King Lear (1984)

Lack of good storyline.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A very good version of _King Lear_ - Olivier plays it poignantly, you can see his Lear's overweening vanity and his profound humility. Robert Lindsay is my favourite Edmund ever - you immediately love him and wish him well despite the fact that he is a b*ftard (in all senses of the word - haha). Dorothy Tutin's Goneril has the most disapproving glare you have ever seen and her frolicking mutton act is painful to watch if you're a middle-aged woman. Hurt's fool is a wee bit too pathetic and Cordelia's weepiness is not appealing -- Diana Rigg's Regan is certainly convincing at getting across the hidden nastiness that outdoes Goneril. Gloucester is quite perfect in his rough affection. I've seen this many times and I still enjoy watching it for the nuances. The fight between Ed and Ed is a little much. It's too bad it looks quite so made-for-TV. I'm looking forward to Branagh blowing all the meanings up into big cartoons for us when he does his version of Olivier's _Lear_.

This version of Lear was made for television, and it shows. The scale is small, the sets cheap, the action cramped. However, Olivier's acting is something to be remembered. Lear comes across very convincingly as a pathetic, deteriorating, crumbling old man, weak and defenseless in spite of an unseen past of terrible power and - presumably - ferocious cruelty. Kurosawa's Japanese adaptation plays much more on the terrible past of Lear as counterpoint to the present weakness and madness, this English version leaves the lost power and cruelty only as a hazy background. If this is a defect of Olivier's acting, or whether it faithfully reflects his views on the character, I do not know. But I think Olivier did exactly what he wanted to do, focus on the old Lear, his weakness and his fading away, as a symbol of human nature in general, and of his own advanced age in particular. In the final scenes Lear appears shaven off his beard, showing the naked face of a very ancient man, not the face of an actor at all. There must be a reflection of Olivier's own becoming old and brittle and approaching death, on the deterioration and dying of Lear. And there is the weakest glimmer of hope, both for the character and for the actor, as dying Lear recovers lost love in the midst of destruction.Of the rest of the cast, the best characters in my opinion are Goneril and Regan, perhaps a little overplayed but very convincingly so, as the hard hearted, scheming sisters. The fool and poor Tom somehow are not quite convincing. Gloucester is moving but a little dumb. Kent is handsome and masculine. Cordelia is pretty. But no question, this is Lord Olivier's show.The score has justly been criticized as noisy and intrusive. Staging is not always clear enough for comprehension of the plot.All in all, this movie is well worth seeing. Perhaps there are better interpretations of Lear, perhaps more adjusted to Shakespeare's vision; however, this version has enough merit so as to stand by itself. And Olivier remains the quintessential Shakespearean actor of all times.

Actually, this is a tough review to write, because the main problem is that Laurence Olivier is just too old to play this part. King Lear the character is old, but the actor playing him has to have the energy and power of a younger man. Otherwise, how can he stand a chance against the evil characters, especially when the two evil daughters join forces? Some of the best parts of this production actually are the evil daughters, Goneril and Regan. Diana Rigg is great!Overall, this one is definitely worth seeing because it's such a great play and there are some really wonderful performances like Rigg, Dorothy Tutin and John Hurt. Just don't expect it to be the best possible King Lear.

So often you see Shakespeare done and actors just seem to go along for the ride. The cultural weight of Shakespearean drama is so great, that for too many, all that is necessary is to assume the correct postures and tones and say the lines and they awe or are awed. Not so in this performance. Olivier carefully maps out every angle in the character Lear and serves him up, alive.Not only that, but the sets are very genuine. No stark abstractions here. Like Brannagh's Henry V, we can see what Shakespeare was looking at when he wrote these works.