Pre-production thoughts on my upcoming film of King Lear.

Alexander Barnett in the Classic Theatre International production of King Lear.

King Lear is Shakespeare's greatest play and very likely the greatest work in all of literature. Its themes are of the most profound nature: redemption; self-realization; the myth of universal justice; fortuitousness in the battle between good and evil; the nature of evil.

The 80-year old Lear has been King for many decades. During his reign he has slowly and inexorably become blind to reality. He is a man of vast potential; a man of enormous passion, humanity, dignity and strength who has been inundated with lies, flattery, unchallenged obedience and false adoration.

When the play opens, Lear's psychological state is such that he is often incapable of controlling his strongest emotions. Lear has always been a man of towering passion, but had the incredible mind and will to match it. Now, however, his purpose and control have been eroded by his increasingly irrational emotional state.

In any production of King Lear, we must see the lion in Lear and his raging battle between his age and failing mind. T here must be a constant struggle between the Lear of old and the present Lear. If we don't see the towering Lear we're left with the ill, debilitated, sorrowful Lear and the conflict is gone - we never see his basic nature, which is the cause of decline. What make him so fascinating and exciting are his tremendous extremes of temperament. First and foremost he must always be a fighter and never give in to adversity. This is a man who fights an epic and magnificent struggle against overwhelming physical and emotional turmoil and whose implacable refusal to surrender makes him one of the greatest, most towering and passionate tragic characters ever created.

And the most difficult portrayal in the entire Shakespearean canon. The actor portraying Lear can't drive the torment, confusion and bewilderment that emanates from Lear – they must drive him. No amount of brilliant faking will work. I t's either real or not. We must see the torment.

Gloucester is an undiscerning, selfish, credulous and superstitious man. He is basically decent, but with a weak, impressionable nature. The portrayal must allow for catharsis is impossible. Edgar, Gloucester's legitimate son, is a totally trusting, inexperienced and ingenuous soul who has vast, untapped potential. He goes through an incredible process of development and maturity. Edmund, Gloucester's bastard son is willing to do anything to achieve his nefarious ends. He is not immoral, but amoral. He has the uncanny ability to unleash each woman's full sexual potential. This, plus his physical attractiveness, his feigned but convincing warmth and concern, his self-confidence and sense of humor make him an ideal, consummate lover. With the obvious obsession that Goneril and Regan have for Edmund, nothing less will suffice. He must have the charm, confidence, fearlessness, dominance and supreme ability to dupe others. Albany, Goneril's husband, is a decent, sensitive, ethical and intelligent man who prefers to avoid altercation and acrimony, but should possess both appeal and perception. Cordelia is not a sweet, frail, delicate ingénue. If she were, Lear would never favor her. She is, rather, much like Lear: resolute, dignified, proud, outspoken and fearless. This is why Lear adores her. Indeed, she must match Regan and Goneril in strength and tenacity. It must be conceivable to imagine Cordelia’s leading an army to rescue her father. The Fool should be a creature of nature. Pure instinct. Spontaneous, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Ultimately, Lear, the 80-year old with the heart of a gladiator, should arouse in us, not tears, primarily, but awe that such a man could exist.

The Eyes of Van Gogh

What Causes the "Death of Theo" Hallucination Scene in The Eyes of Van Gogh?Pre-Production Notes for the film The Eyes of Van Gogh

As the director and screenwriter, what I wanted for this scene in my film The Eyes of Van Gogh was to capture Vincent van Gogh's overwhelming guilt for placing such a burden as caring for him upon his brother, Theo; his terrible fear that Theo would stop supporting him; the gnawing, growing doubts about the true value of his work and the sickening sense that his work is not worth the help given to him by Theo (played in the film by Gordon Joseph Weiss).

During the course of the scene the audience should sense Vincent's growing awareness that he has contributed only pain and suffering to Theo's life; his deepening conviction that he will never be able to pay Theo back and, ultimately, that the burden he is putting on Theo will kill him.

Beyond that, though, the scene reveals Vincent's tremendous need to see Theo, talk to him, touch him, reassure him. To assuage Theo's growing doubts about continuing to support him, his concerns about his family, his ill health, his job security as an art dealer.

Everything that happens to Vincent in this scene, every thought, every action, every fear has already occurred to him in a lucid, contemplative state. But here he is living it, literally, in a hallucinatory state.

The key motivating factors that drive both the scene and the character of Vincent are the first attack he had in the insane asylum at St. Remy, from which it took him three weeks to recover. He is still very vulnerable.

Five days prior to the scene, Theo wrote to tell him of the birth of his son, to whom he has given the dreaded name of Vincent. Vincent becomes acutely aware that Theo now has his own family to support. Finally, two days prior, Theo wrote to tell Vincent that his growing weakness had been diagnosed as a possible weak heart.

When Theo appears in the scene, things change dramatically. Now the scene takes on a heightened reality that represents all of Vincent's worst fears. In his hallucinatory state, van Gogh imagines all of Theo's most worrisome thoughts from numerous letters. Out of context they present horrifying pictures, though they constitute no more than 5% of the whole of the letters.

Theo, of course, obeys the logic of the hallucination.

On Filming The Eyes of Van Gogh : The Director's Viewpoint

The goal I set for myself in transferring my film script for The Eyes of Van Gogh to the screen was never to present but rather to uncover.

My director of photography, Ian Dudley, and I employ a subjective camera throughout the entire film. The idea is to get inside Vincent's head. Everything seen and felt is from his point of view. In order to achieve this, the camera, rather than viewing the action, is always within the action. We strove to give objective expression to inner experience, i.e., to show what Vincent was thinking and feeling; to show how a memory, dream or hallucination registers in his mind: texture, sound, color, shape, tempo.

The purpose is not for the audience merely to be a witness, but rather for them to live within the image and to participate psychologically in the action. Vincent's mind, from beginning to end, is always engaged. His confusion, struggle, bewilderment and desperation grow and grow. He is never totally in one place. When he is in the past he still retains some of the present and vice versa.

Many scenes are dream, imaginary or hallucinatory sequences. In order to convey the intensity and obsessive quality and to maintain the subjective camera movement, all of the scenes were shot at 360 degrees with a handheld camera. From childhood on, Vincent van Gogh never took anything for granted. He always marveled at every new discovery; at all the wonders of the world.

Because of the burden he put on his brother, Theo van Gogh, and because his work never sold, Vincent suffered constantly with terrible bouts of guilt, remorse and regret Vincent came to the insane asylum at St. Remy because he wanted to be isolated from the outside world and be in a protective environment. As long as he could discover and reveal new truths and carry on with his work he could hold the horrible disease at bay.

The constant obsession by psychoanalysts, doctors and armchair experts to pigeonhole van Gogh's illness, to give it a specific name, to use it to explain his actions, to claim that the very quality of his personality and his genius can be attributed to a specific malady: bi-polar disease, schizophrenia, autism, tinnitus, gonorrhea, lead poisoning, ad finitum ad nauseam is utter rubbish. It's an insult to Vincent and proof that these people have absolutely no understanding of the man. For Vincent, inactivity was absolute torture. Painting was the only thing that protected him from the constant questions and doubts that haunted him. By going without proper sleep or food, by working himself to the point of exhaustion -- this alone helped silence the most frightening thoughts. It was vitally important to him that his work be recognized; for there to be some sense of recompense, because then he could ease the burden placed on Theo.

Vincent van Gogh's three greatest fears were: suffering another attack; being incapacitated and unable to work; and failing to justify though his work all that Theo had done for him. He felt that if he couldn't work he had no reason to live, no right to take money away from Theo. Vincent was completely original both in his work and in his illness.

Certainly he had severe emotional problems and no doubt they were exacerbated by malnutrition and traumatic experiences - the Borinage, etc. that made him more vulnerable - but ultimately he was defeated by an immense sensitivity and an overwhelming empathic nature that was unable to cope with the reality of the world and the nature of most people.

In spite of what most think, Vincent was a realist both in his life and his work, but his reality was light years beyond everyday reality and therein lay his genius. He indeed saw life as it was but was never able to come to terms with it. Most realists become cynics, but Vincent was totally incapable of this. When an artist becomes a cynic, he also become a hack and is no longer capable of producing heartfelt work. Technical virtuosity may remain, but the "soul" of the work is lost.

Vincent never lost either. By the world's standard of normalcy, then and now, Vincent was not an idealist but quixotic. However, the "world's standard of normalcy, then and now," is by definition pedestrian, mediocre, compliant, herdish, pragmatic, accommodating and compromising. Vincent was extremely difficult to deal with. If he saw some-thing unjust or wrong, he felt compelled to attack it. It was always love or hate and this created many enemies. Even Theo found him impossible to live with. All Vincent thought about, all he cared about was the work. Nevertheless, Theo, like Roulin the postman and Vincent's teacher in Amsterdam, Mendes da Costa, always thought that Vincent was a great and unique individual. Those three were the only friends Vincent ever had, the only people who under-stood and loved him for what and who he was. But they were also unique and wonderful people, atypical from the average person.

Many people today who adulate Vincent make him into a Christ-like martyr. He was neither and would have detested the notion. He is depicted as the ultimate "communal" artist. This is nonsense. He was in fact the ultimate "individualist" who was never able to work well with others, or to be bound by any sort of cooperative rules. His desire to work with others came from loneliness more than anything else. Another myth is that he sacrificed his life (again, the martyr syndrome) for humanity. No. He gave his life to his work. He did indeed have an obsessive desire to educate and inspire people. But he strove to do so through his work, which superseded everything else.

The most significant and revelatory things about van Gogh are not that he cut off his earlobe or that he suffered attacks of madness or that he committed suicide, but rather that he lived life to the fullest, realized his artistic potential as much as humanly possible, fought magnificently against the attacks and all forms of adversity, never willingly giving in to them. Most important, he created a superb body of work that will live as long as the human race survives. The theme of his life, and the theme of my film The Eyes of Van Gogh, is Vincent's quest to achieve immortality through his work.