More on "Richard III"

Today apparently marks the 530th anniversary of Richard III's death at the battle of Bosworth Field. I've already written about the movie with Sir Laurence Olivier elsewhere, so for today's post, I'll briefly comment on the two other movies related to the play: Looking for Richard (1996) with Al Pacino and NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage (2014) with Kevin Spacey, who played Buckingham in the Al Pacino movie when he was in his late 30s.

Looking for Richard and NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage are very different movies that complement each other instead of competing with each other, for those people like me who are fascinated with the rise and fall of a devious king ready to do anything to attain power.

Looking for Richard is a documentary showing Al Pacino and his creative team in New York City while they rehearse a movie adaptation of certain scenes of Richard III, and those scenes in costume. The scenes in costume are stunningly well-shot with extraordinary actors, magnificent costumes, beautiful locations - including the Metropolitan Museum's Cloisters, which made me want to go there [I've been to the Met a lot but never the Cloisters location] and read a Shakespeare play at one of the cafe's tables in the gallery [Henry VI is next on my reading list, in case you're wondering]. Those scenes illuminated the text in ways my reading of the play and the Sir Laurence Olivier movie hadn't and made me wish Pacino had shot the whole play in movie version, but the appeal of his documentary also lies in the scenes where the actors, or scholars, discuss the play. For instance, I liked how he explains Lady Anne should be played by a very young actress, as young as possible to still understand the play, because she has to truly fall for "Richard's rap" in that scene near her slain husband's casket. In the end, he picked Winona Ryder, who was 25 at the time and looked a lot younger.

NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage is a behind-the-scenes documentary of the world tour of Sam Mendes's production of the play with the Bridge Project Company. (It played to sold-out crowds at BAM in Brooklyn a few years ago). Kevin Spacey as Richard III wears the same military uniform Colonel Gaddafi, and the movie gives a good understanding of what the production looked like for people who know the play but were not able to see the production itself, or wonder what any modern production of Richard III could look like. There are scenes in various cities of the world where the production was shown. It was a bit easier to watch than Looking for Richard, but I found the Al Pacino movie deeper and giving me more insights into Shakespeare.

An interesting tidbit is that Richard III died at age 32, but in all three movies, including the one with Sir Laurence Olivier, he is played by older men: Sir Laurence Olivier was 48, Al Pacino 54 and Kevin Spacey 55 when their movies came out. This reminds me of Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, who is supposed to be a young woman when she seduces Mark Antony, but is now traditionally played by a more mature woman. There aren't enough good roles for actors and actresses who have outgrown the roles of jeunes premiers.

Here is the YouTube trailer of Looking for Richard (not as good as the movie itself).