King Lear
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Movie Reviews of King Lear
Movie Review: Makes the Peter Brooks version look bad
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want to see King Lear presented the way it should be, then this is for you. If you want to hear the lines spoken with total clarity and intelligence, the story presented with total understanding, almost every part played with total mastery, then this is for you. If you want to see special effects, expensive scenery, kung fu fight scenes, graphic killings, quirky direction imposed on the text Shakespeare wrote, go elsewhere. This is not for semi-literate mental adolescents panting for eye-candy, but for people mature enough to value the lessons of life and to accept its injustices and paradoxes. This work is a 400 year old play, written for the stage, perhaps the greatest of its kind. It speaks to those who are capable of listening, concentrating, absorbing its marvellous composition; who can recognize great acting, who can allow themselves to be drawn in by a performance built on a long, long lifetime of superlative achievement, supported to the hilt by every other player. I could find a few petty flaws to complain about and carp at, but I'm not going to lower myself to a high-school level of crass stupidity.Movie Review: Tiger burning bright and out
Summary: 5 Stars
Olivier's "King Lear" is a wonderful cap to his career, it is a part he understood deeply as evidenced by this performance. He was too physically weak to play it on stage and even with microphones his voice is not entirely up to the 'hurricanos' speech, and of course he had to have wires to help him carry Cordelia (which are very visible here). The physical production is underbudgeted, but that is more than compensated for by Olivier and the cast. McKern is wonderfully yeasty as Gloucester, a part in many ways better than Lear. Diana Rigg, Dorothy Tutin, Robert Lindsay, John Hurt, all stars in their own right, all fully engulfed in the play. Near the end, when Lear is mad but finds peace as a woodland creature feeding on what's available, Olivier leaps into rare territory. It's a play that is hard for a young man or woman to understand, usually, he builds a window for anyone. When life has 'done its dirty job' and you've experienced enough of it to realize how true and raw "Lear" is, your appreciation of the play and this performance will only ripen.Movie Review: No One Is Greater Than Olivier
Summary: 5 Stars
Olivier distinguished himself in role after role throughout his lifetime. Whatever the peculiarities of his personal life, he brought a finesse, passion, oddity and fantastic fullness to all of his characterizations. Who can forget his poisonous Nazi in Marathon Man or his tortured, dark "Heathcliff"? Often I will watch a film that I would otherwise avoid just see this great actor take on another role.
This King Lear is the ultimate. The entire cast shines with the usual British perfection (let's face it, no American can even lick the boot of a great, British Actor. It's actually embarrassing. ) Olivier was near death and in great pain while did this role. His suffering infuses every line with truth. No one can arch an eyebrow and convey so much. In his youth, Olivier prided himself on his physicality. The decay of his body caused him deep grief and frustration. He brings that tragic pain with him to this King Lear. No one will ever surpass him in this role. Anyone who is a fan of Shakespeare, drama or great acting must see this one.
Movie Review: Definitive
Summary: 5 Stars
This is by general consensus one of Shakespeare's two greatest works, Hamlet being the other. (Which one you think is best is purely a matter of taste; you can generate passionate arguments either way.) No matter where you come down on that debate, King Lear is indisputably a top masterpiece by the greatest writer in the English language.
This production features a cast that is consummately superb, from the title role on down. Every character is played by an actor who ranks near the top of the profession, including such luminaries as Diana Rigg, Leo McKern, David Threlfall, Jeremy Kemp, and on and on and on. And, of course, there is Olivier, who is at the very peak of his powers here. There isn't a weak, or even ordinary, performance anywhere.
A teacher I once knew used to describe Shakespeare's language as "opera for people who can't sing." This company makes the language crystal clear, but beyond that, they make it sing. If this production doesn't make Shakespeare accessible for you, no production ever will.
Movie Review: "Our darker purpose..."
Summary: 5 Stars
It is difficult to imagine a better Lear than Laurence Olivier at this stage in his carreer. He had said that he completely identified with Lear by this stage in his life. We see the ruination of an old, but monumentally great man. The DVD notes describe Lear as a man brought down by his excessive pride, but that is wrong. Lear's weakness is his capacity, and his need, for love. He cannot bear that Cordelia may not love him as much as he loves her and it drives him mad. It is a pleasure to watch Olivier beat his head as he curses his daughters as only he can.I don't know of any other comparable production of Lear, unless one counts Kurosawa's Ran. It seems that the art of Shakespearean acting has been lost on the newer guys, so it is a pleasure to watch the old masters of the Royal Shakespeare Company go at it. They make Elizabethan English perfectly lucid to modern audiences. It is a great production.