Apparent Perversities: Text and Subtext in the Construction of the Role of Edgar in Brook's Film of King Lear1 | Text
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Brook's attempt to break from the tyranny of the King Lear text is well documented in a statement which the film's producer, Lord Birkett, made for Roger Manvell.3 First, they (Birkett and Brook) cut from the text certain passages which they regarded as 'completely unnecessary'. Then, after making further cuts, they presented their script to Ted Hughes, asking him to treat it as though it were a 'foreign classic' and to translate it into his own idiom—'into a language which seemed to him to be expressive of the story as he saw it, in his own right as a poet'. They hoped that by working on a modern script they would be able to achieve the kind of freedom available to foreign directors such as Kozintsev and Kurosawa, for whom Shakespeare's text did not have the inhibiting 'quality of Holy Writ'. From this experiment they discovered 'that there are passages, obviously the greatest passages in the play, which have a force and emotional power...
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