Oh, my god.

I mean, it's kind of shocking that we haven't had a big-screen production of Lear drawing on Hollywood star power like McKellen Richard III, or any of the Branagh movies, or even the Ethan Hawke or Mel Gibson Hamlets. So yeah, I do think we're overdue for a production. But if Keira Knightley can do a passable Cordelia, I will EAT my Olivier DVD with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Mostly I envision it involving a lot her sticking her chin out, which is always alarming because she's so thin that I'm always afraid her skin is just going to tear open over her sharp bones.

Also: Anthony Hopkins isn't old enough to be Lear, is he?

Hee! I know, right? There should be a high-wattage version of Lear...but erm, what? Maybe she'll turn out to be okay--but after P&P3, where her version of Elizabeth's archness was just to giggle abruptly at things, I do not have high hopes.

I suppose Anthony Hopkins could be one of those hale and hearty Lears. :) I did actually have a discussion with my students once about how the age of Lear totally changes the dynamic of the play--because if he's old and doddering, you might side with Goneril and Regan a bit and think they might have a case for wanting him off the throne, at least early on in the play. So maybe having a youngish Lear will have interesting ramifications.

"Epic battle sequences."

Ahem? I certainly don't remember any epic battle sequences in Lear. Are we sure they haven't somehow mixed it up with 3 Henry VI?

Also, oy. I know people had issues with Romola Garai onstage when she played Cordelia in the McKellen Lear last year, but from everything I'd heard, she might have been okay if it was a filmed production. But why? KK has been good in some things, but I really didn't like her Elizabeth, and I just can't see her playing Cordelia. At all.

Snort. Maybe they plan on staging battle scenes with Cordelia's army? Perhaps Keira will get to don another leather bikini, a la King Arthur?

That's the thing--I just think Keira Knightley is being cast in roles that don't really suit her. It's funny, because she's been in so many, but I don't know if she's suited to period roles. (Pirate films excepted.)

Oy. ;) Leather bikinis indeed.

It's funny, because she's been in so many, but I don't know if she's suited to period roles.

I liked her in Atonement, but that was a period where she looked right.

I mean, King Lear, King Arthur, both mythic kings out of the past of Britain... it could totally happen.

I haven't seen Atonement; I still have major guilt about never managing to read the book (my undergrad advisor gave me his review copy because he already had one, and then he'd ask about it and I hadn't read it yet... it became a thing), so I don't know when I might see the film!

I have to say, though, Regan is the only one I could really picture wearing leather of any persuasion. I blame the Olivier version where Diana Rigg played her (really well, I might add, but it was very distracting for those of us who had watched more than one episode of The Avengers).

Atonement is well worth reading (and seeing), I think. It was my flight book when I came back here in December and once I got used to the narrative style, I found it incredibly difficult to put down. Thankfully the film was still playing in the small cinema near my house, so I saw it a few days later, and I thought it was wonderful. There are people who disagree with me on this, but I'm also a sucker for period Tragic Love Stories, so...

Tee hee! I can see how that might cause difficulties. I seem to remember a fair bit of incidental leather when I saw the play at the Globe in 2001 (they were sort of going for that "Celtic Britain" fur-and-leather thing), but no bikinis.

I tend to like Happy Love Stories best (hence my affection for the comedies!), but Tragic ones are good too. I do plan on reading Atonement one of these days, though, as soon as I can gear up and get past the shame of not having read it yet. (I even had to donate the copy I had to the library before I moved for grad school, because it was mocking me.)

Well, the RSC Histoires were full of Matrixy leather coats that I adored. I have such a coat fetish.

We all have our Books That We Should Have Read Long Ago But Haven't list. I did finally manage The Virgin in the Garden last summer, though I did not like it (I repeatedly wanted to slap Frederica).

I totally have a thing about Regency coats. It's mildly distracting.

Oh, I was so disappointed in The Virgin in the Garden! I read it right after Possession, which was perhaps a bad move anyway, but still. I often wonder if I should give it another try, if only to refresh my memory so I can read some of Byatt's other novels.

Edited at 2008-06-10 04:03 pm (UTC)