Review of Looking for Richard (1996) by Sean F — 10 Sep 2004
In "Looking for Richard", Al Pacino undertakes the noble task of taking one of Shakespeare's more complicated plays, and making it accessible to the modern audience. The movie does a good job in helping us with the history of "Richard III", and I came away having learned more than a few things about the play.
Among them: Shakespeare's audience would have been as familiar with the characters as we are today's pop stars, so they had a leg up on us when it comes to the history; "Richard III" is Shakespeare's most performed play today - a claim I will dispute, based solely on the number of productions of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" I've either seen or been involved in.
I enjoyed the round table discussions, and the debates over certain characters. Less interesting were Pacino's quick cuts back and forth between camera angles, and his forced man-on-the-street inverviews.
You could almost hear Pacino thinking that this is what the kids are into these days. Where the movie fails is in Pacino's attempts to make the language and the play itself accessible. After Pacino and a number of experts (friends of Pacino's who also happen to be actors) explain to us how Shakespeare doesn't need to be Shakespearean, they start performing scenes from the play as Shakespearean as I've ever seen.
(Let me pause to explain that by "Shakespearean", I mean the classic stereotype of the loud actor rhythmically repeating lines that have no meaning to anyone. This is usually because the actor in question has no idea what he is saying.
) I enjoy Shakespeare's work and language, but Pacino and his experts lost me. The two exceptions were Alec Baldwin as Clarence and Kevin Spacey as Buckingham. Both were subtle to a point of clarity.
They met the language problem by focusing on each scene's task at hand and making their entire body about that task. Pacino's portrayal of Richard III, on the other hand, seemed to be solely based on the volume of his voice.
Fortunately, I didn't have to sit through his entire performance.
This review of Looking for Richard (1996) was written by Sean F on 10 Sep 2004.
Looking for Richard has generally received positive reviews.
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