Richard III (Widescreen/Full Screen)

It is true that Shakespeare is the 'author' of Richard III - of course, much of Shakespeare's authoring involved heavy borrowing, redaction and crafting. This is not to take anything away from Shakespeare's achievement, but rather to prove the adage 'good writers borrow from others; great writers steal from them outright'. However, every production of a Shakespeare play requires modification of some sort; bringing Shakespeare productions to the screen (indeed, bringing any stage-play to the screen) requires a recrafting to suit the medium. McKellan and Loncraine rearranged and edited expertly the play to suit a film.

Richard III has been an enigmatic and controversial character - Shakespeare's play is probably more in keeping with Tudor propaganda against Richard III (from whom they took the throne) rather than actual history; Richard's malformed physical form and malicious character may be fictions, or at least great exaggerations, designed to serve the purpose of bolstering Tudor legitimacy. McKellan points out (a theory not unique to him, by any means) that the Tudors had as much to gain from the disappearance of the princes in the tower as Richard himself; had they survived and been recognised as heirs of the throne, Tudor legitimacy would have been much less credible.

McKellan's Richard has disability physically, but the real deformity is of the will and the spirit. The Prussian-inspired military garb of this production hints at but also hides his physical disability for the most part. There is no real hump, stammer or limp that many portrayals of Richard might have.

McKellan describes the decision to update the tale of Richard III into more modern times as one to provide clarity of narrative. Indeed, for this production, Richard is seen as a storm-trooper similar to the militant cadres of Germany in the 1930; his grasp for power is very similar in tone to the rise to dictatorship of any number of fascist leaders, but the Nuremberg-Rally character of Richard's accession leaves little doubt as to the parallel. On stage and screen, in a drama such as these, people need to be readily identified in their roles; Elizabethan dress (or earlier dress) is confusing to the modern eye, but the difference between costuming for military, aristocracy, etc. in the modern time is readily identifiable. The exact historical situation is not directly relevant - given that Richard III already takes liberties with the actual history of the time, why not take more in the name of accessibility to the audience?

Richard III had to be cut to make it on the screen, in order to be turned into a visual rather than auditory experience, given the sensibilities of modern cinema-goers. McKellan and Loncraine originally wanted to film around the Houses of Parliament, but for various political reasons that idea was quashed. They used the Parliament building in Budapest, modeled after the Westminster building, and did so to great effect.

McKellan certainly steals the show here, but there are worthwhile briefer performances by the late Nigel Hawthorne, Robert Downey Jr., John Wood, and Annette Bening. Maggie Smith, as the mother of Edward IV and Richard III, turns in a stunning performance as usual, nearly upstaging the other actors in every scene in which she appears.

The music is serviceable, useful as a backdrop but never really stands out. This is appropriate to Shakespeare, even up-dated, 'postmodern' Shakespeare, in which the play's the thing. The visuals help to pull the story along, but in true Shakepearean mode, the dialogue and acting are the driving forces here, and they succeed brilliantly.


Villany Unveiled.   May 29, 2005
Themis-Athena (from somewhere between California and Germany)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

A gala ball: The York family celebrate their reascent to power; the War of Roses (named for the feuding houses' heraldic badges: Lancaster's red and York's white rose) is almost over. Actually, the year is 1471, but for present purposes, we're in the 1930s. A singer delivers a swinging "Come live with me and be my love." Richard of Gloucester (Sir Ian McKellen), the reinstated sickly King Edward IV's (John Wood's) youngest brother, moves through the crowd; observing, watching his second brother George, Duke of Clarence (Nigel Hawthorne) being quietly led off by Tower warden Brackenbury (Donald Sumpter) and his subalterns. With Clarence gone, Richard seizes the microphone, its discordant screech cutting through the singer's applause, and he, who himself made this night possible by killing King Henry VI of Lancaster and his son at Tewkesbury, begins a victory speech: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York" (cut to Edward, who regally acknowledges the tribute). But when Richard mentions "grim-visaged war," who "smooth'd his wrinkled front," the camera closes in on his mouth, turning it into a grimace reminiscent of the legend known to any spectator in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre: that he wasn't just born "with his feet first" but also "with teeth in his mouth;" hence, not only crippled (though whether also hunchbacked is uncertain) but cursed from birth, his physical deformity merely outwardly representing his inner evil.

Then, mid-sentence, the image cuts again. Richard enters a bathroom; and as he continues his monologue we see that only now, relieving himself and talking - with narcissistic pleasure - to his own image in the mirror, he truly speaks his mind; contemptuously dismissing a war that's lost its menace and "capers nimbly in a lady's bedchamber," and determining that, since he now has no delight but to mock his own deformed shadow, and "cannot prove a lover," he'll "prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days."

Thus, Richard's first soliloquy, which actually opens the play on a London street, brilliantly demonstrates the signature elements of this movie's (and the preceding stage production's) success: not only its updated 20th century context but its creative use of settings and imagery; boldly cutting and rearranging Shakespeare's words without anytime, however, betraying his intent. Indeed, that pattern is already set with the prologue's murder of King Henry VI and his son, where following a telegraph report that "Richard of Gloucester is at hand - he holds his course toward Tewkesbury" (slightly altered lines from the preceding "King Henry VI"'s last scenes) Richard himself emerges from a tank breaking through the royal headquarters' wall, breathing heavily through a gas mask: As his shots ring out, riddling the prince with bullets, the blood-red letters R-I-C-H-A-R-D-III appear across the screen.

And as creatively it continues: Richard woos Lady Anne (Kristin Scott Thomas), Henry's daughter-in-law, in a morgue instead of a street (near her husband's casket), and later drives her into drug abuse. Henry's Cassandra-like widow Margaret is one of several characters omitted entirely; whereas foreign-born Queen Elizabeth is purposely cast with an American (Annette Benning), whose performance has equally purposeful overtones of Wallis Simpson; and whose playboy-brother Earl Rivers (Robert Downey Jr.) dies "in the act." Clarence is murdered while the rest of the family sits down to a lavish (although discordant) dinner. When upon Richard's ally Lord Buckingham's (Jim Broadbent's) machinations, he is "persuaded" to take the crown, he emerges from a veritable film star's dressing room complete with full-sized mirror and manicurists (sold to the attending crowd outside as "two deep divines" praying with him). Tyrrell (Adrian Dunbar), already one of Clarence's murderers, quickly rises through uniformed ranks as he further bloodies his hands. Richard's and Elizabeth's final spar over her daughter's hand takes place in the train-wagon serving as his field headquarters; and we actually see that same princess wed to his arch-enemy Richmond (Dominic West), King Henry VII-to-be and founder of the Tudor dynasty, with lines taken from Richmond's closing monologue. Perhaps most importantly, we also witness Richard's coronation, which Shakespeare himself - honoring that ceremony's perception as holy - decided not to show; although even here it is presented not as a glorious procedure of state but only in a brief snippet rerun immediately from the distance of a private, black-and-white film shown only for Richard's and his entourage's benefit.

And challenging as this project is, its stellar cast - also including Maggie Smith (a formidable Duchess of York), Jim Carter (Prime Minister Lord Hastings), Roger Hammond (the Archbishop), and Tim McInnerny and Bill Paterson (Richard's underlings Catesby and Ratcliffe) - uniformly prove themselves more than up to the task.

Even if the temporal setting didn't already spell out the allegory on the universality of evil that McKellen and director Richard Loncraine obviously intend, you'd have to be blind to miss the visual references to fascism: the uniforms, the gathering modeled on the infamous Nuremberg Reichsparteitag, the long red banners with a black boar in a white circle (playing up the image of the boar Shakespeare himself uses: similarly, Richard's and Tyrrell's first meeting is set in a pig-sty, and Lord Stanley's [Edward Hardwicke's] prophetic dream follows an incident where Richard, for a split-second, loses his self-control). But the imagery goes even further: Richard's narcissism is reminiscent of Chaplin's "Great Dictator;" and you don't have to watch this movie contemporaneously with the latest "Star Wars" installment to visualize Darth Vader during his gas mask-endowed entry in the first scene.

"[T]hus I clothe my naked villany with odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ; and seem a saint when most I play the devil," Richard comments in the play: if there's one line I regret to see cut it's the one so clearly encompassing the way many a modern despot assumes power, too; by cloaking his true intent in the veneer of formal legality. Even so: this is a highlight among the recent Shakespeare adaptations; under no circumstances to be missed.


No Better Shakespearean Adaptation   June 17, 2004
Scott Schiefelbein (Portland, Oregon United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Ian' McKellen's amazing adaptation of Shakespeare's "Richard III" shows just how good Shakespeare can be, even for a modern audience that is not trained in the Shakespearean vocabulary.

Directed by Richard Loncraine, and adapted from his triumphant stage production, this "Richard III" is set in a pseudo-Nazi-era England, and the Wars of the Roses are seemingly set as the preliminary days of WWII. In a great opening scene, Richard leads the forces of his brother, King Edward IV (John Wood), to victory over the rebel forces -- following a tank smashing through a fireplace and planting a bullet in his rival's head, all the while breathing through a gas mask like a 20th-century Darth Vader.

The royal family is seemingly happy, "Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer . . ." But Richard is a villain -- in a wonderful soliloquy that starts as a homage to his kingly brother but evolves into a private rant in a bathroom, Richard confesses that he is a villain. "Plots have I laid!"

Capitalizing on the trust given him by his brothers, Richard sets off on a mad quest for power that sees him arrange for the murder of his brother, seduce the widow of his dead rival ("Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?"), and ultimately seize the throne. But for Richard the quest for power is the game -- he seems happiest when winning but almost morose having won his prize. He wins a bride but ignores her. He wins the throne but does not enjoy it, and seems to go out of his way to find others to seduce, including Elizabeth (Annette Benning, in dubious casting, but she gives it a good shot), and men to kill, such as Anthony (Robert Downey, Jr., proving once again that he can do just about anything).

In addition to the American cast members (McKellen succeeded in not casting too many Americans in an effort to create box office, unlike Kenneth Branagh in his full-length "Hamlet"), "Richard III" has the usual cast of recognizable British actors -- Nigel Hawthorne (Clarence), Kirsten Scott Thomas (Lady Anne), Maggie Smith (Duchess of York), and Jim Broadbent (Buckingham).

Spinning this tale of murder and corruption in a Nazi-esque England was pure genius -- Richard's murderous successes gain a momentum that is reminiscent of Hitler's and Stalin's respective power grabs, and we get a true sense of danger from Richard's ascension. (Plus it allows for some great costumes!) It is chilling to watch the dominoes fall, one after the other, just as Richard has planned.

Of course, we know that all ends well and that Richard is defeated, but his fall has never been so perfectly staged. Refusing to be captured by Henry, Earl of Richmond (Dominic West), Richard climbs out onto some rickety ironwork. In a nice, but surprising editorial choice, Richard throws out a line that is not in Shakespeare's play -- "Let's to it pell-mell; if not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell." He leaps into a raging inferno below him, and the camera tracks him down, his beaming visage showing that Richard is dying just as he lived -- as a villain in love with his own villainy. Al Jetson's "I'm Sitting On Top of the World" is the perfect icing on the cake.

What a gas! Shakespeare has given us one of theater's great experiences -- watching a man who loves being bad be about as bad as you can get.

A must for Shakespeare fans and for anyone who is a fan of the cinema. Check this out!


Shakespeare gets updated and how   June 3, 2004
Margaux Paschke (New York)
Once you get used to the Shakespearian lingo, you marvel at the ingenious blending of a Third Reich "ish" regime & the original Shakespeare. A beautiful modernization of the play that works. The cinematography was amazing. The use of smoke via cigarettes or cigars was pure genius not to mention brillant symbolism with freudian overtones. The same can be said of the use of color and camera angle techniques. Reading the original version only enhances the beauty of this piece. Oh, and it also kicks a** as a war movie.


Bravo Sir Ian   May 18, 2004
Shanna Turner (Brandon, Florida USA)
I will admit that the only reason I pick up this movie was because it had Ian McKellen in it, and his performance, as always, was amazing. He does a brilliantly job portraying the loathsome, savvy, ingenious Richard III. The language threw me at first (I believe they kept almost all of Shakespeare's original dialect) but it seems so natural in this film. It was a great cast, with Maggie Smith as the grieving queen mother, who has to see and face her son, knowing the awful things he does, things he doesn't even deny.

Richard, the youngest brother of King Edward, sets out to take the throne. He will be king, no matter the price, and thus begins a bloody civil war, murdering, betraying, and seducing all who stand in his way.