King Lear
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Movie Reviews of King Lear
Movie Review: Oliviers Lear
Summary: 1 Stars
A very thin performance and lacklustre production. Painful and arduous to watch: a waste of time. It may be pleaded that Olivier's voice had gone (which I am sure it had), but I do not rate his Hamlet either: a very gimmicky affair where Olivier failed to capture the poetry and further ruined the play with intrusive, naive and sentimental mood music. His Henry V, however, bears the marks of genius. In cadence and projection of voice, he delivered the great set pieces with full justice. For that we must thank him copiously, but like all successful actors, he become lionised and was paid the earth for base trash. Where Shakespeare is concerned, that is a crying and a perdurable shame upon our English heritage.
For Lear, see Michael Hordern in the BBC collection. His is the only acceptable one I have seen. As a production, it is spoilt by a very lame Edgar, but Hordern and others are superb. By the way, beware of the BBC S'peare collection: many of the productions are simply monstrous. Coriolanus is unwatchable (such a wimpish damp-squib lead, compared with Burton's rendition), as is Anthony & Cleopatra.
No wonder we no longer command much respect globally, when we can't do justice to our chiefest men. Apart from Shakespeare, nearly always done badly, there is nothing of Jonson and only one Marlowe play available (the latter is Faustus with Burton, and very good). In case one suspects me to be a Burton adulator, I must deny it categorically, and decry his Hamlet as available on DVD, which is a complete farce. Indeed, I know of no satisfactory Hamlet that is available. Gielgud's audio recording is about the best thing I have been able to get.
Movie Review: Poor performance from Olivier.
Summary: 1 Stars
While his films of Hamlet and Henry IV are brilliant, this performance was disappointing. I am not sure whether he was past his prime or if the part simply did not suit him, but the full weight of the King's character is missing. Another point I found extremely irritating is that Olivier mutters his lines on numerous occasions making it very difficult to understand his words, it left me scrambling for the remote control to turn on the sub-titles, unfortunately there is none on the DVD, so I was left miserably struggling to understand many passages. The rest of the cast were super, John Hurt especially was electrifying as the fool. But overall one to avoid.Movie Review: Terrible.
Summary: 1 Stars
This was produced for TV--and it looks it. A personal complaint: NO SUBTITLES are recorded and the sound is so horrible you cannot tell what is being said (especially when the rain is pouring and the wind is howling!). Absolutely no effort was made when transferring this to DVD. Have a copy of the text handy if you expect to understanding anything that is being said at certain points.