Hamlet and King Lear DVDs now available

 

Soviet giant Grigori Kozintsev directed arguably the finest cinematic adaptations of The Bard's classic plays Hamlet and King Lear.

 

For the first time, Mr Bongo is proud to bring these time honoured classics, seen by both academics and enthusiasts as the definitive Shakespeare’s on film, to your living room.

 

Hamlet (1964)

Kozintsev's strong visual style places the characters on a rich widescreen canvas while preserving the inward dimension of Hamlet’s own. Praised greatly by Laurence Olivier himself, Innokenty Smoktunevsky's energetic yet contained performance brings the Prince of Denmark into living flesh; an excellence in form rarely achieved since.

 

King Lear (1971)

With Shostakovich's roaring score, Kozintsev's flamboyant use of widescreen cinematography and a translation by Nobel Laureate Boris Paternak as script, it is Juri Jarvet that steals the show as the mad, tyrannical and heart-breaking Lear. In the final film of his career, Kozintsev fashions a fitting twilight work.

 

Check out reviews of the two films by The Arts Desk and The Observer