King Lear
1983: Michael Elliott

This marks the end of Laurence Olivier’s long and distinguished career as a presenter of Shakespeare on film — and indeed, as an actor altogether. When it was made, Olivier was old and sick, and the Lear is accordingly not the towering picture of physical grandeur reduced to impotence and madness; his mind seems to be collapsing inwardly into a dithery confusion. It’s probably the most underplayed of Olivier’s roles, with the result that even those who don’t like Olivier’s rather overplayed earlier performances might find this one worthwhile.

The cast includes a collection of notable actors: Jeremy Kemp, who seems to have played a Nazi more often than anyone who speaks English, appears here in fine form; the varied John Hurt, who has played characters from the psychotic Caligula in I, Claudius, Richard Rich in A Man for All Seasons, the inscrutable industrial mogul in Contact, and Olivander in the Harry Potter movies, here takes a turn as the beloved Fool, who speaks (of course) nothing but wisdom throughout. Leo McKern, known as Cromwell in A Man for All Seasons, the old monk in Ladyhawke, and (most famously) Rumpole of the Bailey, is here Gloucester. Edward Petherbridge, who played Lord Peter Wimsey in the BBC’s second series of Lord Peter dramas (after Ian Carmichael’s earlier series), is the King of France, and Diana Rigg (the original Avengers, as well as the 1968 Midsummer Night’s Dream) is the evilly conniving Regan.

Altogether, the performance is elegantly assembled, and mixed with a melancholy sense that not only Lear but also Olivier is on his last legs; there’s a kind of wistful delicacy about it that seems counter-thematic in King Lear, but it works — though one ought to see at least one other King Lear to see how different it can be under different circumstances.

Buy King Lear from Amazon.