Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
King Lear? Look here., 20 Aug 2001
By A Customer
This is a chilling, moving and sometimes funny production of perhaps the greatest play ever written. The well-chosen supporting cast raise their game when in presence of Larry O, and the great man himself produces his last great (greatest?) performance. Lear's pathos, folly, madness and tenderness are nailed so definitively by Olivier that you find yourself forgetting that anyone else has ever done the part. Claustrophobic sets, a decent storm, and clanging metallic music add to the atmosphere of this production. The final emotional wallop really delivers (and this managed to top what happened to Gloucester earlier on - well done Will)and you are left with the feeling that there really is very little hope for the world. Take the video out of the machine and try to forget about it. You won't be able to.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent adaptation of possibly Shakespeare's best tragedy, 14 Dec 2000
This adaptation of 'King Lear' is excellent. Possibly the best thing about it is Laurence Olivier's performance. He conveys Lear's spirit and the pathos of the situation in which he finds himself with clarity and an amazing insight into the character's personality, and quite literally grips the viewer's attention from start to finish. Olivier is admirably supported by the rest of the cast, most notably Dorothy Tutin, Diana Rigg, Robert Lindsay and John Hurt as Goneril, Regan, Edmund and the Fool respectively. The costumes are wonderful, as are the sets, the most noteworthy of these being Stonehenge, which is the setting for both the first scene and the final scene of the play. Another feature of this production is that, unlike some other versions, very little of the text has been omitted, making the story somewhat easier to follow. This is especially important for viewers who are unfamilier with the play. Overall, this is a fabulous piece of drama, and is well worth watching, even if you have seen other versions of the play. With the possible exception of the Paul Schofield version, the others just don't compare with this.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding stage-like presentation of Shakespeare's tragedy, 4 Jul 2001
By A Customer
For a traditional presentation of Shakespeare's classic work, it would be hard to improve on this. Michael Elliott's production boasts a fine cast, notably Laurence Olivier's Lear and John Hurt's Fool, working hand-in-glove in the scenes where the king's daughters reject him in particular. When I say "traditional", I am thinking of the stage-like influences on the video; the relative economy of the sets and costumes, impressive though these still are, are presented in a manner realizable in the space of a stage. This lends an intimate, in-your-face portrait of the characters' thoughts and feelings, possible to a greater extent on video than on film. The Stonehenge sets, positioned at either end of the production like monolithic bookends, are a very effective backdrop to illustrate the antiquity and importance of the setting. If, however, you don't mind reading English subtitles in foreign language films, Grigori Kozinstev's 1971 version is much more "filmic" in its use of scenery and sets, to an extent not achievable on stage. This is a more innovative version, Oleg Dal's Fool surviving the play's action to the end for example. Russian composer Shostakovich's music powerfully accentuates the play's themes in this haunting production. But for a more immediately accessible film of the text, in language terms at least, the Elliott film is well worth buying.
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