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thehefnerSir Laurence Olivier gets a lot of crap these days.
Whether it's how over-the-top he seems to our post-Method cinematic sensibilities, or just sour grapes over his choke-hold on British Shakespeare culture for, what, forty years (until Branagh came along with HENRY V, not to mention what was happening on stage at the time), "Olivier" is often a dirty word in dramatic circles. That's certainly been my impression.
Part of it is also that I was raised to believe Olivier was God. My father was agnostic at best, but he outright worshiped men like Mozart and Olivier, and no Hamlet could ever, ever, ever match up with the Olivier/Jean Simmons film version. "It was good, but it wasn't Olivier's! THAT annoying shrew is meant to be Ophelia? Jean Simmons was heartbreaking and tender!" In my father's mind, as well as British theatre for all those years, all other actors were living in the shadow of Laurence Olivier.
Olivier's HAMLET, upon recent viewing, is fascinating for how surprisingly underplayed it often is; this is the only time I've ever seen soliloquies performed as voice-overs, which you might think would be natural for transition to film. He's really not over-the-top, as many still accuse him of being, and the bits I've seen hold up today.
But then, I grew up to find that I was far more interested in the Branagh/American styles of Shakespeare performance. Of speaking the lines not as some grand, holy text, letting the language speak for itself, but rather like actual dialogue. I used to dream of studying classical acting in London, but now... I don't know. If for nothing else, do I really need to be bigger?
All that said... I still find myself defending Olivier.
I used to think that it was just left-over brainwashing from my father, coupled with sympathy of seeing a man--regarded by the world as the single greatest actor alive--watch helplessly as the world moved on, leaving him thoroughly respected while increasingly mocked in private, reduced to overact in B-movies (from directors terrified to give him direction*) and Kodak commercials.
Then, for the first time in ten years, I rewatched this:
(from a strictly screenwriting standpoint: it was a stroke of genius to incorporate Richard's speeches from HENRY VI PART III, some of which are on par with--and sometimes even surpass--those in his own play)
Now, from a modern standpoint, are those five minutes a daring new take on Shakespeare? Is it subversive? Is it saying anything particularly new or post-modern or ironic? No. It's pretty much as standard a Richard III as you can get.
That's just the thing. Watching this again... it's not just a standard; even today, it's the standard. There's a reason for that.
He can be allowed and even forgiven for being too big sometimes. After all... he was a giant.
And to think, I originally was going to post that video simply so I could post this:
Peter Sellers + The Beatles x RICHARD III ÷ Olivier = awesome.
*Until MARATHON MAN, where Olivier--ill and having gone without acting work for years--played a Nazi dentist. The director finally got up the courage to hint around telling Olivier to tone it down. Olivier was frankly grateful that someone was actually giving him direction again. His performance in MARATHON MAN is subsequently understated and nothing less than chilling
Whether it's how over-the-top he seems to our post-Method cinematic sensibilities, or just sour grapes over his choke-hold on British Shakespeare culture for, what, forty years (until Branagh came along with HENRY V, not to mention what was happening on stage at the time), "Olivier" is often a dirty word in dramatic circles. That's certainly been my impression.
Part of it is also that I was raised to believe Olivier was God. My father was agnostic at best, but he outright worshiped men like Mozart and Olivier, and no Hamlet could ever, ever, ever match up with the Olivier/Jean Simmons film version. "It was good, but it wasn't Olivier's! THAT annoying shrew is meant to be Ophelia? Jean Simmons was heartbreaking and tender!" In my father's mind, as well as British theatre for all those years, all other actors were living in the shadow of Laurence Olivier.
Olivier's HAMLET, upon recent viewing, is fascinating for how surprisingly underplayed it often is; this is the only time I've ever seen soliloquies performed as voice-overs, which you might think would be natural for transition to film. He's really not over-the-top, as many still accuse him of being, and the bits I've seen hold up today.
But then, I grew up to find that I was far more interested in the Branagh/American styles of Shakespeare performance. Of speaking the lines not as some grand, holy text, letting the language speak for itself, but rather like actual dialogue. I used to dream of studying classical acting in London, but now... I don't know. If for nothing else, do I really need to be bigger?
All that said... I still find myself defending Olivier.
I used to think that it was just left-over brainwashing from my father, coupled with sympathy of seeing a man--regarded by the world as the single greatest actor alive--watch helplessly as the world moved on, leaving him thoroughly respected while increasingly mocked in private, reduced to overact in B-movies (from directors terrified to give him direction*) and Kodak commercials.
Then, for the first time in ten years, I rewatched this:
(from a strictly screenwriting standpoint: it was a stroke of genius to incorporate Richard's speeches from HENRY VI PART III, some of which are on par with--and sometimes even surpass--those in his own play)
Now, from a modern standpoint, are those five minutes a daring new take on Shakespeare? Is it subversive? Is it saying anything particularly new or post-modern or ironic? No. It's pretty much as standard a Richard III as you can get.
That's just the thing. Watching this again... it's not just a standard; even today, it's the standard. There's a reason for that.
He can be allowed and even forgiven for being too big sometimes. After all... he was a giant.
And to think, I originally was going to post that video simply so I could post this:
Peter Sellers + The Beatles x RICHARD III ÷ Olivier = awesome.
*Until MARATHON MAN, where Olivier--ill and having gone without acting work for years--played a Nazi dentist. The director finally got up the courage to hint around telling Olivier to tone it down. Olivier was frankly grateful that someone was actually giving him direction again. His performance in MARATHON MAN is subsequently understated and nothing less than chilling
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 07:09 pm (UTC)While I understand the urge for a generation to take Shakespeare's texts and make them its own, sometimes it doesn't have to be new, or different, or subversive--whatever the hell that means. Sometimes it just has to be honest, and good. And Olivier delivered both.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 08:19 pm (UTC)And anyone who doesn't get the above is so culturally illiterate that they shouldn't be on your flist and they need to be tossed onto the Fail Boat™ right NOW and sent to the Bermuda Triangle.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-13 08:36 pm (UTC)Part of it is the accent, surely not Olivier's own but put on because That's Shakespeare. The sound of those beautiful rolled "r"s is magnificent, but they take me utterly out of the moment. When people call it "stagy" that's what they're talking about.
Which is interesting, because the rest of my directorial note are about underplaying it, and missing opportunities. He misses so many chances to turn that speech even darker, to let me see more of Richard. You saw how I had Calvin play that speech, with undertones of bitterness.
It's too... happy. Notes of happiness are good as contrast, but taken over the course of the entire speech I want more levels, more places to take it. The cheerful murderer is wonderfully subversive, compared to the ravening monster R3 had been played as in the past, but I wanted to see the darkness of it.
So for me it's not that he's too big, though it's easy to see it that way from the dialect. If anything, it could afford to be bigger.
It's so hard to discount dialect in evaluating a performance. It's like trying to evaluate a reasonable, thoughtful argument full of spelling mistakes. Not that this choice was a mistake when Olivier made it, but it puts a barrier between me and him a half-century after the fact.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 04:25 pm (UTC)Peter Sellers is love and the Marathon Man is love.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 11:38 pm (UTC)