Customer Reviews

King Lear

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have to disagree with the negative reviews posted above. This is possibly Olivier's best recorded performance, and the bulk of the other performances are excellent as well, particularly that of Diana Rigg. The actors speak their lines so casually and easily that, even if you're not used to Shakespearian dialog, it'll soon all seem perfectly natural. The set is minimalist, true, but if your enjoyment of Shakespeare is dependent upon set design then I recommend you never attend a stage performance. If I have one complaint about this production it's that the actors, while individually turning out great performances, don't appear to be relating to each other very well--as if they're each giving their rendition of their characters without letting their performances be informed by the performances of those around them. Still and all, this is an extremely moving production of one of the most powerful plays in the canon.

This is not the best Lear, or the most complete, but it's the one I use in my classroom because Olivier's performance is so accessible and moving. His final scene makes you marvel at the emotional power an actor at the end of his career could muster -- and almost allows you to forget "The Betsy"! The supporting actors are very good, particularly Diana Rigg as Regan and John Hurt as an empathetic Fool. The language is crystal clear and the neolithic-Britain setting gives a better sense of the historical context for this legend than do the many modern-dress updates.

The late Sir Laurence Olivier's final major screen role, five years before his death in 1989, is one of his most legendary and best performances. It equals every other Shakespearean role that he did in greatness. He also adapted the play for the screen and produced it (though he took no credit for that). How appropriate that the final major screen role of the greatest Shakespearean actor of all time, Kenneth Branagh close behind, should be a Shakespeare production. A fitting end to a long and illustrious career (see my reviews of his Shakespeare movies). As always, Sir Laurence Olivier is backed up by a strong supporting cast, including Diana Rigg ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service"; see my review of this much-maligned James Bond film) as Regan, John Hurt ("1984") as the Fool, Brian Cox ("Troy"; see my review) as the Duke Of Albany and Esmond Knight (Olivier's collaborator on "Henry V" and "Hamlet"; see my reviews on those films). I highly recommend this version for English classes. I have not seen other versions of this play, but until I see a better one, which I doubt, this version is the DEFINITIVE "King Lear." This final performance by the greatest Shakespearean actor is NOT TO BE MISSED. Not Rated.

This is a fine production of one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. The spare sets add to the poignance of this version as we aren't caught up in some exotic location so much as in the fact that it is actually a play. I chuckle whenever I hear someone say Olivier is too old for the power of Lear. I suppose it never dawned on ANYONE that Lear is an old man. He is supposed to be very old and Olivier fills the part. Who would know better how an old man would play it than an old man himself and the world's greatest actor on top of that? I can enjoy Ian Holm's version and Paul Scofield's version, but this is the definitive version. The cast is well chosen. The comments someone made about a poor cast are laughable. Don't let them fool you, this is great Shakespeare. Olivier knows just what he is doing. John Hurt as the Fool,Diana Rigg as Regan and Leo McKern as Gloucester are amazing. Get this and enjoy it!

Laurence Olivier turns in an incredible performance as King Lear in this 1970s made-for-British-televison version. He can be watched again and again to savor both his acting and the beauty of Shakespeare's poetry (I've watched it dozens of times). An extremely strong supporting cast only helps - Diana Rigg as Reagan, Dorothy Tutin as Goneril, David Threlfall as Edgar (he played Leslie Titmous in the BBC/PBS *Paradise Postponed*), John Hurt as The Fool, Leo McKern as Gloster (better known as Rumpole, but Mckern was a stage actor in Britain for years). The roles of Edmund, Cornwall, Cordelia, and others are also very fine - Edmund especially. This version is particularly suited for savoring the performances and poetry as it is not really a "film" so much as a brilliant recording of a stage performance - the sets are minimal, and this only helps the acting. As in almost all Shakespeare films, some lines are cut, but no matter. When Lear, after all his hardships and disillusionments, gets to the lines "When we are born, we cry that we have come to this great stage of fools," the viewer might just be ready to cry, too. Fantastic performance.

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.

Olivier's Lear is the better of the two I've seen, the other being Ian Holm's Lear. Olivier is consistently believable and not strained. Especially in the 3rd act in the rainstorm, which can seem artificial and stagy if not done right. Holm doesn't quite get it right. Olivier does. Olivier is also more successful at portraying the fragile old man that Lear is. Holm comes across as far too angry and headstrong. A strong supporting cast puts the finishing touches on the film. An excellent production of one of Shakespeare's best plays.

This is for anyone who knows anything about Shakespeare.
I think this is an excellent Lear...the cuts that were made are not excessive and the acting is superb pretty much all around.
Sir L of course is wonderful....rising to the part and the occasion. His daughters are all well cast and the only strange acting came from Lear's Fool...a British actor who took the role to the dark and mysterious place( who's the real fool?) ...a good choice..but the play is so dark and sad anyway..why not have some humor to spice it up? Shakespeare didn't write the fool in this play with great lines or funny lines....
overall the production is an utter Shakespearean success.

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.

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.