OLIVIER AND HIS SUCCESSORS
May 1, 2003

by Joe Sobran

     When I was in high school in the early 1960s, I 
borrowed the family car and drove forty miles to Detroit 
to see a movie: Laurence Olivier's RICHARD III, released 
in 1955. It was showing for only one night. I'd been 
dying to see it for years, but had only heard it on a 
recording. So I knew the soundtrack by heart and had made 
my journey just to see the images.

     I was thrilled. I worshipped Shakespeare and 
Olivier, and Olivier's three Shakespeare films (the other 
two were HENRY V, 1945, and HAMLET, 1948) were the joy of 
my youth. I could occasionally -- rarely! -- see them 
when the local Cinema Guild revived them.

     In those days the home video was still undreamed of. 
Today I can watch them any time I please. This has an 
obvious drawback: the thrill is pretty much gone. Olivier 
was the most electrifying Shakespearean actor of his 
time, but today his performances are so familiar to me 
that they have the effect of lullabies. I often fall 
asleep to them.

     In fact I also have videos of other actors in the 
same roles: Ian McKellen as Richard III, Kenneth Branagh 
as Henry V, and more Hamlets than you can shake a spear 
at. They make Olivier's versions seem a little old-
fashioned, but they have none of his magnificence, his 
panther fury, his genius for making a line of Shakespeare 
sound like a trumpet blast.

     In 1956 Olivier gave a legendary performance as 
Macbeth at Stratford upon Avon, with his wife, Vivien 
Leigh, as Lady Macbeth. He wanted to film that too, but 
he couldn't raise the money. What a loss! But the hard 
fact is that his three Shakespeare films, though now 
regarded as classics, lost money at their first release.

     In 1964 Olivier made another stage sensation with 
his first Othello in London. It was never turned into a 
genuine movie, but the stage version was filmed and 
released in movie theaters here -- for a single day. 
Happily, it's now available on video, as are his later 
performances as Shylock and King Lear. The latter was his 
final Shakespearean role, taped a few years before his 
death. In old age he is hardly recognizable as the same 
actor who played a heroic young Henry V -- until he roars 
his lines.

     Versatile as he was, Olivier had his limitations, 
and they are visible on the screen. He could project 
anger, intensity, and wit, but not emotional warmth. Even 
in his days as a young romantic leading man he always 
conveyed a certain remoteness. He had grace, style, fire, 
and magnetism to burn, but he seemed almost heartless.

     His style of acting was rather calculating, as his 
memoirs reveal. He knew how to create an effect on the 
audience -- in this he was peerless -- but he tended to 
treat acting as a form of crowd control. The depths of a 
Shakespearean character were beyond him, which is why his 
villainous Richard was probably his finest role, while 
the great tragic roles never quite brought out his best. 
His Othello conveys amazing jealousy, but not the deep 
grief that is essential to the tragedy. J.D. Salinger's 
Holden Caulfield complains that Olivier played Hamlet 
"too much like a goddam general or something." Well said.

     Olivier once exposed his philosophy of acting in a 
witticism. A friend said his Lear left "not a dry eye in 
the house." "Thanks, old man," Olivier replied, "but when 
there's not a dry *seat* in the house -- now that's 
acting!" He preferred, so to speak, other bodily fluids 
to tears.

     Drama critics used to dub every promising actor "the 
next Olivier," and his putative successors have included 
Richard Burton, Paul Scofield, Peter Finch, Peter 
O'Toole, and Anthony Hopkins. Unfortunately, these superb 
actors have done little Shakespeare on film; Scofield's 
Lear is a particularly severe disappointment to anyone 
who loves Shakespeare and admires Scofield.

     Branagh's recent Hamlet is a sin against Shakespeare 
-- all "antic disposition," no pathos -- but his film 
does feature one wonderful supporting player: Derek 
Jacobi as the King. Jacobi makes the murderous usurper 
more interesting, more sympathetic, and even, in a way, 
more tragic, than the Prince. The film should have been 
called I, CLAUDIUS.

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