First of all, even though I didn't like this film, it certainly deserves a lot more than the 23 votes and one user review (mine) that it currently has. After all, we're talking about a film version of "King Lear!" Unfortunately, this version looks like someone slipped some heavy sedatives into the actors and didn't give them time to recover before filming started. Paul Scofield is undoubtedly a fine actor, but his version of "King Lear" strikes me as being too phlegmatic instead of choleric, the way I imagine Lear to be. On the other hand, maybe this play is just so tragic that it is way more difficult to stage than "Hamlet", "Julius Caesar" or "Macbeth". If this doesn't seem plausible, than just consider which one of the "Big Four" tragedies seems to be the least commonly staged and filmed. In "Hamlet," something is rotten in the state of Denmark; in "Lear" almost everything and everyone in the entire world is rotten. Is it possible for someone out there in Tinseltown to make a really epic film version of this epic tragedy? I don't know, but I'd certainly like to see Kenneth Branagh give it a try...
