King Lear Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

King Lear Blu-ray Movie Review

"Words are one thing. And reality, sweet reality, is another thing. And between them is no thing."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown February 8, 2025

What, oh what, would our dear Billy Shakes make of Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear, an "anti-adaptation" more akin to Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation (2000) than anything remotely reverential? I, for one, believe the Bard would burst upright from his seat, the credits rolling, and applaud the audacity and ambition with great big claps of his hands, a la the lovingly meme'd Shia LaBeouf, mouth grim and eyes fiery with awe. In Godard's able care, King Lear is more a wandering search for a story than a take on the play itself, with self-aware performances that elevate the art of cinema above the execution of it, yet still manage to execute the filmmaker's every strange, off-the-wall impulse with exacting ease. It's a circus act really, with Godard and his muse-turned-actor-turned-writer, Peter Sellars' William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth, standing as the ringmasters of an at-times manic show that has no desire to please but every desire to explore. What precisely is it exploring? Everything. Nothing. But ultimately that's for you to decide, good reader and gentle cinephile...

Godard's King Lear opens with a phone call in which the filmmaker is chastised by producer Menahem Golan for taking too long to deliver his latest film, which Golan insists must be ready in time for Cannes. Cut to two takes of writer Norman Mailer and his daughter Kate trying to crack the script, with Lear and his compatriots imagined as mobsters. (Mailer would famously quit the film, disagreeing with Godard's insistence on an incestuous subplot between the King and his daughter.) Suddenly we're introduced to William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth (Peter Sellars), a descendant of the Bard, who's desperately attempting to restore his ancestor's plays after an accident at Chernobyl has wiped out most of the populace. But our newly anointed Billy V, like Godard, is more concerned with what his forebearer's ancient text had to say than the words that adorned the original page.

What follows is an intentionally baffling, often plotless film, at least in any linear sense, wherein Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald play Lear (as Don Learo) and Cordelia, searching for meaning alongside Shakespeare's far-flung heir. Lines from "King Lear" are used sparingly, finding the characters "speaking what we feel, "not what we ought to say." Written by Sellars and Tom Luddy, the film also stars Golan, Godard, Norman and Kate Mailer, Suzanne Lanza, Leos Carax, Julie Delpy, David Warrilow, Ruth Maleczech, Michele Petin, Freddy Buache and, briefly at film's end, film director Woody Allen.

Avant garde hardly captures Godard's approach to King Lear, nor does grasping at the director's intent aid us in any search for meaning within its ambling scenes. Godard is attempting to capture the whole of the creative process in a single film, without daring to suggest cinema can be contained within any one production. It's absurd and askew in equal measure, yet still able to engage as frequently as it confounds. A puzzle box that only seeks to unlock the adaptation of another puzzle box, it borders on pretentiousness at every turn but stops just shy of inanity, drawing upon Cordelia's despair and Shakespeare Jr's distress to weave a tale about so much more than the sum of its parts. And if any of that sounds as if meaning is moot or artistic flourish trumps clarity, I humbly offer that's precisely what you'll encounter at every turn in King Lear.

Sellars, Ringwald and Meredith are excellent, and seem far more informed about the underlying drive of the film than their lesser glimpsed co-stars, who seem as lost as some members of the viewing audience. Ringwald is especially good, capturing the loss and loneliness of Lear's soon-silent daughter with aplomb. She doesn't merely sulk, she exudes the depressive longing of a girl trapped in a bleak limbo of little to no significance in her own life; lost in sadness, incapable of influencing the story unfolding at the hand of her father, her writer or her filmmaker. Sellars is strong too, though his performance is often reduced to chasing after Lear or Cordelia, furiously scribbling script pages as he discovers his next moves and larger trajectory. Godard doesn't allow either to emerge as characters so much as forces of will or servitude to the camera, threatening to unhitch the film from cohesion but instead giving it enough purpose in its final moments to resonate.

King Lear Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

'King Lear' is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.37:1. This new 2K restoration was created from the 35mm original camera negative, with color approved by director of photography Sophie Maintigneux.

A bit of inherent crush doesn't hinder Criterion's 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation of King Lear, which is as crisp and striking as it could possibly be. Edges are clean and free of halos, fine textures are flawlessly resolved, and the image is as honed as a freshly sharpened sword. Even in darkness or shadow (as in one startlingly opaque sequence in an editing bay), detail remains impressive and grain refined. Colors are subdued on the whole, yet primaries still have their day in the sun, flesh tones are natural and gorgeously saturated, black levels are deep and satisfying, and contrast is dialed in perfectly. Add to that a lack of any significant blocking, banding or errant anomalies and you have a well-crafted restoration that makes King Lear look as if it were shot yesterday.

King Lear Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The original 2.0 surround soundtrack was remastered from the 35mm magnetic track provided by the Cinematheque suisse and approved by actor Peter Sellars.

King Lear offers a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix that's wholly successful in its faithfulness to the original sound design. Dialogue is clear and intelligible throughout the film, despite some exceedingly minor and infrequent air hiss and intentionally overbearing environmental ambience. Prioritization is spot on and dynamics are excellent, despite the lack of LFE channel support.

King Lear Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Richard Brody Interview (HD, 31 minutes) - In this recently recorded 2024 interview, New Yorker film critic Richard Brody (author of "Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard") explains why he considers Godard's King Lear to be both the culmination of the director's thematic explorations of the 1980s and the greatest film of all time.

• Peter Sellars Interview (HD, 25 minutes) - Another newly recorded interview, this time with actor Peter Sellars, now a New York theater and opera director. Sellars discusses the career and films of Godard, the filmmaker's approach to Lear, and his time on location filming. The rest of the featurette wanders down tangents a bit but everything points back to Lear, its meaning(s) and Sellars' memories of shooting.

• Molly Ringwald Interview (HD, 19 minutes) - My favorite of the interviews finds Ringwald reflecting on her life when she was cast in King Lear, her earliest encounters with Godard's work and her first time meeting the filmmaker, and of course her time shooting what would become a divisive, easily misunderstood masterpiece.

• Cannes Press Conference (HD, 36 minutes) - An audio recording of the film's 1987 Cannes press conference with Godard, who speaks rather eloquently about the film as he attempts to answer questions without offering those asking too many answers about the layers and intent of King Lear.

• Booklet - with an essay by Brody.

King Lear Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Divisive as it tends to be, King Lear is one hell of a cinematic riddle, clothing itself in musings and meanderings that hint at epiphany yet defy explanation. For those who warm to its avant garde stylings, it will provide a startling journey into the creative process and an ambitious study of film that turns the screenwriting process and camera in on themselves. For those who find it too esoteric and pretentious, it will continue to swat away any semblance of understanding. The choice is yours, dear reader. Criterion certainly makes it easier, with a stunning video restoration and presentation, a strong lossless audio track, and a decent complement of extras. I hesitate to outright recommend King Lear because so many will be lost in its thematic mazes, but for those who strive to crack its code, satisfaction and clarity await.