Comparing King Lear And Ran

At first, the differences between Shakespeare’s King Lear and director Akira Kurasawa’s 1985 film Ran seem merely cosmetic, shifting the action from medieval Europe to medieval Japan, and Lear’s daughters to sons. But upon closer inspection, the film has taken the darkest and bleakest aspects of Lear and expanded them, presenting a colder and cynical view of humanity than the text of the play ever does. In small (and large) changes to character, Ran’s creates its tragedy in the failings shared by each and every human being, while Lear’s tragedy is that of good and kind people betrayed by wicked ones. In Ran, the wicked and the wounded are often one in the same, and the few truly noble characters do not survive to the end of the film. Ran as
The colors of the costumes are bright and vibrant, and the landscapes are massive and impressive. The three castles belonging to Hidetora’s sons are rarely shown in their entirety, but the smallness of the actors in comparison to the great stone structures do more to highlight their size than any amount of wide shots ever could. The image that dominates the film, however, is the castle that has been razed to the ground. Hidetora himself, as a younger man, had destroyed it in his quest to conquer all the lords of the area. It serves as a visual reminder of Hidetora’s sins, and of the hurt he caused to the survivors of the family that had once owned it – Lady Sue, now married to Hidetora’s second son, and her brother, Tsurumaru. In one scene that echoes a dramatic beat from Lear without recreating it, Hidetora’s fool has lead him to the highest peak of the crumbling castle, and flippantly suggested that if he was so sick of life, why not jump off the edge? Which Hideotra does. He survives, and sits dazed in the shadow of the precipice, his mind slowly deteriorating. This same castle also supplies the locale for that aforementioned disturbing final shot: Tsurumaru, who should, by right, be master of the castle, had been blinded by Hidetora to keep him from claiming it. He, too, stands on the edge of the cliff, but he cannot see it, and he edges closer and closer to what might be his
Instead, Lear’s finale is full of anxiety for the future. Perhaps the vacancy on the throne will be filled, perhaps it will not; we never see that happen one way or the other. It is quietly nihilistic. The play has been filled with failure since the beginning: Lear and Gloucester’s failures as fathers (praising their bad children and disowning their good), Lear’s failure to maintain his power, and the failure and futility of the gods. But in Ran, there are few solely sympathetic characters, and the world is a cruel and merciless place. Hidetora is no Lear; that is, Hidetora is not, ultamitely, a good man. Lear is “more sinn’d against than sinning” (3.2.60); the same cannot be said of Hidetora. He has won his title through decades of violence, wiping out those who oppose him and making any who wish to stay alive his vassals. Two characters, Tsurumaru, whom Hidetora blinded instead of killing, and his sister Sue exist to emphasize that ruthlessness. Even in the opening of the film, while Hidetora’s age is clear, he is still deadly. He shoots down the boar in the hunt that plays through the credits, and later shoots a soldier threatening his fool from a high window with ease. Over the course of the film, Hidetora’s awareness of the damage he has caused grows,