Everybody's Going to Die: Consequences of Corrupt Behavior

The four minute clip of Brook's film was more jarring to me than the entirety of Kozintsev's film. Although Brook's characters and their explicit violence would leave an impact on the audience, Kozintsev had a different goal. Kozintsev's film emphasized class and oppression much more than the actual text of the play did. The shots of the lower class in the beginning of them film and the constant inclusion of these decrepit citizens evoked a desolate and barren state of the masses. In reading actual Shakespeare, I did not think of the middle and lower classes, they seem to be excluded from Lear's immediate thoughts. Kozintsev, however, placed them at the forefront. The portrayal of the lower class evoked a sort of pre-revolutionary France with the majority of the citizens living in extreme poverty.
The clip from Brook's film brought to mind the consequences of disobedience, pride, and casualties of war (familial, in Lear's case). Kozintsev's version does criticize the monarchy, but from a social justice standpoint with its recurring theme of the neglected poor. Shakespeare also seems to be criticizing the monarchy, but this version includes no mention of the rest of the population. Both Shakespeare and Kozintsev seem to present an illustration of how unsustainable corrupt monarchies can be.