If you are familiar with the original King Lear, quite a lot is cut from the original play. Scenes are shuffled about, and parts are cut that create a lack of continuity and reason. Trimming is not necessarily a bad thing, but much of the heart and pathos of Lear is lost. I love Anthony Hopkins, but here he's just a loud and angry Lear, chewing the scenery with the best of them. Lost are his passages of fear, regret, and love, making him feel more a raving, demented old man, rather than a man faced with demons of his own making, then coming to understand the consequences of his actions. I would recommend it if you'd like a good overview of Lear and the scope of its action, but I'd be worried that a newcomer might become lost as to who is doing what to whom, and why. If you are new to King Lear, don't let this be the only version you watch, as you will miss out on the emotions of a man as he suffers from the repercussions of his own vanity and pride.

Even with a great cast I think this adaptation falls prey to one of the greatest dangers with "King Lear" . . . getting lost in the plot when its the characters and their own little misadventures that should be the real focus. If the Fool isn't memorable, you've gone astray.

Watch for anthony hopkins

The greatest 01 hour: and 55 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a great movie with a lot of wisdom

Like most people, I don't have a degree in old English Literature - why couldn't the characters speak in modern English so normal people could enjoy this movie? After all, this adaptation is already set in the 21st century. Total waste.

اعادة تمثيل لمسرحية الملك لير الشهيرة لشكسبير بواسطة نخبة من ألمع الممثلين وعلى رأسهم أنتوني هوبكينز، ولكن مع إعادة تعديل السيناريو ليتناسب مع لغة/قيم/بيئة الوقت المعاصر، الملك لير قصة صراع في البيت الملكي بين قوة القانون مقابل قانون القوة، والوفاء مقابل الخيانة، والنفاق مقابل النزاهة.

Brilliant acting. Read James Shapiro on Shakespeare.

Una leccion de actuaciones,

I feel like this is a good show the acting is great the atmosphere seems real and the camera work is spot on i just wish i could understand what the f%*# they were saying i never liked shakespear and have never seen or read this story before that said anthony hopkins seems to do a pretty good job, maybe im biased because iv always liked him but all in all this is deff worth a watch even if you need to have google open to translate half the words being said lol

Maybe because I'm not familiar with the story - but this didn't really grip me at all. It was odd and probably not a great introduction to this tale for me.

Anthony Hopkins' lead and chews the scenery down to gristle and bone....

Even with a great cast I think this adaptation falls prey to one of the greatest dangers with "King Lear" . . . getting lost in the plot when its the characters and their own little misadventures that should be the real focus. If the Fool isn't memorable, you've gone astray.

All in all this was an excellent production. I thought that Anthony Hopkins at times was a bit over-the-top but in general Was compelling. The other actors were excellent to a man and woman. The play was shortened, but I think in a way that did not detract from the overall message, one that is powerful.

Best quality ensemble and individual performances. You deserve this wonderful gift. Enjoy.

Compelling and heartfelt perspectives supported with masterful acting.

Amazing Anthony hopkins !

A strong adaptation marred by a poor central performance For me, the definitive King Lear was Owen Roe in Selina Cartmell's magisterial 2013 Abbey Theatre production in Dublin. The scenes on the heath were unlike anything I've ever seen, as Roe alternated, sentence by sentence between a fairly standard (if brilliantly staged) raging at the heavens, and turning directly to the audience and speaking quietly and calmly, almost emotionlessly. Sentence. By. Sentence. Without breaking the metre of the iambic pentameter verse! Of course, Cartmell's choice here is obvious; the use of two different styles of delivery serve as a succinct visual/aural metaphor for the inner turmoil of the character, but although it's a thematically simple enough device, it requires a performance of immense control to bring it off. And then we have Anthony Hopkins in writer/director Richard Eyre's 온라인카지노추천 adaptation for the BBC. Oh dear. What's especially disappointing is how little interested he seems in doing anything beyond giving the barest essentials in his interpretation of the part. Hopkins played Lear in over 100 performances in David Hare's 1986 National Theatre production, so how can someone who played the part this often possibly give an under par performance? Well, probably because he played the part this often. The performance is lethargic, jaded, lazy, as if it's routine, become so familiar that all meaning has evaporated from the text. Hopkins plays Lear as an easy-to-anger man, used to getting his own way, with little time for sentiment, whose grip on reality is becoming increasingly tenuous. Nothing wrong with that - it's a very basic reading of the character, but still nothing inherently wrong with it. The problem is, we've seen him play this character before, or a variation thereof, in everything from Legends of the Fall to Nixon to The Wolfman. Indeed, his performance in Eyre's Lear is, beat for beat, a virtual carbon copy of his performance in Julie Taymor's Titus. There are many similarities between the characters, to be sure, but not so many that the parts should be played in exactly the same manner (as a contrast, look at Brian Cox's work in the two roles; Titus in Deborah Warner's ground-breaking 1987 RSC production, and Lear in Warner's 1990 National Theatre production - three years, and an ocean of interpretive difference separate the performances). Hopkins's performance has two gears - scenery chewing and shouty scenery chewing. Also, his tendency to pause in the middle of verse lines is extremely distracting, and completely disrupts the meter. Such pauses serve to create artificial caesuras in the iambic pentameter, turning the verse into a bizarre amalgamation of anapaestic and dactylic hexameters, and even heptameters. A stronger director would have stamped this out, or had the actor speak in prose (as a few of the other actors do), but to have the actor speak in verse, yet show no respect for the verse is...strange. Thankfully the rest of the cast are universally strong. Emma Thompson as a nasty Goneril; Jim Broadbent as a sympathetic Gloucester; John MacMillan as a soft-spoken Edmund; Andrew Scott as an emotional Edgar; Jim Carter as a gruff Kent; Florence Pugh as a wide-eyed Cordelia; Karl Johnson as a serious Fool; Christopher Eccleston as a ridiculous Oswald; Anthony Calf as a take-charge Albany; and Chukwudi Iwuji as a considerate France. However, the film is stolen by Emily Watson and Tobias Menzies as a bloodthirsty Regan and Cornwall. Watson's Regan oozes raw sexuality, and the blinding scene clearly turns both of them on. Two terrific performances which left me wishing there was more of them in the play. Also impressive is Eyre's direction. His decision to set the play in modern London, with Lear as a retiring pseudo-dictator, works very well (Edgar is an astrophysicist, Edmund is in the armed forces). In this context, a scene in a shopping mall is especially well executed, as a now quite mad Lear wanders around the near-derelict shopping mall in a bad part of town, dressed like a vagrant, pushing a shopping trolley, and talking to a doll. It's a deeply unsettling image that encapsulates perfectly just how far he has fallen. Also well-conceived is the scene set in an asylum seekers' refugee camp. The political commentary is a little on the nose, as Lear looks around the camp at the faces of the refugees, forcing him to consider issues of which he's never before conceived, but it's effective and timely. All-in-all, this is a strong adaptation with an excellent cast brought down only by a weak central performance. Unfortunately, the part of Lear is so central that if it doesn't work, there's a problem. Hopkins's performance isn't so bad as to distract too much from the excellent work done elsewhere, but what's annoying about it is it could easily have been so much better.