WELLESNET MESSAGE BOARD

In Orson Welles' final months, he attempted to film KING LEAR.
Orson Welles and his unrealized ‘King Lear’:
http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-king-lear/

The technique Welles was planning to use for this film seems so odd. I am not remotely convinced that he and Graver could have gotten any decent image using videotape in 1985. But I find his description of his no frills approach fascinating. In my mind, I imagine it as being something akin to Louis Malle's "Vanya on 42nd Street" but B&W and with more close ups and with more expressionistic lighting.

If they could have gotten adequate images from the video cameras, sounds like the film could have been done for cheap. That would have made it a stark contrast to Akira Kurosawa's RAN, which came out around that time, and pulled out all the stops in terms of scope and visual splendor. If Welles had gotten his Lear made, the Kurosawa would have been pretty stiff competition. Not only that, but Olivier's TV version (on video) had just come the previous year, to great acclaim.

Tackling "King Lear":
http://www.wellesnet.com/tackling-king- ... carnovsky/

As more Americans go ‘no contact’ with their parents, they live out a dilemma at the heart of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’
Jeanette Tran, Drake University
Sun, December 29