King Lear / Jones, New York Shakespeare Festival (Broadway Theatre Archive) |  | Director: Edwin Sherin
Actors: Douglass Watson, Paul Sorvino, Raul Julia, James Earl Jones, Rosalind Cash
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $16.98
as of 2/10/2010 06:11 EST details
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Seller: previously-enjoyed
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 32479
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 175 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: IMED0883D
UPC: 014381088328
EAN: 0014381088328
ASIN: B00005NG0D
Theatrical Release Date: February 20, 1974
Release Date: September 18, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Television adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear.
Genre: Performing Arts - Theater
Rating: NR
Release Date: 18-SEP-2001
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
Brilliant performances from an amazing cast highlight this piece of modern theater history. James Earl Jones stars as Lear in this digitally remastered recording of a live performance in the park. (If you've ever wished you could see one of Joseph Papp's legendary New York Shakespeare Festival productions, this is your chance.) The crowd reactions add a layer to the play by helping to bring the excellent production to life. The direction is vibrant, keeping both a reverence for Shakespeare's work and the importance of entertaining a crowd in mind. The astonishing supporting cast includes Rosalind Cash, Paul Sorvino, Rene Auberjonois, and Raul Julia, and a remarkable performance by Douglass Watson as Kent. --Ali Davis
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Filmed Theatre That Works February 5, 2010
C. Kopplin (London, UK)
This is a brilliant production of "King Lear" with powerful performances by James Earl Jones as Lear, Raul Julia as Edmund and René Auberjonois as Edgar. Quite often filmed theatre is worse than dull but this is not true in this case at all. This film is vibrant, gripping, keeping your attention from the first minute to the last. I have seen many "Lears" and this is one of the best. I highly recommend it.
The best Lear available! April 12, 2009
Brad Keimach (Los Angeles, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a stunning performance of a difficult play! The cast is stellar, committed, gifted, and electrifying. It was a live performance and the energy is high. James Earl Jones plumbed the depths of this role; Rene Auberjonois was masterful. Raul Julia was just so evil and insidious. The sisters and other roles were fine. Only Paul Sorvino was miscast. This is THE Lear to have, to watch and to learn.
The Best King Lear Performance I have Ever Seen November 28, 2007
M. H. Shulman (New York, NY)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
James Earl Jones does an OUTSTANDING job as King Lear at one point even foaming at the mouth in his raving madness! Raul Julia, Rahay Shamay Rabah Amayn, is almost as good while he is being very very bad as Edmund. The play itself is utter Genius, second in plays only to Hamlet, and this performance with its live character in Central Park, captures an air of excitement that can only be captured on very very special occassions. DO NOT miss this one.
"As Good As It Gets" April 11, 2007
Stanley H. Nemeth (Garden Grove, CA United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The earlier reviewers here are certainly on target in calling this the finest "King Lear" on DVD. While the supporting cast is never less than adequate, James Earl Jones is by himself one titanic show. He's able to do something rarely seen, excel in all aspects of this most demanding of roles. Pride, bluster, anger, genuine rage, madness, growing self knowledge, and then, at last, tenderness, even delicacy - all of these are convincingly and movingly played by this large, majestic actor. He's giving what add up, in fact, to acting lessons as he plays this part so skillfully.
Bravo for James Earl Jones and for Joe Papp February 19, 2007
M. S. Driver (Woodside, NY United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I agree completely with all of the reviewers that this is indeed the best recording of "King Lear", not only because James Earl Jones is to my mind the definitive Lear (and because this cast and production magnify and clarify everything there is to be seen and heard in this play), but also because it is a recording of a live performance in a theater, rather than a movie or TV-studio taping. What a difference this makes! Movie versions are always rescripted, truncated and sometimes oddly cast to make a play more saleable. (Orson Welles' "Othello" and "Macbeth" are gorgeous pieces of cinema, but they are much more Welles than Will.) The productions of the 1980s BBC series stick pretty close to the text and happily have made the entire Shakespeare canon available for home viewing. But their visual and aural effect is claustrophobic, and the colors are fading. It was a wonderful change for me to experience the sweep and power of Papp's "King Lear" DVD, proving that, in the end, the best venue for a Shakespeare play is the one it was written for: the stage. Fortunately for those of us who could not be at Central Park's Delacorte Theater in the summer of 1974, Joseph Papp had the historical sense to take on the hassle and expense of preserving this marvelous production on videotape. Would that there were enough of a market out there to encourage more theater angels to do the same!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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