Reality Bites

In 2002, a semi-autobiographical metafilm was released called Adaptation. I personally believe that it was Nicolas Cage's last great film he made before, well... whatever. Anyhow, the plot of Adaptation revolved around renowned screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) trying to adapt a the novel The Orchid Thief. Kaufman had trouble adapting the novel into a movie due to its unusable narrative so he wrote a movie about him trying to adapt the book. The novel, and mostly everyone in the movie are real people in real life. What this did was allow Kaufman to create a world of his own where he called the shots to set things in motion in order to write a really good script. This is similar to how Shakespeare uses natural reality of the island and illusions of art in The Tempest.
If Prospero is William Shakespeare, than Charlie Kaufman is Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation. If Prospero needs his books to be in power, Kaufman needs his power to write (he suffers from writers block in the film). To get even more technical, Charlie Kaufman's twin brother, Donald (fictional) get his redundant cliched script sold for seven figures while Charlie is left out in the cold. This mirrors Antonia usurping the throne of Milan from Prospero. Kaufman must have been a fan of The Tempest.

The Tempest rarely clarifies if an act of nature, or art, had Prospero's hand in it. In Act II.i the King of Naples and his party fall asleep except for Antonio and Sebastian. This questions whether Prospero had his hand in it to allow Antonio and Sebastian to hatch together their own plot for usurping the throne. Yet the real reality is that while Prospero wants justice for his usurped throne, he has stolen the island from Caliban and enslaved Ariel to do his dirty work in order to seek his own personal justice. Moreover, the means he uses to achieve his idea of justice mirror the machinations of the artist, who also seeks to enable others to see his view of the world, similar to how Kaufman used himself as a character to adapt an unadaptable book.

A Farewell to King Lear

For those of you who are not familiar with the world of comic books and superheroes, I apologize in advance before I go off the deep end and completely nerd out.

Upon finishing the play, I didn't know what to make of King Lear. I found the play long, confusing, complicated and muddled. Being an a lover of movies, I always use cinema as a way of trying to make sense when nothing else seems to work. I found myself on a trip down memory lane recalling the latest Batman trilogy. In 2005 when Batman Begins was released, I thought it was a great reboot of a troubled franchise. In my opinion, I consider The Dark Knight to be the best film of the last decade. Needless to say, I had very high hopes and expectations for the third film The Dark Knight Rises. Fast forward through my first watching of that film, I didn't know what to make of TDKR as I found it long, confusing, complicated and muddled. For the last four weeks, while everyone was discussing 'nothing' and referential mania, I had the characters of King Lear and Batman on my mind.

Well, as I started thinking and rereading, I began to notice some rather intriguing parallels about King Lear and the Dark Knight. King Lear deals with themes about justice, authority and chaos. The characters are cruel, ignorant and blind to their own insignificance. When Lear banishes Cordelia, her disrespectfulness, it's Kent who tells Lear that it was a mistake and he would later regret it. Lear lashes out at Kent and banishes him as well. This is reminiscent of a scene in The Dark Knight Rises where Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's loyal butler that cared for him since the death of his parents, pleads to Bruce to give up the Batman. Bruce's body is more fragile and Alfred does not want to bury another member of the Wayne family. Unfortunately, Bruce Wayne's cared more about a city that had forgotten about him and dismissed Alfred.

I think what happened is that I developed my own sort of referential mania between King Lear and The Dark Knight Rises. Both Lear and TDKR deal with an impending storm. Lear’s storm is literal but also a symbol to reflect his inner turmoil that forces the king to recognize his own mortality and frailty. In TDKR, a ‘storm’ is used to mention the impending onslaught of villain Bane taking over the city and breaking Batman’s back, thus forcing him to recognize his own mortality.

King Lear hands off the Kingdom to Goneril and Regan. The ending result is turmoil and chaos throughout. Bruce Wayne foolishly hand Wayne Enterprises over to the cunning Miranda Tate, who just happens to be working for Bane, resulting in his takeover of Gotham City.

I also found the character of Edgar to be similar to that of Bruce Wayne. Edgar is initially blind to the treacheries that Edmund is up to at first, just like Bruce Wayne before he realizes that Gotham is full of crime and on the verge of chaos. It’s really hard to characterize Edgar because he changes so much throughout the play. I will mention that he does wear a disguise to aid Lear and Gloucester. It’s not a cape and cowl but his disguise is used to right his brother’s treason.

Speaking in terms of blindness, Gloucester has no idea who the mad beggar is (Edgar) because he’s literally blind. The fact that no one in Gotham realized Bruce Wayne was Batman, even after Bruce is considered dead and Batman fakes his death goes to show how blind people in Gotham really are.

So maybe there’s something here, or maybe it’s just reading too much into the play and the film. Either way, I commend you if you’ve made it this far.

Travis