Richard III

I've just been watching the 1955 film version of Shakespeare's Richard III, directed by, and starring Laurence Olivier as Richard. I taped it off Channel 4 years ago, and it's the on the first of my vast collection of videos of films, with the odd interesting documentary filling in gaps. I thought I'd go through them and watch them all, a bit of an undertaking, and probably a bit sad, you may say, but never mind, I do that sort of thing.
Anyway, it made fascinating viewing. I'd forgotten what an amazing, incredible actor Olivier was. As soon as he appears your eyes are riveted to him. He compels your attention. he acts with his whole body and becomes the character. His Richard is often seen today as a caricature, but he made him real, not just a mouthpiece for Shakespeare's language. And he was funny - I found myself smiling throughout. He brought the language to life. The only other actor who came near him was Ralph Richardson's Buckingham - the others were stereotypical old-school act-ors.
The most recent Richard I'd seen was Al Pacino in Looking for Richard, documenting Pacino's quest to play Richard. I loved it; and saw it twice. Pacino was a superb Richard and did what Olivier did - brought him to life. Another revelation was Kevin Spacey, who Pacino hired to play Buckingham, and he gave him a menacing, scary depth which I'd never seen before. Both Americans made a creditable attempt at speaking the language - it's not easy; if it's not done well Shakespeare remains impenetrable.
Good diction is essential as well. Olivier's was, of course, impeccable, as was everyone else's - it used to be taught properly, and Pacino and Spacey were fine. But too many of today's actors are impossible to understand becuse they don't speak clearly enough. I didn't need subtitles to watch my ancient video recording, but I have to switch them on too often these days.
It's funny, but leaving aside the obvious advantages of DVD, the picture and sound quality, the extras, the availability of subtitles, video still has certain things in its favour, mainly the ease with which you can pause and stop, then go and do something, then pick up where you left off. You can do this with DVD to a certain extent, but then it switches off after a while and you have to go through the rigmarole of finding the scene again. At least you have to with my DVD player.
Videos may be clunky, and take up a lot of room, but they're durable, and simple. And I won't be getting rid of all mine by any means - there's too much precious, irreplaceable stuff on them.