RICHARD III
A film review by Martin Rich
Copyright 1996 Martin Rich
Shakespeare's plays contain some of the most graphic descriptions of inhumanity ever. We tend to overlook these, perhaps because we are used to quite decorous productions of Shakespeare, but this adaptation of Richard III for the cinema proves that Shakespeare is still well able to shock.
There is, in fact, blood and gore a-plenty. We have children being suffocated, a man stabbed while having sex tied to a bedpost, one of the King's brothers attacked in his bath, and a hospital of the most extraordinary grimness. I wonder through what quirk of literary sensibility the film came to be classified as a '15' in Britain.
But, if you can stomach the violence, you will see a fine portrayal of an empire weighed down by decadence, and by lack of respect for human life. Ian McKellen is Richard, and also collaborated on distilling the screenplay from Shakespeare's original work. As a callous, embittered, hunchback he is frightening - the more so because he is so cool and embittered. The cast is tremendous - especially Annette Bening and Maggie Smith as two of the women caught in Richard's machinations. Shakespeare's text has been cut to little more than half its original length, but preserving much of the original wording and ensuring that the story moves on at an impressive pace.
Thanks to carefully designed sets, costumes (details such as the watch that Richard wears), music, and some terrific locations, the film has a fine and accurate period feel. But it isn't Richard III's period, nor is it Shakespeare's. This production is set in a mythical 1930s London, torn by civil war, and lest we doubt the sort of monarch that Richard was, his supporters wave red and white banners which owe a lot to Nazi imagery.
Setting Shakespeare out of his own time will always be controversial. But some of the best stage productions have been in twentieth century dress: during the 1980s the Royal Shakepeare Company transplanted the Merry Wives of Windsor to the 1950s, an age of 'new Elizabethans', and more recently the Royal Court staged King Lear in the early 20th century. In the same way, this adaptation uses its new context to advantage. Richard's fascist tendencies, and his predecessor's glamorous American wife, both have echoes of Edward VIII. And Shakespeare's characterisation is timeless; he didn't write plays to be performed as period pieces, and it's appropriate that we don't see them as period pieces either.
Those locations deserve a few further remarks. The 'tower' is actually Battersea Power Station. For the final battle it is pictured overlooking a vast open space - Bosworth Field - in defiance of both history and geography, but to great effect. The film owes a lot to the Gilbert Scott family of architects, as St Pancras Station also appears on several occasions. And there is Brighton Pavilion, its fanciful architecture and its associations with yet another generation of royalty making it into a symbol of royal decadence. Shell-Mex House is the King's urban base.
If you're prepared to see Shakespeare in a new light, see this film.
-- Martin Rich (0171) 477 8627 Lecturer in Information Management Fax(0171) 477 8628 City University Business School, M.G.Rich@city.ac.uk Frobisher Crescent, http://www.city.ac.uk/~sf309/home.html Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8HB, UK
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