Looking for Richard (1996)

Having lately seen Kevin Spacey's marvellous 'King Richard III' at London's Old Vic (on Broadway in a month or two) I had to see again this splendid exploration of Shakespeare, Richard and the wariness by the American public of WS and the phobic approach to his work of some actors. Yet years ago Brando joined John Gielgud and James Mason to play a thrilling Mark Antony in Mankiewicz's 'Julius Caesar', and here an American cast show themselves fine Shakespearean actors. Spacey (young and handsome!) is most enjoyable as Richard's conniving spin=doctor, Buckingham, and in his inevitably fragmented portrayal Pacino shows what a dark, deadly and witty Crookback he would be - on film or stage.

I really wanted to like this movie. I like Pacino and I love Richard III. Most of it is quite good, but I'm afraid that one scene will always come to mind whenever I think of this film.Pacino is working on the following speech:Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the king In deadly hate the one against the other: And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up, About a prophecy, which says that 'G' Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes.Pacino doesn't understand why Richard says that "G" will be the murderer. After all, the person that Richard is setting up is named Clarence. Instead of delving into the full meaning and believing that Shakespeare must have had a reason to use the words he did, Pacino just decides that he'll change the line to say that "C" will be the murderer.Arrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh! It would only take one look at the list of the characters of the play to find out that the character referred to as "Clarence" is really "George, the Duke of Clarence" so that the "G" does refer to Clarence after all. Not only that, but the prophecy actually refers to Richard himself, since he is "Richard, the Duke of Gloucester." Richard is "G", the murderer.Much of the film is very interesting and enjoyable, but I'm afraid that Pacino's hubris in thinking that he knows better than Shakespeare did will always color this film for me.

A wonderful film in my experience. An American team of players and directors trying to dig into the material of an unpopular play by Shakespeare, telling the story of one of the least popular kings in the chain of kings. Richard III. To follow the search for the soul in this play, and to try to understand the story, is the object of these persons' hunt. Al Pacino is Pacino, walking around in baggy clothes being Pacino Himself. Still, he manage to always be intensely interested in digging into the bones of the story. Maybe he don't success truly in this, still he manage to show the sentral scenes of this play in a dramatic new and powerful way. The scenes of this film switch between artists reading in modern environments, interwievs with British Shakespearian educated players, and scenes with full dramatic costumes. From Richard III in this film, one of the scenes that made me shiver was the one where Richard pretends to be "hexed" by some people close to him, and get people in his own ranks to be arrested and executed, in pure paranoia, or just to get rid of them. From that scene and on he went to his own undergang. Al Pacino is turning into this pathetic, mean man, a hunchback in this play as well (according to history). In the end, Richard stand alone, and cry for "A horse!!!!" ....."My kingdom for a horse ...". And in this scene Pacino manage to show the downfall of Richard. Even if the play failes to tell why the Tudors killed him. This film is about the play by the Bard. Not a history lesson.I should explain much better why I love this film so much. It's hard for me to explain the feeling this film gave me, and to my old parents. We knew the play, we have The Complete Works. But would never be snobbish about Shakespeare. I can't give a better explanation than this film showed me clever, extremely gifted people doing a very decent and heartfelt, even not brilliant, peace of work. I love it.

Al Pacino is one of the most dynamic and charismatic film stars ever; yet he has always been hampered by his inability to pick good projects other than his hits for Coppla and Lumet. This film gives some clue as to why: he appears to be as stupid as a block of stone. A big screen version of Henry "Fonize" Winkler's Shakespeare T.V. show, "Looking For Richard" is a harebrained idea run into the ground. "Richard The III" is one of the easiest to follow of all the Bard's works, that the dark prince is the bad guy stabbing everybody in the back is about all you need to know. Yet Pacino begins with the idea that the play is impossible to bring to modern audiences, it's just too complicated. His solution? Only do the juiciest bits with his Hollywood pals. Unintentional hilarity ensues. Beyond that, Pacino is a ceaseless bore, surrounded by sycophants who encourage him to make a behind of himself. In one scene, Pacino seems to be suggesting to young people that Shakespeare is cool because you get to seduce Wynona Ryder. In another, he keeps interrupting a bored John Gielgud. It's never mentioned that Pacino's on stage Richard III was an infamous production laughed off Broadway in about a week. Maybe it wasn't Al's fault. But the critics were a lot kinder to this silly film than they were to Pacino when he really took a crack at the Bard.