My sons inform me that they’re still making kids read Shakespeare in high school. I find that odd, because the general level of scholarship in the schools that I’ve observed is so poor. They barely make the kids read any books, and what they do read is trivial at best.

What’s the point of making them read Shakespeare? I’m perfectly happy reading Shaky Bill’s stuff, and do from time to time. But it’s heavy sledding for minds unaccustomed to courtly speech and Elizabethan vocabulary. I suspect that for schools, Shakespeare is like a coffee table book that you buy to impress visitors, but never crack the spine.

Speaking of cracked spines, they should have them watch Richard III, instead of pretending to read and understand it. In this version, Bill and Larry makes something by Stephen King look like The Care Bears.

Shakespeare is the greatest writer the English language ever produced. I’m always on the edge of amazement watching the words float by when they’re delivered by the right actor. Olivier was surely that. His Hamlet has been beaten, but his Henry Vth and Richard III are unexcelled, and probably always will be. When I was looking for this video, I stumbled over Bumbershoot Cumberbund stumbling over it. Every actor for the last fifty years or so thinks alternating between whispering and mumbling makes them more theatrical, and he’s no exception. It makes them something, I’ll admit that. I’m not sure what. Not something good. When you join the FedEx of delivering lines, you can’t just drive by, slow down a little, and toss them out the window onto the lawn. They have to make it all the way to the door. It’s basically your only job, beside making faces. Almost all modern actors just don’t have the chops borne of the kind of training actors used to receive to do the job.

The scene in the video is famous, of course. The opening line, anyway. But it’s the scene after this one in the movie that refrigerates the spine. Olivier, who had to edit the play down to a manageable size, was a consummate pro at it. He made subtle changes, skillful omissions, and even added a few things. The big change is in the next scene. In the original play, the Lady Anne is following behind her father-in-law’s funeral procession, and Richard barges in and starts hitting her up for a date. In Olivier’s version, she’s walking behind her husband’s coffin. The husband Richard has killed. Yikes. And he just launches right into seducing her. It’s the creepiest thing in a play that contains a double child murder, so that’s really saying something.

You can read it if you want to. But if your head isn’t as full of Shakespeare as Olivier’s, it’s better to watch it, and see it literally come alive right in front of you.