King Lear of King Lear" (1949), argues that "Lear" dramatizes, among other things, the current meanings of "Nature". The words "nature," "natural" and "unnatural" occur over forty times in the play, reflecting a debate in Shakespeare's time about what nature really was like; this debate pervades the play and finds symbolic expression in Lear's changing attitude to Thunder. There are two strongly contrasting views of human nature in the play: that of the Lear party (Lear, Gloucester, Albany, Kent), exemplifying the philosophy of Bacon and Hooker, and that of the Edmund party (Edmund, Cornwall, Goneril, Regan), akin to the views later formulated
In the Name of My Daughter the characters' passions drive the action, director Andre Téchiné lends the film an appealing illusion of calm." Richard Brody from "The New Yorker" called the film "a ready-made classic melodrama". Nicolas Rapold writing for "The New York Times" commented that "Mr. Téchiné ’s methodical storytelling covers more narrative ground than the drama requires, sapping the film’s energy." In his review for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Mick LaSalle described "In the Name of my daughter" as "Lacking action to the point of seeming immobile, Mr. Téchiné nevertheless amasses a catalogue of anger, desire and sex, enhanced by stunning landscapes of villas