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King Lear

Play trailer Poster for King Lear PG Released Jan 22, 1988 1h 30m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
55% Tomatometer 11 Reviews 57% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
As the world recovers from the destruction of the Chernobyl disaster, William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth (Peter Sellars) attempts to restore the human race's great works of art. His quest takes takes him to a hotel in Switzerland where he meets an old gangster (Burgess Meredith) and his daughter, Cordelia (Molly Ringwald). William's journey also leads him to encounters with an absurd professor (Jean-Luc Godard) and an unhinged filmmaker (Woody Allen).

Critics Reviews

View All (11) Critics Reviews
Richard Brody New Yorker Godard's King Lear may be...extraordinarily timely. Jan 26, 2021 Full Review Geoff Andrew Time Out Godard's dullest and least accomplished for some time. Jun 24, 2006 Full Review Desson Thomson Washington Post Cinematographer Sophie Mantigneux creates crisp, memorable images and Godard masterfully edits them together (whether the final result is worth the effort is subject to question). Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Simon Columb Flickering Myth It is not for the fainthearted. King Lear could never be the starting point for those keen to learn of Godard's work, but it's innovative. Rated: 3/5 Nov 26, 2019 Full Review Phil Hall Film Threat Shakespeare through the Godard meat-grinder. Rated: 1/5 Nov 30, 2012 Full Review TV Guide A challenge, as with all Godard, but not quite his most rewarding one. Rated: 3.5/4 Aug 29, 2006 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Shioka O Avant-garde, challenging project, and it was dull. I simply couldn't keep eye on it after some minutes. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 12/04/22 Full Review Audience Member Yes, Cannon gave Jean-Luc Godard the money to make an experimental French New Wave Shakespeare adaption written by Peter Sellars and Tom Luddy. It was originally to be written by Norman Mailer, who was also making Tough Guys Don't Dance with Cannon and that's a totally different story. Famously, Golan and Globus signed the contract for this film with director Godard on a napkin at the Cannes Film Festival. Golan refused to sell the famous contract napkin for $10,000 when asked by the New York MoMA, which seems like a low figure. Only three characters from the story — Lear (Mailer), Cordelia (Molly Ringwald) and Edgar (Leos Carax) — are in this. It's set in and around Switzerland were William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth (Sellars) is trying to restore his ancestor's plays in a world where civilization and culture has lost after Chernobyl. Much of the dialogue isn't spoken by the characters on-screen, but heard in voice-over or spoken, whispered or echoed by someone else off-screen. If that seems confusing, King Lear deliberately does not use conventional filmmaking techniques or even tries to be watchable. I definitely think that the beginning, where Menahem Golan complains about how long Godard is taking to make the film and demands its competition by the 1987 Cannes Film Festival is completely real. King Lear did make its premiere at Cannes on May 17, 1987. It played U.S. theaters for two weeks and then disappeared for fifteen years. How many people actually saw it? Well, for years, Quentin Tarantino's resume claimed that he had appeared in it, as he correctly figured that nobody would have seen it and known he was telling a lie. You know who is in it? Burgess Meredith and Woody Allen. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review william k Radically obscurantist contemplation on Skakespeare's classic play presents itself as a wild associative stream of images and sound, in a for Godard typically brilliant montage, but presupposes an audience of polymaths; for everybody else it is of limited interest. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Intrinsically contradictory. For Godard nothing seems to be as complicated as the simpler things. Therefore, to expect that his film "King Lear" was a passable film adaptation typical of Shakespeare's tragedy, it is at least the public's total lack of knowledge about the director or incoherence on the part of critics. Although some lines of Shakespeare's play are used in the film, only three characters (Lear, Cordelia, and Edgar) are, so to speak, "presented." King Lear is, without any confessionalism, a difficult film, and so it is, if we consider Godard an insane director (in the positive sense), we have in this his visual experiment, the apex of human insanity when questioning art in a new world Of a major nuclear disaster (in reference to the Chernobyl episode). I view Godard's films as a laudable experimentation, which makes it unmistakably unique to each film. Godard is one of the rare, almost sole director who succeeds in affirming cinema through denial, thus more than presenting or affirming what cinema is, Godard discusses the various possibilities of being and making movies. And it does this by laughing and mocking the audience, but not in a gratuitous and unnecessary mockery instead, laughter is in front of our lack of care in assimilating the narratives of a film, seeking understanding and logic for everything, including in art, that historically sought Always breaking with the conventional, taking into account the very incoherence that is humanity and its disastrous way of living. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Wow. Bad. Just terrible. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member Behind this is Godard's inability to resolve an essential contradiction in his work -- his reverence for ideas and theories and all sorts of philosophical speculation, and his utter disregard for a sustained, coherent presentation of them. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews
King Lear

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Cast & Crew

The Dead 94% 77% The Dead Watchlist 84 Charing Cross Road 85% 81% 84 Charing Cross Road Watchlist Jean de Florette 91% 95% Jean de Florette Watchlist September 63% 52% September Watchlist A Handful of Dust 83% 45% A Handful of Dust Watchlist Discover more movies and TV shows. View More

Movie Info

Synopsis As the world recovers from the destruction of the Chernobyl disaster, William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth (Peter Sellars) attempts to restore the human race's great works of art. His quest takes takes him to a hotel in Switzerland where he meets an old gangster (Burgess Meredith) and his daughter, Cordelia (Molly Ringwald). William's journey also leads him to encounters with an absurd professor (Jean-Luc Godard) and an unhinged filmmaker (Woody Allen).
Director
Jean-Luc Godard
Producer
Menahem Golan
Distributor
Cannon Films
Production Co
Cannon Films
Rating
PG
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jan 22, 1988, Original
Box Office (Gross USA)
$8.8K
Runtime
1h 30m