King Lear

This film is absolutely brilliant. Weird characters and the fact that there's NO-THING really going on made this film interesting for me. Other people might find this film pointless and totally boring, but for me it's a treasure. I don't know anything about Shakespeare's 'King Lear' so I can't say if this film has anything to do with the actual play at all. This is exactly the kind of film that makes you think. After seeing this film you wonder what did the director want to tell me? Because clearly this film is made to communicate with the audience, it's an expression of the film maker's ideas, views and emotions. Or in other words... IT'S ART! The same goes to another Godard film 'Numero Deux'.

(Along) With movies like this (for ex-ample) the consequence of pleasure is hypothetic acquaintance with Janus (for me). Hypothesis of being acquaintanted by Janus as an actor (agent) for his role in the P(roblem)lay Shakespeare wouldn't dare to write. There's a whole lot of (more Lyrical) adaptations but in the same time the viewer (the witness) doesn't and does need (generates a sense) to consume at least good half of them and then explain all that left. I should've been reading Hegel's "Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte" at this time, chewing suppering, but have been stuck with writing this joke of a review for re-st to view. Who am I to criticize them, readers with no right to read a thing? It is not a good (if usual is good, 'cause goods are usual) comedy or drama, but it is a good construction. Family (child-fr(iendly)ee) construction for generations to see with (no) means of inter(quotation) and for the sake of interpolation the "Y" of No Thing. You could read an image without being computerised, girl, you should try.

Cahiers du Cinema rated this as one of the top ten films of 1987. On the other hand, Leonard Maltin said of it, "Bizarre, garish, contemporary punk-apocalyptic updating of Shakespeare classic. Little to be said about this pretentious mess except... avoid it." I don't think it is a great film, but I certainly don't think it can be dismissed in such an offhand manner. There was a lot of thought put into it, and it can be very thought provoking, and also quite funny. I liked this film quite a lot and I thought it was interesting. I think it is very innovative and ahead of it's time; it almost seems like a multimedia project more than a film. I can see how people might find it very boring, but I didn't at all. It deals with many issues that have since become prominent themes in academic discourse.

I can't say I've ever actually *liked* ANY film by Jean-Luc Godard (and I've actively hated several), but this late entry in his career is lighthearted and infectiously playful in its experimentation, especially early on, so that even when what it's trying to do doesn't come off, we still feel involved enough to roll along with it.

It was apparently first commissioned as a genuine, straightforward adaptation of Shakespeare's play, but the end result is a wild, free-associating modern creation of its own, much more to do with the process of adaptation than the play itself, and peopled almost entirely by famous faces such as Norman Mailer, Burgess Meredith, Julie Delphy, Molly Ringwald and even Woody Allen for a few seconds.

It's a very strange thing to exist, and many, I'm sure, would just find it insufferably pretentious (which it certainly is), but I still enjoyed it more than any of his efforts from the 60s and 70s, so take from that what you will.

P. S., you're definitely gonna need the subtitles on, particularly for Godard's own (English) scenes.

Everything returns to normal after Chernobyl. That is, everything but art. Most of the great works are lost, and it is up to people like William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth to restore the lost artwork of the human race. He finds strange goings-on at a resort enough to remind him of all the lines of the play, dealing with mob boss Don Learo and his daughter Cordelia, a strange professor named Jean Luc-Godard, who repeatedly xeroxes his hand for no particular reason.

I gave this film a low rating primarily because of the way I saw it, with a low quality of picture and sound. I think there is a lot of potential here, but I wasn't fully able to enjoy it. Oddly, I don't think any people have seen this film, despite the names involved. Woody Allen? Norman Mailer? Molly Ringwald? This should be a cult classic. Has it received a proper release?