The adaptation of Shakespeare's works has become a common activity in the Twentieth century. His works have constantly influenced literary minds. But recently, and uniquely, created media have too attempted to embrace the universal stories proposed by this 'father of modern English'. Modern cinema has often strained to shape Shakespeare's stories into the limited time of the film reel, resulting in dramatic, even sacrilegious to some dedicated thespians, cutting of scenes and characters. Since the post-Freudian saturation of critical essays on these plays, popular media have been able to take this into account, to acknowledge it. This essay proposes that Peter Brook's version of King Lear is more a critical essay, an interpretation, then a stage adaptation. Narrative adaptation must assume certain aspects of a play, where the author replaces gaps and questions with his or her own answers. As Jane Smiley said, narrative questions the validity of appearances, and changes the perspective of the traditional play.

King Lear is certainly a problematic play. From the outset, it appears conventional, dividing the evil and the good. But upon closer examination, such

Cinematic visuals add a new depth to the presentation of ideas and literary devices, creating an important and new celluloid dimension. Brook generally relies on a very stark, basic filming technique, consisting of conventional, often static, frames. These shots emphasise on the dialogue, on the drama within the words, and the expressionism of the acting cast in relation to their roles . But various experimental camera techniques disperse the traditional scenes, indicating that a new aspect of the film experience must be considered. Even during the first scene, these techniques can be clearly perceived. When Lear speaks to his daughter, the camera views him using an extreme close-up, almost as if his person, and thus his power, is grandiose, and intimidating. But when we first see Cordelia, through a medium shot, minute in comparison to the bare wall behind, the camera purveys her as isolated from the congregation. When Cordelia and her estranged father reunite, a two-shot (a shot involving both characters' faces in the frame together) is not established until Lear recognises his daughter, thus linking the redemption with the camera's view of them sharing the screen.

Holland, Peter. "Two-Dimensional Shakespeare: King Lear on Film." Shakespeare and the Moving Image: The Plays on Film and Television. Ed. Anthony Davies and Stanley Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. 64.

Shakespeare, William. "King Lear." V-III-174.

"For millennia, water lay over the land. Untold generations of water, plants, birds, animals, insects, lived, shed bits of themselves and died (...) I liked to imagine them because they were the soil (...) more alive with a past and future abundance of life than any soil anywhere". (Smiley, 131-2)

Smiley, Jane. "Shakespeare in Iceland". Transforming Shakespeare: Contemporary Women's Re-Visions in Literature and Performance. Ed. Marianne Novy. Macmillan, 1999. 172-3.

Many scholars in Shakespeare's works condemn the attempts made to portray King Lear into the mass-market medium of cinema. The time restrictions placed upon a film's length resulted in extreme editing of the original text, which often led to a loss of the multi-textual meanings, some attempts even losing all coherent significance at all. Many critics considered Peter Brook's 1971 version of the play to be a disjointed, incoherent piece of art, an endeavour to make a film with roots placed firmly in the theatre. But if one were to compare Brook's screenplay to his 1962 stage version, a substantial difference would be noted. Brook appears to have acknowledged the problems of adapting a play to suit the screen, and wanted to capture the swiftly shifting associations and evanescent imagery that made Shakespeare's works so dynamic on stage. The problem lies in changing styles and conventions as lightly and deftly as the mental process, which can be reflected by blank verse but not the consistency of a single image.

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Approximate Word count = 3243
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)