Extras and Audiences for Kozintsev

In Brook’s edition, a notable difference is the absence of extras.  Kozintsev’s version featured onlookers in the fight between Edgar and Edmund, spectating the murder of Cordelia, and even in the background of such scenes as the exchanges between the sisters and Edmund.  Though not pictured in the excerpt from Brook’s version, other notable scenes, like Tom’s hovel, Cordelia and Lear’s reunion, and Cordelia’s banishment, included unnamed spectators.  These parts were not written in by Shakespeare, but were a choice by Kozintsev.  Even the opening of the movie was several silent moments of peasants laboring to travel across the kingdom.  Also, the discovery of Lear by Cordelia’s search party is punctuated by the paupers in the background, who Lear has been traveling with, running into another group of beggars fleeing similar distress, from the direction in which Lear’s group had hoped to escape.

The audience-oriented focus of this messy family story clearly turns Kozintsev’s work into a social and political one.  All of the actions and decisions of this fractured royal family affect the peasants and citizens of Lear’s kingdom.  While they are squabbling and betraying each other, average people are clearly suffering as a consequence of their choices.  This is a clear parallel to Kozintsev’s political message: the government affects the people, and a monarchy (especially a monarchy as flawed as this one) has a negative impact because of a lack of concern for their citizens.  In contrast, Brook’s screenplay seems to be more oriented on the traditional storyline, and less on what social undertones can be sharpened through the background players.  By having sizeable (and, if reading from the actual text, uncalled for) audiences in these same scenes, Kozintsev takes away from the story’s focus and makes viewers consider the unnamed consequences of the play’s events.