Comparisons in King Lear Theatre Productions Blinding of Gloucester (Act 3, Scene 7)

King Lear is a tragic play which consists of many violent acts. In my opinion, the blinding of Gloucester would be considered the most violent. There are many different video versions of this particular scene. Three popular versions are “The BBC Production”, “The Thames Video Collection”, and the “Mobil Masterpiece Theatre.” Some of the productions twisted the dialogue around causing a shortage of speech for some of the characters. The bloody amounts violence affects the overall mood of the scene and portrays a different aura on each of the characters in the video production.

“The BBC Production” was filmed in 1982 hence being the oldest video version of the three stated above. This movie version showed no signs of blood or violence which resulted in a boring and dull mood. The characters also seemed too calm for this intense scene and they had no facial expressions likewise “The Thames Video Collection” King Lear version. During the plucking of the eyes, Gloucester was nowhere to be seen which is why they didn’t show the eyeballs afterwards. This version is completely different than the most recent video version, “The Mobil Masterpiece Theatre” because there was no action found in film. I found this version to be somewhat similar with “The Thames Video Collection” though.

“The Thames Video Collection” was filmed in 1988. I found this video version to be quite interesting in a way that they portrayed the setting of the violence. Although the characters showed no emotion and talked in a monotone voice like “The BBC Production”, they had a unique way of showing the blinding of Gloucester. They used a shadowing effect to view the plucking of the eyes. This means that when Cornwall plucked out Gloucester’s eye, they turned the camera towards the wall and used their shadows. When both of the eyes were detached from his face, the director decided to film that part in Gloucester’s point of view which I thought was pretty neat because no other video version did that....