Wow. I think this is my favourite YouTube find of the year; a user named ShakespeareAndMore has uploaded an awesome bounty of Shakespeare, among other things. I only wish he or she had more complete plays.
But I can't overstate how giddy I was to find this clip--John Hurt as the Fool and Laurence Olivier as Lear. I think even people who don't like Olivier will dig him here;
Egad, John Hurt's amazing. I think I'll have to rank him next to Peter in Ran as my favourite King Lear fool. The affectionate performance Hurt gives actually kind of reminds me of Peter's. I don't think this degree of visible love is implied by the text, but I could be wrong, I haven't read it in a while.
Discussing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in class on Tuesday night, I couldn't help thinking about its similarities to Vertigo. Is that movie just too much on my brain? But think about it--Gawain's Scottie, the Green Knight and his wife are Judy, and Morgan le Fay is Gavin Elster. Morgan le Fay's barely in the story, yet it's her plot that sets everything in motion--just like Elster. Gawain's having an existential crisis, in that he finds his nature in conflict with his identity as a knight--similar to Scottie's sexual impulses being at odds with his identity as a hero. Judy's even associated with the colour green in Vertigo.
Sheesh. I'm never getting away from that movie . . .
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