Looking for Richard - Richard III

Looking for Richard - Richard III

The movie we have just seen is titled "Looking for Richard" by Al Pacino and is a docudrama about Shakespeare's history "Richard III".

William Shakespeare is the most popular English playwright and very often considered the best of all. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and lived then in London. He died in 1616 in his birth town; so he lived under the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. This is very important because the facts he narrates in Richard III involve Queen Elizabeth's ancestors, so the play follows closely the official party line of the Elizabethan period. The play, a history, is set at the end of the War of the Roses, a bloody period of civil war in English history. It is a period of violent fights for power between two families, the Lancasters (red rose) and the Yorks (white rose), both symbolized by a rose, but of different colour - that is why it is called the War of the Roses. Both families descended from the last Plantagenet king, Edward III, so they both fought for the throne. The last Lancaster king Henry VI, had been deposed and murdered with his son (Lady Anne's husband and father in law) by the sons of the York family: Edward IV, the new king, Clarence and Richard. The action of the play begins shortly after this event. The history is about the murders and the plots perpetrated by Richard in order to become king.

Richard, duke of Gloucester, is the main character and the villain of the play. He has a deformed back and arm and he is lame. The deformity of his body reflects the corruption of his mind: he is evil, sadistic, manipulative, cruel, ruthless, power-hungry; but, despite this, he is also a highly charismatic and fascinating character. This is due to his language skills, his intelligence and his political brilliance. He is so good at using language and manipulating people that audiences sympathize with him. In his monologues he clearly declares his evil purposes, but even if we reject his actions it's very hard not to like him and his genius. I wish I could have his mind! The other characters are:

King Edward IV, Clarence and Richard's older brother

Queen Elizabeth, Edward's wife and mother of the two young princes, the heirs to the throne, and of princess Elizabeth who will in the end marry the earl of Richmond, the Lancaster who will defeat Richard in the battle of Bosworth field

The young princes who will be taken to the tower

Buckingham, Richard's right-hand man

The earl of Richmond of the Lancasters. He is the one who will defeat Richard in the end. He represents goodness, justice and fairness - in contrast to Richard's treachery, perfidy and duplicity. He founded the Tudor dynasty - Queen Elizabeth's I dynasty: this is why he's portrayed in such a positive light. Hastings, a lord who will be killed by Richard but remains loyal to the family of King Edward IV till the end

Lady Anne, the young widow of Prince Edward, the son of Henry VI who had been deposed and then killed by the York brothers

Margaret who is the widow of the former king Henry VI. She hates Richard and all the Yorks because they killed her family. Margaret is an interesting character, even if she plays a minor role in the plot. She represents rage and pain and, with Lady Anne and even Queen Elizabeth later, she's the symbol of how women had absolutely no power at the time. Without their husbands they don't count anything; for instance Margaret depends on the charity of her family's murderers to survive. This has made her an enraged and anguished woman; she tries to alleviate her pain by cursing the Yorks, and mainly Richard. Her curses are a very important element of the play, because they are in fact prophecies coming true in the end. Despite seeming out of her mind, she's a very fascinating character and the actress playing her role in the movie is really good.

The story begins at the end of the civil war. It is a happy period for the King and those around him, they can enjoy love affairs and songs and playful fights, but Richard resents this situation. He despises all around him, he wants to become king, and since he cannot be happy because of his deformed body - he says in his opening monologue " but I, that I am not shap'd for sportive tricks, nor made to court and amorous looking-glass; I that am rudely stamp'd . curtail'd of this fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling Nature, deform'd, unfinis'd, sent before time into this breathing world scarce half made up - and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me." - he has decided to ruin those prosperous times and make everybody else miserable "and therefore, since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, and hate the idle pleasure of these days.". The present king, Edward IV is sick, so Richard starts manouvering in order to reach his goal. The first person to eliminate is his brother Clarence, next in the succession line. "Plots have I laid. to set my brother Clarence and the King in deadly hate.". There is an old prophecy saying that G. will kill the king. Now, the full name of Clarence is George, duke of Clarence. Richard persuades king Edward to have him sent off and imprisoned in the tower of London, and then, after consoling his captive brother, he sends two murderers to kill him. He then shifts the burden of guilt onto Edward, in order to accelerate his illness and death. As a matter of fact, Edward soon dies. Meanwhile Richard manipulates Lady Anne into marrying him. This is a really interesting part. Lady Anne knows that Richard is the murderer of her husband and of his father and she is aware of his real nature - she hates and despises him deeply - but Richard is so brilliant in manipulating people that he persuades her to marry him. In a mesmerising speech he tells her that he killed her husband because Anne's beauty has caused him to love her - therefore she is partially guilty of her husband's death. " Is not the causer of the timeless deaths of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward, as blameful as the executioner? . Your beauty was the cause of that effect". This sounds senseless to us in out modern times, but it shows instead once again Richard's monstrous skills and ability with words used to manipulate people and the audience as well. He acts like a snake, his tactic culminates in offering Anne his sword "lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword, which if thou please to hide in this true breast". Anne is unable to do that; this makes Richard gain a kind of power over her. It is difficult for us to understand why she accepts to marry Richard, but we must think about the situation of women in the Middle Ages. Apart from being young and inexperienced, frail, scared and miserable because of the death of her beloved husband, Ann is like Margaret, she has no power, she depends on the will of men. She is almost obliged to accept. But why does Richard want to marry her? He wants to show that she has forgiven him, that the war between Yorks and Lancasters is over, and by marrying a former Lancaster he is the best candidate to be king as he will bring peace to the two warring factions. And finally he persuades her to marry him for his own sadistic pleasure - anyhow, he's not going to keep her long, he informs the audience as soon as she leaves.

Perhaps more than in any other play by Shakespeare, the AUDIENCE of Richard III experiences a complex, ambiguous, and highly changeable relationship with the main character. Richard is clearly a villain-he declares outright in his very first speech that he intends to stop at nothing to achieve his nefarious designs. But despite his open allegiance to evil, he is such a charismatic and fascinating figure that, for much of the play, we are likely to sympathize with him, or at least to be impressed with him. In this way, our relationship with Richard mimics the other characters' relationships with him, conveying a powerful sense of the force of his personality. Even characters such as Lady Anne, who have an explicit knowledge of his wickedness, allow themselves to be seduced by his brilliant wordplay, his skillful argumentation, and his relentless pursuit of his selfish desires. Richard's long, fascinating monologues, in which he outlines his plans and gleefully confesses all his evil thoughts, are central to the audience's experience of Richard. Shakespeare uses these monologues brilliantly to control the audience's impression of Richard, enabling this manipulative protagonist to work his charms on the audience. In Act I, scene i, for example, Richard dolefully claims that his malice toward others stems from the fact that he is unloved, and that he is unloved because of his physical deformity. This claim, which casts the other characters of the play as villains for punishing Richard for his appearance, makes it easy to sympathize with Richard during the first scenes of the play. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that Richard simply uses his deformity as a tool to gain the sympathy of others-including us. Richard's evil is a much more innate part of his character than simple bitterness about his ugly body. But he uses this speech to win our trust, and he repeats this ploy throughout his struggle to be crowned king. After he is crowned king and Richmond begins his uprising, Richard's monologues end. Once Richard stops exerting his charisma on the audience, his real nature becomes much more apparent, and by the end of the play he can be seen for the monster that he is.

Richard then eliminates Lord Hastings: at the Council Session in the tower of London, he pretends to be enraged and accuses Queen Elizabeth and Lady Shore, Hasting's mistress, of having put a spell on him to cause his deformity. As Hastings hesitates before accepting this speculation as fact, Richard promptly accuses him of treachery and gets him executed. Richard often uses his deformity as a tool to gain what he wants. In his opening monologue he uses it to gain our sympathy "But I, .". A brilliant example of political maneuvering and manipulation, Richard will become king Richard III. In public Buckingham, his right-hand man, pleads Richard to become king, to help the country, portraying him as the most rightful man to rule England. Richard pretends not ot want to be king, he pretends to think that he is not the right person, but he finally accepts, making it seem as if the had unwillingly been pressed into accepting the crown, as if her were doing it only for the welfare of the Country.

After having eliminated the king, his brother Clarence and some of their faithful supporters, the rightful heirs to the throne are the two young princes, so Richard wants them to be killed and asks Buckingham to do it, but for the first time the latter does not obey him immediately, saying that he needs some time to ponder about the request. Here Richard (Shakespeare) wants to know how far the evilness of Buckingham can go, where is the demarcation line of such and unscrupulous person. However, Richard decides to send a hired murderer to kill the princes. This is the most famous crime of the historical King Richard III, even if there is no proof of his guilt. For many years the fate of the princes has been a mystery. Many years later two tiny skeletons have been discovered in the tower of London, probably it was the princes. But there is still no proof that Richard was the murderers; some scholars even think that it might have been Richmond - a very interesting and plausible theory - I think also because history is made by those who win who usually manipulate the past in their own interest.

After he has become king, Richard's monologues end; his personality shifts from self-assured confidence to paranoia, and he starts killing everybody to reach his goals instead of using his mental skills. This makes it harder for the audience to find him attractive, now we start to see him as the monster, "the villain" he actually is. It is the beginning of his end. The people of England do not like Richard, they fear and loathe him. In the meantime, the earl of Richmond, of the Lancasters, is gathering forces in France in order to dethrone Richard.

At the same time Richard is trying to consolidate his power. After the death of Anne, he wants to marry young Elizabeth, though she is his niece. He speaks to the former Queen Elizabeth, trying to persuade her to let him marry her daughter. It seems that he has won over her and convinced her, but the Queen perfectly knows what Richard has done to the princes, and she has in fact promised her daughter to Richmond: Elizabeth has deceived Richard! The situation is slipping out of his control. Finally Richmond invades England, Richard III has to go to war. The night before the great battle of Bosworth Field he has a terrible nightmare: the ghosts of everyone he has murdered toll him they are on Richmond's side and that Richmond will rule England and b e the father of a race of kings. Richard wakes up and, searching his soul, he realizes what he has become. He is terrified by what he fins in his soul. He has become something that scares even himself. For the first time he is truly terrified. The end is near. The next day, the nightmare comes true. Richmond kills King Richard and his side wins the battle. In the last moments of his own life, Richard clearly reveals his priorities. His horse is dead, and he cries out the famous sentence: "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" He would trade everything in order to save himself rather then die honourably for his cause and his people. In the end he is not the clever, ferocious and fearful man he used to be anymore: he is portrayed just as a cowardly and humbled man trying to save his life. In the docudrama Al Pacino chose to make him look like a kind of boar or pig killed by hunters. Richmond will then marry young Elizabeth York and unite the houses of Lancaster and York, founding the dynasty of the Tudors and becoming king Henry VII father of the famous Henry VIII and grandfather of the even more famous Elizabeth I, one of Shakespeare's patrons.

One of the most important themes of the play is the allure (attraction, appeal, magnetism, charm, glamour, fascination) of evil. The history Richard III does not explore the cause of evil in the human mind so much as it explores its operation. The most fascinating element of the play is the possibility, as audience, to observe in detail Richard's manipulating power at work. I was very impressed at how he is able to appear as the good one, sometimes even as the victim, though he is a real villain. His victims, at least at the beginning of the play, trust him as long as they are alive. Somehow, they are complicit in their own destruction because they are mesmerized by the power of his dialectics. Without Richard's monologues ( of course perfect creation of that great master of language Shakespeare is .)- through which he lets the audience know about his real aims, at the beginning we would trust him too. We see his powerful brain at work, we know more than all the other characters and we follow, mesmerized, the evil but perfect workings of his mind. The play shows us the great POWER OF LANGUAGE; Richard uses it for his political aims. I think that the use of language in politics in order to manipulate people's opinion is something very topical though the play was written about four centuries ago. Today this is even more topical that it was when the play was written; since mass media have come into existence, politicians have been using them, directly or indirectly, to twist the truth and forge our opinions. And the more the mass media spread, the more politicians will try to use them. Anyway, the play dramatizes the rise of the Tudor dynasty, a quite "delicate" subject for Shakespeare, since Queen Elizabeth I was a Tudor, and a very proud one. This is why Richmond is the incarnation of all virtue.

So, this was the play by Shakespeare. The movie by Al Pacino is not the play, it is more a documentary about the performing of the play. Its aim is to make the history Richard III and Shakespeare in general understandable for everybody. It was also a challenge, since there were American actors in the cast (even Pacino is American), and it is generally believed that Americans can't perform Shakespeare, but they did, and they did it well, even if maybe without that horrible accent it would have been better (Gelmi's opinion and mine as well, but an opinion only.).

I liked the movie very much when they performed the play, but I did not appreciate it at all when they were talking in the "documentary" part. Sometimes it was useful because they explained what was happening or what was going to happen - and without the information probably I wouldn't have appreciated the play so much - but sometimes I found all those interruptions irritating because they talked about boring or useless things. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had talked about the weather. But I really liked the play; Richard is a really fascinating character as often evil characters are more interesting than the good ones; if I could choose whether to be Richard or Richmond, I would choose Richard. ( He's my master! Well that's all. Nice movie.)