Margarette Connor
Richard Loncraine, an English director, also did The Missionary (1982), The Gathering Storm (2002), My House in Umbria (2003), and, more recently, Wimbledon (2004) with Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany.
"Shakespeare was taught really badly at school -- rammed down my throat. I didn't understand the language and that frightened me. I've avoided seeing Shakespeare onstage for years," says Loncraine. ("McKellan")
In the press kit for the film, Loncraine talked more about some of his decisions in making the film."In the full text of Th. original play, the story can seem over-complicated -- so for clarity's sake, we have removed those supporting characters who detracted from the central story. Our aim was always to keep whatever in the play was pertinent 400 years on." ("McKellan")
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| Annette Benning as Queen Elizabeth and Kate Steavenson-Payne as Princess Elizabeth. Source: Official Richard III Film Site, MGM.com http://www.mgm.com/ title_clip.do?title_star=RICHARD3 |
And according to Barbara Hodgdon,"The stage production took as its premise ¡¥what might have happened if Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the black-shirted British Union of Fascists had come to power in 1930s Britain.'"
The details aren't always allusive. Richard Glouchester's black uniform is actually the tunic of an SS Colonel General, minus the swastika insignia.
Who is Mosley, though? He was a British politician who founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932 after meeting with Benito Mussolini earlier in that year. His organization was strongly anti-communist and argued for a programme of economic revival based on government spending and protectionism. By 1934 Mosley was expressing strong anti-Semitic views and his organization's marches through Jewish districts in London led to riots. His union members wore black shirts and in many ways mimicked Mussolini's notorious Black Shirts as well as Hitler's Nazi party members. (This type of British Fascist is shown in the film Remains of the Day ).
During a symposium on"Shakespeare In The Cinema," Richard Loncraine, the director, was asked"What is your view of filming historically updated versions of Shakespeare s plays as opposed to period presentations?
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| Ian McKellan as Richard III addressing the court after the coup removing his brother from the throne. Source: McKellan Shakespeare pages, Richard III Society pages. http://www.r3.org/onstage/ FILM/notes.html |
Loncraine said,"I think both are valid, both have their place. It was not my idea to set Richard III in the Thirties that was decided by Richard Eyre, who directed it as a stage play, with Ian McKellen. I never saw the stage play, so I've no idea what it was like, but I believe we took the idea and ran with it, and extended it on, which is what I'd hoped we would do. I think setting Richard III in the fascist era was certainly a valid interpretation and I decided to make a world that wasn't England, because I felt that that was going to be confusing. We had period language that was written four hundred years ago and I didn't want the language to clash with the imagery by setting it in a period or a place that was known. Setting it in an unknown time and place--you weren't in London, you weren't in Strasbourg, you weren't in New York, you were somewhere in this movie--I think helped to blur the lines between four-hundred-year-old language and the more contemporary imagery. Shakespeare never performed his plays in period costume, they were played in whatever actors turned up on the day in, so Shakespeare obviously didn't think it was that important, and neither do I."
On one hand, I find his answer slightly disingenuous. You are obviously in London for some scenes. I recognized it, and you may have as well, if not from visits, from photos. And the scene at the beach when King Edward learns of Clarence's death was Bath, also in England, so I think to say he made a world that wasn't England doesn't work for me. I certainly felt like I was in England.
So once the setting is decided, and the period, some other things fell into place. Casting Queen Elizabeth and her brother as Americans emphasizes their"otherness" from the royal family. Both the Lancasters and the Yorks were descended from King Edward III, so were royal or noble. While Queen Elizabeth Woodville was from a noble family, it wasn't that elevated. In the play (and during her life as well), Richard harps on her being raised from being a commoner to queen. As an American, she was definitely a commoner, and she and her brother are parvenus in this world. And during this period, many English nobles were marrying rich American heiresses. The British aristocrats wanted the money, the Americans wanted the"class" that comes with titles.
And having an American-English split also emphasizes the animosity between the two branches of the family. Although we share a language, there is often quite a bit of hostility, or perhaps rivalry would be a softer word choice, between the two groups. For a funny take on it, see Kevin Kline's psycho American in A Fish Called Wanda . He represents what the English see as bad about Americans, but he voices what Americans often think about the English.
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| Robert Downey, Jr. as Lord Rivers, brother of Queen Elizabeth. Source: McKellan Shakespeare pages, Richard III Society pages. http://www.r3.org/onstage/ FILM/notes.html |
"I do believe that you can cut the text. Shakespeare's plays were almost never put on in their full-text form; Richard III runs four-and-a-half hours, which is more than most people can deal with. We made a very strong decision not to write any Shakespeare text because, otherwise, why bother? You might as well find something else. So you can change the text, and you can also move text around--it's a strong Shakespearean tradition to take a scene or a line of dialog and move it. Shakespeare did it all the time."
So that gives us some insight into the process, but not that much really. It makes sense that McKellan make the cuts. He knew the play better than anyone else involved, having played Richard on stage. And we see why the film starts as it does.
But the opening scene does much more than give us pre-history from Henry VI, Part 3 . A New York Times review of the movie starts like this:
"The sound that introduces him is familiar to any fan of horror movies of the past 20 years: it's the ominously amplified breathing of a killer stalking his prey. Like the demon murderers of such popular gore-fests as Halloween and Friday the 13 th , he wears a mask, and his cold-bloodedness is neatly established as he takes precise aim with his carbine at an old man saying his prayers." (Brantley)
So the opening is playing on the idea of horror movies--evil incarnate. I also thought of Darth Vadar's breathing through his mask. Darth Vadar is also evil, at least till the very end when he's redeemed by his son.
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| Ian McKellan as Richard III, sitting in front of an impressive portrait of himself. Source: McKellan Shakespeare pages, Richard III Society pages. http://www.r3.org/onstage /FILM/notes.html |
The Times also points out"the single greatest stumbling block (once you accept the Elizabethan verse) in translating Shakespeare to film: soliloquies." But it points out that this is mostly overcome in this play. In the film, Richard's first, famous soliloquy starts as a public speech (and works really well as one, too), and ends in the privacy of the toilet, while he mutters to himself and looks in the mirror.
All in all, I thought the opening was brilliant. We go from the killing of the king, to the celebration of the new reign. We can literally see the dancing and joy. And it's full of ironic touches, as well. The singer is singing a 1930s version of Christopher Marlowe's poem"Come Live with me and Be My Love." Marlowe is Shakespeare's contemporary, of course, and many critics point out Marlovian touches in Richard III . It is also a pastoral poem, setting the mood for"glorious summer" for this son/sun of York. The pun works nicely as a speech, too. Easier to spot, I think. The initials on the band's music stands are"WS", for William Shakespeare, of course. Another nice touch comes later in the film when we see Richard plotting mayhem while in the barn with a large black boar, his iconic animal.
This version also helps us understand Lady Anne in a new way. Loncraine's version turns her into a chic, vacant thrill-seeker (her drug and alcohol use alerts us that she is one of the"bright one things" of the inter-war period.) As the Times puts it:"Mr. McKellan's ring-sucking wooing scene, set by the very visible corpse of her husband (whom he murdered) in a mortuary, becomes an invitation to sadomasochistic pleasures that Anne hadn't really thought of before but that might be fun." (Bentley)
Changing the corpse from her father-in-law to her husband works just as well, too, maybe even better as her grief for a father-in-law seems awfully over the top. But of course, this changes the history a bit. Prince Edmund died in battle about a month before his father was murdered while a prisoner in the Tower of London.
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| Kirsten Scott-Thomas as Lady Anne. Source: McKellan Shakespeare pages, Richard III Society pages. http://www.r3.org/onstage /FILM/notes.html |
Lady Anne is more visible in this version, and you really sense that she and Richard are a couple. Her death scene is chilling, though. That spider crawling across her face upset me the first time I saw it, and it still does. It's so creepy. Did she die from a drug overdose? Perhaps. But how many times have we heard Richard called a Spider? Was that a visual clue?
But one lady is very much missed in this version. Queen Margaret is sadly cut. A number of characters are cut--Queen Elizabeth's older sons, a number of lesser characters, and that's fine. It cuts down the confusion. But taking out Queen Margaret makes for some major changes in the play. She's the only equal Richard had in the original and now she's gone. Her curses are gone, too, taking with it much of the mystical in the play. I can see why they cut her in terms of plot and making the play more streamlined, but I think her absence subtly changes the point of the play. Her evil wouldn't fit here. It wouldn't do to have evil people all over the place when trying to focus on Richard and the cult of personality.
In his Newsweek Magazine review of the film Jack Kroll notes," The film reminds us that the Bard was the Oliver Stone of his day, creating a portrait of Richard that scholars have disputed ever since." I very much liked this analogy.
Sources
Brantley, Ben."Mesmerizing Men of Ill Will" New York Times , originally published Jan 21, 1996, Sec H p 1. Retrieved 9 February 2006 from New York Times Database.
Donaldson, Peter Samuel." Cinema and the Kingdom of Death: Loncraine's Richard III ," Shakespeare Quarterly 53.2 (2002) 241-259.
Hodgdon, Barbara."Replicating Richard: Body Doubles, Body Politics," Theatre Journal 50.2 (1998) 207-225.
Kroll, Jack."Review: Richard III" Newsweek , Jan 29, 1996, p58. Retrieved 9 February 2006 from Academic Premier Database.
"McKellan Shakespeare Film." Richard III Society http://www.r3.org/onstage/FILM/loncrn1.html
"Shakespeare in the cinema: A film directors' symposium," Cineaste;12/15/98, Vol. 24 Issue 1, pp 48 ff.