crazy and funny eyes. It was excruciatingly beautiful.
Maybe the young daughter will yet deliver sight to her mad king father.
The Apple Dumpling Gang is one of your favorite movies, really? I share in your nostalgic bent as it is one of the earlier movies my parents took me to. I also recall an H.R. Puffenstuff theatrical release that we went to around that same time. (ADG was superior in all ways to HRP)
ReplyDeleteI recently caught ADG on TV and found that my memories of it were much grander than the real thing. But still, it's something I will Netflix for my young son to watch as he is becoming interested in the Old West, cowboys and steam engines.
Hi, Bryan! Sometimes children are absolutely frightening in their acuity. Don't be scared -- take it for what it is: an angel giving you a direct message! I wish I knew that little girl; she's clearly beyond the beyond.
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