King Lear (1987 film)

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King Lear is a 1987 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and produced by Cannon Films, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play in the avant-garde style of French New Wave cinema. The script was originally assigned to Norman Mailer but Mailer's text was not used. The working script was written by Godard, assisted by Peter Sellars and Tom Luddy. It is not a typical cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare's eponymous tragedy, although some lines from the play are used in the film. Only three characters – Lear, Cordelia and Edgar – are common to both, and only Act I, scene 1, is given a conventional cinematic treatment in that two or three people actually engage in relatively meaningful dialogue. King Lear is set in and around Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland, where Godard went to primary school. While many of Godard's films are concerned with the invisible aspects of cinematography, the outward action of the film is centred on William Shakespeare Junior the Fifth, who is attempting to restore his ancestor...

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