This silent Italian film "King Lear" (It. "Re Lear"), 1910, director Gerolamo Lo Savio (1865-1931), gives a colorful treatment of the basic ...
This silent Italian film "King Lear" (It. "Re Lear"), 1910, director Gerolamo Lo Savio (1865-1931), gives a colorful treatment of the basic plot of Shakespeare's "King Lear". It leaves out much of the plot, and of course has to make do without the dialogue, but it gives a reasonable portrait of Lear and his three daughters, and of some of the tragic events that unfold in their relationships. Lear is rendered believably as he goes through his various experiences.nnWhat's really noteworthy about this little film, though, is the color. For large stretches of the movie, the characters' costumes and a few other details were given color, using the old method of frame-by-frame hand tinting. Some of the resulting scenes look very nice, and it is especially effective with Lear's costumes as his fortunes change. It must have been a real labor of love, and it really adds to the film.nnKing Lear is a merry old soul who decides to divide his kingdom among his daughters. The two elder he gives large portions while youngest and most faithful daughter Cordelia asks for nothing and gets crumbs. With the shift in power both daughters turn on their father and caste him from his domain with the faithful Cordelia by his side.nnErmette Novelli as Lear has an imposing larger than life look about him as he responds to praise that turns into rage upon betrayal. Francesca Bertini as the suffering Cordelia is the most retrained and touching of the thespians while Ragan and Goneril .nnThe first film of King Lear was a five-minute German version made around 1905, which has not survived. The oldest extant version is a ten-minute studio-based version from 1909 by Vitagraph, which made (in Luke McKernan's words) the "ill-advised" decision to attempt to cram in as much of the plot as possible.Two silent versions, both titled "Re Lear", were made in Italy in 1910. Of these, the version by director Gerolamo Lo Savio was filmed on location, and it dropped the Edgar sub-plot and used frequent intertitling to make the plot easier to follow than its Vitagraph predecessor. A contemporary setting was used for Louis Feuillade's 1911 French adaptation Le Roi Lear Au Village, and in 1914 in America, Ernest Warde expanded the story to an hour, including spectacles such as a final battle scene.nnnDirectors: Gerolamo Lo Savio nWriters: William Shakespeare (play)nCast: Ermete Novelli ... King Lear nFrancesca Bertini... Cordelia nOlga Giannini... King Lear's Daughter nGiannina Chianton ... King Lear's Daughter nn nResources: wikipedia.org, archive.org, imdb.comnNew soundtrack and dubbing: TheGreatClassicsnMusic: Kevin Mac Leod (incompetch.com) licensed under Creative Commons licence: Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). Less
