Abstract
Examining five recent film adaptations of Shakespeare’s King Lear, the chapter looks at the ways in which the ancient myth of division and disruption is manifested in contemporary cinema, arguing that these films tend to offer specifically localized conflicts behind the conflicts and divisions they represent. My Kingdom (dir. Don Boyd, 2001); The King Is Alive (dir. Kristian Levring, 2000); The Last Lear (dir. Rituparno Ghosh, 2007); A Bunch of Amateurs (dir. Andy Cadiff, 2008); and Life Goes On (dir. Sangeeta Datta, 2009) set the well-known story in very specific contemporary locations, but they also represent the mythic power of the Shakespearean text and performance to act as a catalyst to destroy old lies and to heal all wounds.
Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord;
in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father.
(Shakespeare 2005, 1.2.106–109)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
On the connection between feminism and ecology, see, for example Young (2003, 100–108).
- 2.
On the incongruity of such landmarks and the present vision of Liverpool in My Kingdom, see Lehmann (2006, 79).
- 3.
A similar tendency is investigated in this volume by Marcela Kostihova (Chap. 3) in her discussion of the Canadian television series Slings and Arrows.
References
A Bunch of Amateurs. 2008. Directed by Andy Cadiff. EiV, 2009. DVD
Burnett, Mark Thornton. 2007. The Local and the Global. In Filming Shakespeare in the Global Marketplace, Palgrave Shakespeare Studies, 47–65. Houndmills/New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Coriolanus. 2011. Directed by Ralph Fiennes. Lionsgate Home Entertainment, 2012. DVD.
Dawson, Anthony B. 2002. International Shakespeare. In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage, ed. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton, 174–193. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kennedy, Dennis. 1993. Introduction: Shakespeare Without His Language. In Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance, ed. Dennis Kennedy, 1–18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lanier, Douglas. 2002. Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lehmann, Courtney. 2006. The Postnostalgic Renaissance: The ‘Place’ of Liverpool in Don Boyd’s My Kingdom. In Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray, 72–89. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Life Goes On. 2009. Directed by Sangeeta Datta. Databazaar Media Ventures, 2012. DVD.
Much Ado About Nothing. 2012. Directed by Joss Whedon. Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment, 2013. DVD.
My Kingdom. 2001. Directed by Don Boyd. Tartan Video, 2003. DVD.
Shakespeare, William. 1994. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Arden Shakespeare 2nd Series. Ed. Harold F. Brooks. London and New York: Routledge.
———. 2005. King Lear, Arden Shakespeare 3rd Series. Ed. R.A. Foakes. London: Thomson Learning.
Shakespeare Wallah. 1965. Directed by James Ivory. Dolmen Home Video, 2004. DVD.
The King Is Alive. 2000. Directed by Kristian Levring. MGM, 2002. DVD.
The Last Lear. 2007. Directed by Rituparno Ghosh. Planman Motion Pictures, 2010. DVD.
Walker, Alexander. 2001. Review of The King Is Alive. London Evening Standard, May 10. https://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/film/the-king-is-alive-7433527.html.
Yong, Li Lan. 2005. Shakespeare and the Fiction of the Intercultural. In A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance, ed. Barbara Hodgdon and W.B. Worthen, 527–549. Oxford: Blackwell.
Young, Robert J.C. 2003. Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Földváry, K. (2018). Localizing a Global Myth: Contemporary Film Adaptations of King Lear. In: Mancewicz, A., Joubin, A. (eds) Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance. Reproducing Shakespeare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89851-3_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89851-3_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89850-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-89851-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)