Shakespeare "King Lear"- Laurence Olivier: Act 4, scene 6

[Irina3597]

It's splendid! The best version. My father offered me to see it when I was young. He asked me if I could be so indifferent to his problems when he would be old and ill.I was deeply impressed by the plot and acting. It was my brightest memories of the childhood.I think,it's a powerful tool in upbringing children. It has no analogs.

[sageSPH]

It's funny that the madman is the one able to make the most brilliant dissertations about justice and the nature of life, when the rest of us are left in perpetual naivety. Perhaps Will was trying to show how full understanding of these things could only drive one mad.

[thegorn68]

He's so freaking brilliant in this.

[MrNilesdavis]

"I see it feelingly" great line!

[Drac39]

I wish footage of Olivier as Titus Andronicus exisited

[Jemmer1000]

A dog's obeyed in office...

great line great line.

[Jemmer1000]

This is my favorite piece of Shakespeare ever.

It's a lie, I am not ague proof

Ay, every inch a king

The wren goes to it,

The small gilded fly does lecher in my sight

Let copulation thrive...

[DrunkOnPoppySeeds]

larry's over the top as usual but that's alright here

[AtLastOnTheGround]

This man ... I have no words. He was a genius.

[nicodagger]

at the end of his life, Olivier gave one of his two or three, some could argue his best, performance. The greatest Lear I've seen.

[angelsbeatlesfan]

Isnt the guy from "help"(beatles movie) in here?????

[ponyfaces]

Lear on shrooms?

[waynehitchcock]

"Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician seem to see the things thou dost not."

Shakespeare wrote that over 400 years ago. The French are right - the more things change the more they stay the same.

[pensivebosom]

"Do thy worst, blind Cupid. I'll not love."

[easyoldbear]

I am bound upon a Wheel of Fire -magic performance

[polymath7]

Lear's madness is where almost all other performances fall apart, but this is flawless.

[polymath7]

Arrgh! Why do you post only fragments of some plays? I was hoping to see the Olivier version in full.

Mixed thanks.

[hoskingrj]

Brilliant.

And he reminds me of Catweazle.

[ChickenGoujons]

"Goneril with a white beard!"

[relmmih6]

what a load of old shite!

[lepulverfe]

Thank God for Olivier!

[jjj69v]

I love this scene the beginning makes me think he is a crazy homeless guy lol

[jjj1873]

simply,the greatest possible king lear within any capability,of any actor,possibly in any time in history,past,present,and future

[polymath7]

@jjj1873 Hear, here!

[ParaskeviKoutouba]

And even the giant Lawrence Olivier had an idol,too... His idol was the great Greek actor-maybe the greatest Greek actor of all times-Aimilios Veakis.. In Olivier's dressing room there was a picture of Veakis playing King Lear. And Olivier used to say: "This Greek actor was the best King Lear I've ever seen..."

[BTURNER1961]

well, now you folks have seen Shakespeare as it deserves to be seen. I'll wager it was the last of the Bard's work, Olivier immortalized. May be his finest.

[polymath7]

@BTURNER1961

I.

The last? Why? Upon what foundation would you lay that wager? If literary sense alone, I can sympathize in some measure. Certainly Lear gives one a sense of grandiose cosmic finality, as if it truly is the lastl word on "all the operations by which we do exist and cease to be", on what is and means to be a finite conscious being.

But the evidence seems to suggest (if I recall) that King Lear was first performed around 1605 (I'm not sure but there may even be an extant...

[polymath7]

II....bill of performance or contemporaneous referrence to its opening at the Globe.

'The Tempest' is generally thought to be the last play Shakespeare wrote without collaboration, and its first performance is generally thought (or perhaps even confirmed; off the cuff I'm not sure) to have been in 1611.

And there are these lines from Prospero, which I find very suggestive:

"I'l break my staff', bury it certain fathoms in the Earth

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I'll drown my book".

[BTURNER1961]

@polymath7 you misinterpreted my post . It was the last that OLIVIER immortalized because he was too old and ill to perform on either the stage or screen at such length again. As for his best work, Its the best I saw but admittedly I am only comparing this with his other film work in Hamlet or Henry. JMHO.

[polymath7]

@BTURNER1961 Ah, sorry. You know, a misplaced comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence.

[spinoza1111]

"We came crying hither" starts I think with three strong stresses. In the way it both emerges from and violates iambic pentameter's regularity, it is like Beethoven's transgressions in his last quartets. It's an angelic visitation where the angel is freed of ordinary constraints to say "WE COME CRYing HITHer."

[spinoza1111]

Hughes' analysis clears up the contradiction between "let copulation thrive" and "there's stink, there's corruption, there's the burning pit". Lear knows that if to have sex is dirty, it is a universal "dirt", as is being born.

[carrotgrater1]

starting from around 4.00 Lear talks about how women are only from the waist up, what is below is inhuman and devilish(half animal-centaur) . He thinks this as during "copulation" (sex) he becomes vulnerable to women, thus hating them from below the waist. He was told he was wise when he was too young "told white hairs were in a black beard." and so never felt vulnerable. With women he is vulnerable when having sex and so is frightened at the thought of a woman having power over him

[spinoza1111]

Ted Hughes points out that more than the sex act, Lear is re-enacting his birth, his passage through "stink, corruption, and the burning pit". This makes "we come crying hither" more understandable.

It's not a male chauvinist rant.

[DarthYoungling]

Lol, I was trying to follow along with my book, but I don't think I have the scene at the beginning at all...

[Seekery1]

i tink oliver was a bad lear!!

[mardinieng]

no , he wasn't

[drekecdrekecadrekecu]

agree. I wish i'd be english

[BORNremedy]

thankx for the video , im studying this play , and it is much easyer listening to it than reading.

[CaptainJenna7]

whfreak!!! thats olivier?! he is so brilliant....

[polymath7]

@CaptainJenna7

Brillant indeed. I almost always prefer reading the plays to watching performnces, but with Olivier I am seldom disappointed.

[boxingglovelove]

This is astonishing. Two brilliant master actors - Larry and Leo. 8:24 - 8:40 - amazing.

[shinninggum]

i like the peter brooks version as well

[steerpike66]

It's an odd one. Very stony and elemental and the direction is very avant garde. This is more traditional but the elderly Olivier uses his actual infirmity and illness as a tool, which is incredible and makes the whole thing even more moving, which is almost impossible. The worst Lear I've seen recorded is Patrick McGee. Ghastly.

[nozar7]

Is that Olivier?!!! What a complete master of disguise, which in essence is what an actor is.

[dglekjofg]

A-W-E-S-O-M-E. So sweet and moving. As Laurence Olivier's own dad used to say about his son's early acting performances, here Larry doesn't perform King Lear: he IS King Lear. The definitive King Lear. After watching his interpretation, one cannot even imagine any other one.

[hulkhulkidis]

the best king lear was aimilios veakis they say that his face is the mask of king lear

[ChineseElf]

Such a hurt and humbled lear compared to other versions. So much more moving this way.

[thegorn68]

That sucks you can see the boom microphone at 1:07 during "Well flown bird!". Oh well!

[thegorn68]

I LOVE this version!

[LindaLaCagnina]

Can there ever be another Lear as powerful as Sir Laurence Olivier's?

[mairearad]

I watched the RSC one with Ian McKellen but I personally prefer this version.

[beachprincess89]

Lear is awesome....Laurence Olivier IS lear...thanks alot for posting this

[Zedekiah2]

hardly. you've no appreciation for this grand display of acting by the King.

thanks for posting this.

[Birdieupon]

Let's see the video response in which you show us you can do better. Wuss.