Ian Holm Videos
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 | Sir Ian Holm & Penelope Cruz in "Cromophobia" (2005) A scene with Sir Ian Holm and Penelope Cruz in "Chromophobia" (2005) |
 | Shakespeare "King Lear"- (1997 TV-Ian Holm), Act 1, scene 1 from end of Regan's speech of love to her father to Lear's exit at end of scene.here is one link for all the excerpts uploaded of the Holm "Lear":http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=04AC969F56A00360Ian Holm ... LearBarbara Flynn ... GonerilAmanda Redman ... ReganVictoria Hamilton ... CordeliaDavid Burke ... KentTimothy West ... GloucesterAdrian Irvine ... FranceNicholas R. Bailey ... BurgundyHolm has been acting professionally since joining the Royal Shakespeare Company as a spear-carrier in 1954. He was a young 66 when he filmed this "Lear".from an interview:Was Lear a difficult role for you? Difficult physically, because you expend an enormous amount of energy. But mentally, it is not a difficult journey compared, say, to Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. The verse structure helps you enormously. You get carried along by it. Back to the beginning of the play: What is Lear's motivation for the who-loves-me-most contest? Is he being serious? Is he capricious? He's all of those things. You're quite right to take the beginning of the play, because the first scene is unquestionably pivotal in the action. As Gloucester says, "All this done upon the gad," which means in the instant. You start out with a nice family meeting. He's removing his crown, he's going to divide the kingdom among his daughters, and they're going to play the game. Goneril and Regan saying, "Oh God, here we go again. Yes, we love you, we love you, we love you." Then this silly little shit Cordelia -- forgive me -- says, "No!" Which sparks an overreaction in Lear. Suddenly she's out, Kent's banished, and the whole thing falls apart in five seconds flat. As in so many of Shakespeare's tragedies, you begin with this extraordinary impetus that is unstoppable. Once the wheel starts to go downhill, that's it. You race through to the end. It's the same with Macbeth. It's the same with Othello. All these powerful emotions take over, and you are driven through. That's back to what I was saying about Shakepeare. All you have to do as an actor is go with it and trust him. Yes, Lear is a capricious, tyrannical, impossible, lovable human being. He's like all our grandfathers. He goes through this extraordinary journey into and out of madness. I think an interesting thing is that there is no redemption. By the time he and Cordelia get together it's too late. She's killed and the tragedy ends horribly. In real life, 18th-century audiences couldn't cope with that. They changed the ending and had Cordelia marrying Edgar and living happily ever after. It's only comparatively recently that there's been a reversion to Shakespeare's original intention. |
 | Sir Ian Holm in "Hamlet" (1990) Sir Ian Holm as Polonius in "Hamlet". |
 | Shakespeare "King Lear"- (1997 TV-Ian Holm), Act 4+5 bits Act 4, scene 7, line 25-87 - Cordelia with Lear as he awakes (Arden edition)Act 5, scene 2, Edgar's "Away, old man, give me thy hand, away!"Act 5, scene 3, "No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison"Ian Holm ... LearVictoria Hamilton ... CordeliaDavid Burke ... KentPaul Rhys ... EdgarTimothy West ... GloucesterHolm has been acting professionally since joining the Royal Shakespeare Company as a spear-carrier in 1954. He was a young 66 when he filmed this "Lear".A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth:"...already recognized his injustice towards Cordelia, is secretly blaming himself, and is endeavouring to do better, the disposition from which his first error sprang is still unchanged. And it is precisely the disposition to give rise, in evil surroundings, to calamities dreadful but at the same time tragic, because due in some measure to the person who endures them. The perception of this connection, if it is not lost as the play advances, does not at all diminish our pity for Lear, but it makes it impossible for us permanently to regard the world displayed in this tragedy as subject to a mere arbitrary or malicious power. It makes us feel that this world is so far at least a rational and a moral order, that there holds in it the law, not of proportionate requital, but of strict connection between act and consequence. It is, so far, the world of all Shakespeare's tragedies. But there is another aspect of Lear's story, the influence of which modifies, in a way quite different and more peculiar to this tragedy, the impressions called pessimistic and even this impression of law. There is nothing more noble and beautiful in literature than Shakespeare's exposition of the effect of suffering in reviving the greatness and eliciting the sweetness of Lear's nature. The occasional recurrence, during his madness, of autocratic impatience or of desire for revenge serves only to heighten this effect, and the moments when his insanity becomes merely infinitely piteous do not weaken it. The old King who in pleading with his daughters feels so intensely his own humiliation and their horrible ingratitude, and who yet, at fourscore and upward, constrains himself to practise a self-control and patience so many years disused; who out of old affection for his Fool, and in repentance for his injustice to the Fool's beloved mistress, tolerates incessant and cutting reminders of his own folly and wrong; in whom the rage of the storm awakes a power and a poetic grandeur surpassing even that of Othello's anguish..." |
 | Sir Ian Holm in " Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (1994) Sir Ian Holm as Baron Frankenstein.I'm sorry guys, but this clip is in Spanish !!! |
 | Sir Ian Holm in "The Madness of King George" (1994) Sir Ian Holm and Nigel Hawthorne in "The Madness of King George". |
 | Sir Ian Holm in "O, Jerusalem" (2006) Sir Ian Holm as Ben Gurion in "O, Jerusalem". |
 | Sir Ian Holm in "Bless the Child" (2000) Sir Ian Holm as Reverend Grissom in "Bless the Child". |
 | Shakespeare "King Lear"- (1997 TV-Ian Holm), Act 3, scene 6 the mock trial scene with the "joint-stool".Ian Holm ... LearDavid Burke ... KentPaul Rhys ... EdgarMichael Bryant ... FoolTimothy West ... GloucesterHolm has been acting professionally since joining the Royal Shakespeare Company as a spear-carrier in 1954. He was a young 66 when he filmed this "Lear". |
 | Sir Ian Holm in "The Treatment" (2006) - part 2 Sir Ian Holm as Dr. Ernesto Morales in "The Treatment". |
