Looking for richard

Purpose

To connect Shakespeare’s universal themes and the powerful language with the everyday public.

Pacino- “we’re peddling him on the streets”

To present a Shakespeare about how we think and feel today.

Pacino- “It has always been a dream of mine to communicate how I feel about
Shakespeare to others”.

Context

 Multicultural religious influence

 lack of or loss of power of the monarchy

 existential belief- that man is responsible for his own destiny

 Capitalist , egalitarian society, 20th century

Themes

 Morality- as emphasised by the African American the street, who asserts that we lack morals because
we don’t understand and appreciate Shakespeare, “that’s why it’s easy for us to get a gun and shoot
each other. If we were taught to feel, we wouldn’t be so violent.”

 Power of Language-“if we think words are things and we have no feelings in our words then we say
things to each other that don’t mean anything. But if we felt what we said, we would say less and mean
more.”

 Lust for Power- The actors in Pacino’s text are fascinated by the battle for power and the hatred that is
so obvious, “They are clawing at each other for the throne.” Comparisons are made to the film “The
Godfather-the gathering of the Dons in this room.” This connection between Shakespearean lust for
power with contemporary lust for power shows that there will always be those who desire power and are
willing to go to great lengths to achieve this goal.

Redgrave says, “The truth is that those in power have total contempt for everything they promise, everything
they pledge and this is really what Shakespeare’s great play is really about.”

 Vengeance and Retribution- Pacino observes that Richard has no friends and the academic states
that Richard “knows that he does not have his own humanity. He has lost it!” Richard even fails to pity
himself and concludes that there is no creature that loves him.

Form

film

Text techniques

Technique Effect + example

Lighting  Richard III scenes featured dark lighting, emphasizing his metaphorical
 darkness/evil personality.
 Half face lit = duplicity of Richard
 Contrast with brighter, fully featured actors as other characters in Richard
III; the more pure/innocent figures.

Contextual (feature of text
form)
Quick jump cuts
Hand camera shooting
Camera shots/angles
Costuming
Music
Looking for richard
 Elizabethan era had very dim interiors, while today’s brightly lit indoor
areas were utilised for rehearsals, design and discussions.
 Daylight vox pop interviews and the diagetic sounds of the streets enabled
Pacino to literally bring his “search for Richard” out of the darkness into
the light.
 Pacino’s intent to make Shakespeare accessible is depicted in numerous
direct to camera responses which are bright contrasts to the more sombre
Shakespeare scenes.
Al Pacino’s actors switch between fully costumed to arguing around a
table. This stream of fluid cuts between discussing, practising and then
acting in costume is a highly effective technique used by Pacino to
juxtapose a tradition with a modern setting.
Also, seeing behind the scenes, when actors are arguing and discussing
and stumbling through the text just like a anybody else etc. allows the
audience to feel more on the same level as the actors and not as if they
are simply watching that can do things they can't.
To convey an essence of reality, especially with the street scenes,
thus suggesting the legitimacy of the reactions and responses of
the people on the streets.
This gives the interviews a sense of naturalness. This underpins
Pacino’s dream to teach Shakespeare to the streets- and “peddling
him on the streets”.
 Establishing shot, camera pans across a church, the angle from the spire
to the ground level parallels the journey viewers will take with pacino as
he strives to bring Shakespeare closer to us.
 Close up shot of Richard clutching a copy of the text Richard III while his
dialogue conveys his personal desire to portray “how we think and feel
today”. His perspective is that despite the hundreds of years’ time
difference since Elizabethan times, Shakespeare’s work remains extremely
relevant to us, with contemporary resonance of themes and character
traits.
 Dark clothing
 Long black coat
 Uses clothing from Elizabethan time period to accurately portray King
Richard III
 At the beginning Richard is always in black clothing
 Clarence is wearing white, contrast between Richards darkness (evil);
Clarence innocence
 Wearing blood red – also represents royalty along Lady Anne wearing
virginal white (She’s already married)
 Buckingham wearing purple -> colour of royalty and conveys his loyalty to
Richard
 Medieval music – repeated during the dialogue to emphasis the historical
nature of the play. Also used to foreshadow where they go to film next.
 Mysterious menacing music used when Richard is giving a speech – this
rises to a crescendo as there is flashbacks of Richard’s planning.
 Classical music rises to a crescendo to parallel the rising action. When
Richard enters the scene to take control of Anne in the mourning scene,
the music begins to get louder
 Cheerful music when Al Pacino and the staff end doing filming
 Gloomy music used during the enactment of the plays acts.
 Looking for richard

Vox pops (where members of
the public are asked for their
views on certain matters)
Dialogue
Menacing music begins with the entering of Richard many scenes such as
the council scene. With the increasing loudness of the music to a
crescendo, Richard’s aggressiveness rises. This emphasizes the increasing
tensions that Richard creates in order to use the situation to manipulate
others
 Man 5: Yeah, it's boring.
 Man: To be honest, I really don't remember that much, if anything at all.
 The vox pops reveal the disgust that modern Americans have towards
Shakespeare while showing how out of touch modern society is with the
language and complexity of Shakespeare. Al pacino tries to establish
the universal relevance of Shakespeare and Richard III.
 Michael hadge -‘We're never going to finish making this movie. I
don't even get Richard III.
 Kimball: He has let the pursuit of power totally corrupt him and is
alienated from his own body and his own self.
 Emphasizes how even the director do not understand the film.

Voiceover

 Al pacino- It has always been a dream of mine to communicate how I feel about Shakespeare to other
people.
 Kevin Kline- We made out in the back row and left at intermission.
 Al Pacino- So Richard figures, "I get rid of Clarence, then work out getting rid of the kids”
 AL Pacino- ‘Our main goal with this project is to reach an audience that would not normally
participate in this kind of language and world.’

 Kimball: -I've heard you talking about Richard as a man who cannot find love. A person who finally, in the
last scenes, knows that he does not have his own humanity, that he's lost it.