https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=224 Shakespeare en devenir N°1 — 2007 fr ven., 30 avril 2010 11:45:14 +0200 lun., 03 juil. 2023 18:12:54 +0200 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=224 0 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=112 Ran belongs to the genre of the Jidai-Geki or historical film. The action is set in XVIth century Japan, during the obscure age of Sendogu Jidai torn by violent wars among bellicose lords. The plot unfolds on the tragic story of Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, who stands here both as Lear and the real historical figure Lord Motonari Mori, and his three sons. The whole film can be seen as an allegory of the hopeless condition of man, and as such it both echoes the dark pessimism of the play and Kurosawa’s own nihilism. This paper aims at analysing some of the most convincing transpositions of the play verbal images into the visual mode to show the specific nature of the filmmaker’s stylised aesthetics and essential symbolism. The simplification of the plot and dialogues, the use of primary colours as a means of creating a metaphorical minimalist system, the alternation of movement and stasis in the battle and indoor sequences mostly resorting to Noh drama conventions are powerful cinematic means of illustrating the violence of Shakespeare’s universe. jeu., 28 janv. 2010 15:17:00 +0100 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=112 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=114 “Nothing will come of nothing”. Lear’s atomistic postulate, followed as it is by the King’s peremptory “Speak again”, reads like a commentary on Shakespeare’s text itself, which both repeats and rephrases existing material. Indeed, King Lear results from the weaving into one text of bits and pieces which may part again to be reunited later under a different shape. As such, the play does not come of nothing, and consequently should never return to nothingness. Film adaptations of King Lear are faithful to the text on two grounds, since they both include Lear’s famous line and illustrate it, thus repeating the play and reworking it. In this respect, Ran is so radically different that some refuse to rank it among Shakespearian adaptations, not only because the famous phrase is not spoken in the film, but also because Kurosawa constantly emphasizes his presence as the maker of the film, thus drawing a clear line between what comes from Shakespeare and what is born out of the darkness of the screen, to which it returns at the end of the showing. This paper aims at studying Kurosawa’s Ran as a metaphysical reflection on the filmic creative process, which adapts a similar reflection found in Shakespeare’s play, and at proving that Ran should be considered as a successful adaptation of King Lear. Indeed, even if the film keeps almost nothing from the original text, it nevertheless manages to transcribe its existential depth by adapting it to another culture, to another time, and to another artistic medium. jeu., 28 janv. 2010 15:17:52 +0100 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=114 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=116 This essay sets out to explore the relationship between Shakespeare’s King Lear and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran. Central to the growth of Kurosawa’s interest in the narrative and dramatic structures of Shakespeare is the conflict between authority and challenge within the family. Kurosawa sets his films Kumonosu-Djo and Ran in XVIth century Japan, a more rigidly ritualised social context than is the social frame of King Lear. Dialogue is reduced to a bare minimum in Ran, but the images with which Kurosawa projects the inner world of the characters as well as the outer world of natural space carry their own searing poignancy. Where Shakespeare’s play presents a situation which moves forward into the future, Kurosawa was convinced that the characters’ actions gain credibility if they emerge from a specifically sketched past, a difference which shifts the moral stature of the central character. There are no exact equivalents for the subsidiary King Lear characters in Ran. Rather there is frequently a distribution of character qualities among supporting, sometimes peripheral, characters. Like Shakespeare’s play, Ran is concerned with the relationship between humankind and animal. The hunt, a central motif in King Lear, is graphically established in Ran, raising questions about the place of man in the natural order. In both Shakespeare’s play and Kurosawa’s film, there emerges a view of humankind in which the likelihood of descent into catastrophic darkness is counterpoised against only a glimmer of potential insight. jeu., 28 janv. 2010 15:18:22 +0100 https://shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr:443/shakespeare/index.php?id=116