Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Rosie Searle 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.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

TheLittleSongbird I am quite fond of Shakespeare, and the story of King Lear really compels and moves me. I have to say I was really impressed with this 1983 version of the play. The story still has its emotional impact, I genuinely felt for Lear here, and the dialogue is absolutely wonderful and makes you feel all sorts of different emotions all at once.My only complaint with this King Lear is the music. I do agree it does get melodramatic and over-bearing and it sometimes doesn't fit the scene. Then in some scenes where it is welcome it isn't used at all. In my mind, either have music that enhances the drama or don't use it at all.Aside from that, everything else was superb. I was very taken with the filming, the setting is beautifully evoked as are the costumes and there are some very interesting camera angles and uses of lighting. The direction is strong too, and the performances are top notch. Anna Calder-Marshall, John Hurt, Robert Lindsey, Leo McKern and Colin Blakely all do some really effective work, but it is Laurence Olivier's superb and quite poignant performance in the pivotal role that drives it.Overall, very well done, elevated by the great acting of Olivier and co, and if it hadn't been for the music it would have been note-perfect. 9/10 Bethany Cox

donelan-1 The key to Olivier's performance is also the key to the play. Lear has been an absolute monarch for so long that he thinks of his royal status as a personal attribute. He therefore takes for granted that he will still be treated as a king (without the burden of royal responsibilities) when he has given up the land and authority that are the basis of his power. His attitude recalls the words of Shakespeare's Richard II: "Not all the waters of the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king." Events in that play prove how wrong he was.Lear's position has also isolated him from the realities of everyday life and genuine human emotion. His tragedy is the price he pays for rediscovering those realities. His nobility is shown by his willingness to acknowledge his error and pay the price: "Oh I have ta'en too little care of this..." Olivier's performance, more than any other on film, shows this process of coming to terms with the realities of human life, and the falsity of court life; and being driven insane by the shock until his recognition of Cordelia brings him back. Olivier shows us what Lear is going through with hundreds of small gestures, movements, inflections of voice, and facial expressions. By comparison, he makes other actors in the role seem wooden, and he reveals how an "old fart" can regain his nobility by facing the truth.

tedg I am becoming increasingly aware that some of my favorite actors are just dumb, that they don't have a vision as grand as the work they are a part of. I don't know that this should be so surprising, given what it takes to be an actor.Olivier both acts and directs here, and what we have is a shame because he just doesn't understand this play, the important half anyway. Half of the play is about the relationships among people, specifically about the parent-child relationship and its regal surrogate of fealty (the fool, Kent and Gloucester to the King). When Olivier is relating to one of these, he is marvelous.But half of the play is about Lear's relationship to unseen demons, sprites, devils. He sees and relates to these as intensely and with as much duration as with the daughters. (This is mirrored by Gloucester who cannot see them.) In this part of the play, roughly the middle, the language comes alive as it takes us into the Elizabethan equivalent of science fiction. This is some of the best language in Shakespeare, which is to say the best stuff anywhere.And what does Olivier give us? Mumbling, sometimes under the wind noise. The fulcrum of this magic is the sequence with the Fool and Poor Tom. It is the heart of the magic, which Shakespeare later amplified with the `trial.' Olivier cuts most of that, and gives us a muddle. (Literally, Tom wallowing in the mud.)The music is horrid, as it is with his much earlier Hamlet. The swordplay is bombastic. The sets are cheesy, especially the faux Stonehenge. If he understood the importance of Stonehenge, why drop the notion of magic in the core of the play? I just don't get it: I don't understand how he couldn't get it.At the very last page, Lear kneels over the dead Cordelia and says `my poor fool is hanged.' Then looking for life in a magical revival asks to have HER button undone, which likely undoes a garment like that we have seen on the long-lost Fool. Rich stuff that, as big a twist as `Sixth Sense.' But Olivier slurs over on his way to rambling about dogs and rats and then asks for HIS button to be undone. My my.Advice: Lear is one of the very best of the plays. I'll grant that Olivier is a fine actor, but this is a very poor offering indeed. Ignore.

peacham Olivier turns in one of the most brilliant performances of his career in the title role of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy.His Lear is not a God like King shooting fire from the heavens upon all that cross him,but a petulant Old Man far too aware of His mortality.The subtlety of Olivier's performance shine through every scene,particulary in Act V's "Never,never,never" speech. The production is also blessed with one of the finest supporting casts ever assembled. Diana Rigg and Dorothy Tutin add such bitchy realisim to Regan and Goneral that We can connect them easily with People We have known,Robert Lindsay is a very cunning off the edge Edmund and Leo McKern is touching as the ill fated Duke Of Gloucester.Anna Calder Marshall and John Hurt also shine in their all too brief appearances as Cordelia and Foll. The direction is tight and focused and the mood chilling.This is a Lear to be watched Over and Over for the sheer magnetisim of the performances and the exquisite style of the piece.