Title: Looking for Richard Directed by: Al Pacino Narration: Al Pacino, who gives his view on the play. Genre: Docu-drama it was supposed to be the movie of the play, but there was not enough time. Year: 1996 Plot [imdb]: Director Al Pacino juxtaposes scenes from Richard III, scenes of rehearsals for Richard III, and sessions where parties involved discuss the play, the times that shaped the play and the events that happened at the time the play is set. Interviews with mostly British actors are also included, attempting to explain why American actors have more problems performing Shakespearean plays than they do. Purpose: Al Pacino wants to communicate his feelings about Richard III to the modern audience. That is, make Shakespeare more accessible to 20 th century. Audience: post modern audience
The movie recontexutalises the play Richard III
It takes out the meaning, texts, in this case scenes and themes out of the original text (Richard III) and introduces it into the new modern context post modernism The modern context does not understand Shakespeare, it is seen as a barrier for most due to his language which is not used in the present day To make Shakespeare more accessible, and in particular Richard III, Al Pacino modernises speech, and gives the audience modern scenarios. Modern audience has the gap of 400 years+ between now and Shakespeare lots of things forgotten e.g. we remember WW1 and WW2 clearly but not say Battle of the roses however, the Shakespeare audience would have known it as a common thought. Shakespeare is made more accessible with the use of humour, action, and modern themes such as romanticism and violence. Acting has been changed to suit modern audience fluid, sinister (as shown in Looking for Richard in the opening soliloquy of Richard the character acts so the audience can see what he is talking about i.e. his plan. Also cross cutting of Edward is shown to remind audience.) Dialogue is also changed to meet purpose, e.g. things are omitted, and said in different ways to convey their importance In Shakespeares time, iambic pentameter would have been commonly accepted, the actors would be familiar. However actors now are not especially the inferiority complex developed within American actors to perform Shakespeare. Lady Annes encounter with Richard is moderately reformed and rearranged even though some essentials are excluded e.g. stichomythia between them. However as Al Pacino says, the modern audience just needs to get the gist of what is happening but more importantly only the main things matter i.e. Richards wooing of Anne, his plains and his deceiving character. Page 1 of 2
Darshil Shah
ACT I Scene ii Richard woos Lady Anne vs. Lade Anne
Discuss how the scene you read from Richard III and the scene you viewed from Looking for Richard are connected. In your response you should consider the purpose, audience, form, context, characters, themes, values and techniques of each text. Discuss: Identify issues and provide points for and/or against Connected: joined or linked together
So to answer the question we need to show what connection exists
between the two texts o A connection is just how they are linked, and because it is discuss, it means for and against, that is, how they connect even with similar and/or different ideas. Also, aspects of purpose, audience, form, context, characters, themes, values and techniques need to be included