Looking For Richard is first and foremost a unique film, it is a documentary and a drama which seeks to explore why American’s are repelled by Shakespeare, why American actors fear tackling the work of the Bard and how we might make Shakespeare more accessible to the average person. Using Shakespeare’s most popular play, Richard III, as its basis, we watch as Pacino and his producers attempt to make a film version of Richard III, which is intercut with production meetings, rehearsals with the cast, debates about the characters, interviews with Shakespearian scholars and actors, as well as visits to key monuments in Shakespeare’s history. At the centre of it all is Pacino himself, either clowning about in the Streets of New York, directing his actors or playing the title role of Richard in his film within a film. Pacino in person is a fascinating man to watch on screen, he glues the proceedings together with his natural charm and charisma, his narration of events and his own bizarrely haphazard approach to filming and editing. Looking for Richard was produced over a four year period, the changing appearance of Pacino himself is telling, his facial hair and dress sense is as erratic as the films editing. Clearly working on a low budget he has hired actors that he’s worked with other the years to help him with the project, most of whom are working for free like Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin. It is an impressive cast he’s built with Penelope Allen, Winona Ryder, Kevin Conway, Richard Cox, and Aidan Quinn also staring. As well as interviews from, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Kline, James Earl Jones, Rosemary Harris, Derek Jacobi and Venessa Redgrave. The film is a labour of love and it is clear from the outset that everyone involved shares a common love and understanding of Shakespeare. Despite the films potentially confusing and distancing style, it remains predominately engaging throughout. Its mission is to make Shakespeare accessible to everyone, especially the young and it achieves this by breaking down Richard III into more manageable chunks, explaining the character motivations in both interviews and narration and allowing us to see how simple Shakespeare is once you cut through the language barrier. In an interview with Kenneth Branagh he explains why he initially found Shakespeare to be rather dry and dull when he learnt about it in school, all the students sat behind their desks, reading out dialogue they did not understand. This is not the correct way to do Shakespeare, it needs to be performed, it needs to come alive. But this is contradicted by Kevin Kline who recalls watching a Shakespearian performance and becoming so bored by it that he “made-out” with his girlfriend on the back row instead. Later Pacino decides to perform the opening speech of Richard III to a group of college students and a couple can be seen “making-out” in the back row (whether this was set-up deliberately for the gag is uncertain, but either way it is very funny). So it’s not just a case of performing Shakespeare, it needs to be assessable, the young people need to understand how to read Shakespeare and understand the meaning of the word, engage with the drama of the action and dispense with their fears of the unknown. This is one area where Pacino succeeds, the multiple layers of Pacino’s film and the distinctive changes from documentary to drama mean that the audience never runs the risk of being bored by the proceedings, the stars attached to the project give the audience security of a familiar face, and their behind the scenes banter provides frequently amusing breaks from the ever-so-serious source material.
The interviews and analyses of Richard III are both insightful and accessible, Barbara Everett posits that “Irony is only hypocrisy with style” when discussing Richard’s motivations for craving power; Spacey talks about how the power dynamics and the mechanics of government can be seen reflected in contemporary US politics; Conway gives us a piece of dialogue from a contemporary play then translates it into Shakespearian style language with hilarious results. Others note how Richard repeatedly tells the audience what he’s going to do, then does it, then turns to the audience and says “there, I did it - wasn’t that great!” He is one of Shakespeare’s great villains and Pacino plays him with the playful zeal that Richard requires. Despite this, the one area where Looking For Richard falls short is in it’s film within a film, which is clearly low budget as the lack of extras in key scenes seem to demonstrate. Pacino’s filming style is also rather messy in places, frequently “breaking the line” meaning the action does not always cut together as seamlessly as it might with another more seasoned director in charge. That said there is much to be admired about the films edit; with over eighty-hours of footage it took six editors to cut the film down to its one-hundred and twelve minute length - this is quite an achievement. The film breezes past at an incredible pace with only an extended sequence involving the courtship Lady Anne (Ryder’s role in the film within a film) being some what too long. This sequence in particular feels like producer intervention in the editorial process, trying to take full advantage of Ryder’s presence in the production and unfortunately slowing the pace as a result. Looking For Richard is an insightful and entertaining documentary which perfectly captures the wonderment of all things Shakespeare and which showcases Pacino’s talents as a performer as well as a director. Unlike many contemporary feature documentaries, which choose desperately serious subject matters and flirt with pretension and sanctimonious self-importance, Pacino has instead choosen a rather airy and fanciful subject for his film and as such is only as serious as the material he examines. He hasn’t chosen profound, systemic or endemic issues; global warming, guns in America, the War in Iraq etc. He does not make pious statements about the need for social change. Instead Pacino has targeted something close to his heart and his passion and love of the subject informs our own reactions to the material. His enthusiasm for the Bard complements and informs our own enthusiasm. There is something entirely positive about this film; it is an optimistic documentary due to the specialist nature of its subject. This is not about the worst parts of humanity; it’s about the best parts of humanity, about artistry and creativity, about embracing a bygone era, cherishing a cultural past and what the art of the past can teach us about life today. At worst it is an extended hobbyist video, at best it is a poignant celebration of one of the greatest theatre icons in history. Where it falls within that spectrum is as always up to you… M.Dawson |
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Al Pacino is best known for his work on classic 1970’s American films like The Godfather Part I and II, Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico amongst others. Later in life he has created memorable characters in other films such as Heat, Carlito’s Way, and City Hall. Most recently he’s been criticised for resting on his laurels with somewhat lacklustre pictures like The Recruit, The Righteous Kill and 88 Minutes where in the characters he plays seem like parodies of earlier roles at best and just excuses to hear Pacino shout at worst. But good or bad, naturalistic or theatrical, Pacino is a Hollywood big shot for his screen presence and performance ability. What you may not know about Pacino is that he directs as well. What shorts of films might the former acting heavy weight direct? A crime movie? A gangster film? Eluding expectations and proving himself to be an unpredictable force behind the camera, Pacino seems hell bent on avoiding directing the films he is so often contracted to star in. His latest directorial effort Salomaybe is an exploration of Oscar Wilde’s once banned work, his previous film Chinese Coffee (released in 2000) was based on an Ira Lewis play and it sees Pacino star as a washed out writer opposite Jerry Orabach. Pacino’s directorial debut however was Looking For Richard, released in 1996, and as with his later films it also explores the theatrical and literary traditions of bygone years. This seems to be a passion of Pacino’s, not the sort of work he’d ordinarily be employed for, but something he feels deeply enough about to spend hundreds of hours of his spare time creating. 
The film does potentially run the risk of being patronising to viewers who are intimately familiar with Shakespeare, but they are not the target audience and so should not be pandered to – this is a beginners lesson in Richard III. Pacino does avoid the hazard of alienating the more Shakespeare savy viewer through his own humbleness. Pacino had already stared as Richard III on stage before making this film, and so had prior knowledge of the subject, but he never claims to know the answers to the questions he’s posing. Pacino never places himself above the viewer; he is instead our companion, the blind guide feeling his way through the terrain as much as we are. With Pacino so ready to admit his own short comings, we are obliged to admit our own. Whilst Looking For Richard is aimed at a younger viewer, (and would be the perfect film to show a class of children about to learn about Shakespeare) it is also entertaining to adults as well with the friendly banter between Pacino and his cast, not to mention the star appeal of the likes of Spacey, Baldwin and Ryder (although the latter still feels inexperienced compared to the others).
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