Point of Comparison One:
Free Will, Ambition and the Pursuit of Power
Key Concerns
In this table you will summarise the key concerns that are relevant to this first point of comparison. Complete this table
carefully before looking closely at the extracts from King Richard III and Looking for Richard as this will provide your
analysis with direction and help you to better understand the similarities and differences concerning ‘free will, ambition
and the pursuit of power’ in each text.
Richard III
Looking for Richard
●
Richard engages in ‘Machiavellian politics’ in order to
seize the crown for himself, maximise his own
personal power and ensure his own political
survival.
●
Pacino emulates Richard’s duplicitous person in
order to illustrate to his late twentieth-century
audience the relatable and mesmerising quality of
Shakespearean characters and texts. By adopting a
variety of roles behind and in front of the camera,
including as a writer, director and actor, Pacino
emulates Richard’s polymorphous character. Pacino
is pursuing his objective of disrupting and changing
his the prevailing negative attitudes towards
Shakespeare that characterise the zeitgeist (‘spirit’)
of his milieu (‘context’).
●
Richard’s ambitious pursuit of power lacks moral
restraint is evidence of a rejection of Christian
theocentric values and the ideology of the Divine
Right of Kings consistent with a more secular view of
monarchial rule.
●
Pacino’s 1990s American context is defined by
liberal ideas such as egalitarianism, freedom of
speech and the democratisation of culture.
Pacino seeks to emulate Richard’s lack of moral
restraint through both his dramatisation of different
scenes from the play, as well as in his Machiavellian
duplicity whilst ‘performing’ as a version of himself
in the documentary components of Looking for
Richard.
Pacino’s secular and morally relativistic 1990s
context means he does not have a hegemonic
religious (‘dominance’) or moral ideology against
which to rebel. In contrast to Shakespeare’s Richard
who is seeking to disrupt the established order
(political and religious), Pacino is seeking to engage
in a discourse concerning the pluralistic (dual
system) chaos that pervades his milieu.
●
●
●
Shakespeare shows that in an unstable political
environment, some individuals will choose to exploit
that instability for their own ends:
● Richard chooses to exploit the vulnerabilities of
his own House of York in order to increase his
●
Pacino takes advantage of the freedom of expression
afforded to by a stable political environment and a
highly prosperous economy, which precipitated a
“belle epoque” (comfortable and settled life) of
experimental and postmodern film in the 1990s, to
●
●
own personal and political power.
Buckingham chooses to align himself with
Richard in the hope of furthering his own wealth
and influence.
Shakespeare is critical of Richard’s Machiavellian
ambition and pursuit of power. Consider the
following:
● Richard is portrayed as a villain.
● He is punished for suppressing his humanity,
becoming increasingly insecure, paranoid and
plagued by his own conscience by the end of the
play.
● He dies alone with “no soul” to “love” or “pity”
him.
advance his own objectives.
● Pacino deliberately casts Winona Ryder as
Anne in order to attract a young audience as to
her youth and beauty, the prestige she acquired
due to multiple roles in literary film adaptation,
and her ‘aura’ as the embodiment of Generation
X’s frustrated aspirations and ennui (worldweariness) (a consequence of her role in the
cult film Reality Bites).
● Pacino mocks and ridicules ‘stuffy’ academics to
diminish the perspective of elitism that has
been created since the Canonisation of
Shakespeare.
● Pacino casts a variety of well-respected older
actors, such as Derek Jacobi, John Gielgud,
Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones, as
well as famous Shakespearean actor and
director Kenneth Branagh, so as to lend
credibility and prestige to his documentary by
association.
●
●
●
●
●
Richard’s expedient choices lack in humanity and
morality, ultimately leading to:
● Tyranny - in particular the death of a number of
innocents
● Alienation
●
Pacino is “peddling Shakespeare” as “a man for all
seasons”.
He seeks to answer his own question: “What’s this
thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?”
Richard is portrayed by Pacino as a figure akin to
myriad archetypal gangsters, mafia figures and
criminals (that is influenced by his milieu) that he is
partly responsible for having popularised in the
American ‘collective consciousness’ in films such as
The Godfather series, Scarface and Carlito’s Way.
Pacino does this in order to simplify the complexity
of Shakespeare’s play (making it relatable to
American audiences) and it’s relationship to both the
fictive and historical War of the Roses, by making
Richard a ‘self-made man’ that appeals to the
audience’s belief in the ‘American Dream’.
Pacino presents himself as a naif (naive or
ingenuous), often asking simplistic and facile
questions about the play King Richard III, in order to
function as an audience-surrogate despite having
performed in two productions of the play prior to
commencing filming of the docudrama Looking for
Richard.
Pacino’s examination of Shakespeare’s most
performed play seeks to “look” for the “Richard” like
figures that exist in reality and in fiction in his own
context, as well as to discover the connection
between “Richard” and ourselves.
●
●
●
● Civil war
● Richard’s downfall
In presenting the dire consequence of Richard’s
choices, Shakespeare asserts the importance of the
‘Divine Right of Kings’ (legitimacy of rule based on
God given authority).
●
Pacino uses a combination of the following textual
forms to achieve this:
● Dramatisation
● Adaptation
● Actor’s circle conversations
● Interviews with diverse people
● Vox pops
● Exposition
● Conversations with the production crew that
are intended to seem ad hoc (impromptu or
spontaneous) and unscripted
● Didactic (educational or instructive)
commentary.
Shakespeare encourages the audience to question
both those who are naive or dismissive about the
threat Richard poses and those who politically align
themselves with Richard, seeking to profit from his
rise to power. Consider the following:
● Lord Hastings
● Duke of Buckingham
● Sir William Catesby
● Sir James Tyrrel
●
Pacino urges the audience to question the prevailing
attitudes towards Shakespeare and his work.
Pacino seeks to disrupt the status quo through his
own quixotic (unrealistic and impractical) quest to
change or transform American perspectives of
Shakespeare. Both Pacino and Richard fail in their
“quest(ion)”. However, both Richard’s short-lived
tyrannous reign and Pacino’s commercially
unsuccessful docudrama contribute to perpetuating
the popularity of Shakespeare and the proliferation
of his works.
Many of the characters in the play are shown to be
lacking in agency (the capacity to act). This
contributes to Richard’s ability to seize power as
there are no effective checks on power he exercises
(in a way, those around him appear to be bound by
fate and vulnerable to Richard who rejects it). As a
consequence, the audience is encouraged to consider
the extent to which others are responsible for
Richard’s tyranny and the subsequent civil war.
●
●
●
●
Pacino serves as a ‘puppet-master’ throughout the
docudrama.
● As director he has control over the scenes
which are shot, the portrayal of characters both
in and outside the play King Richard III, and he
has control over the final ‘cut’ of the
docudrama.
● As script-writer, he controls the structure of the
text.
● As an actor, he controls the representation of
Richard.
● In playing a version of himself for the purpose
of the documentary, he is able to further
manipulate the audience in order to achieve his
purpose.
Pacino creates verisimilitude with Richard through
his postmodern approach to the meta-theatrical
nature of King Richard III.
Pacino emphasises Richard’s intrinsic motivations
towards power, avarice (greed) and villainy and
downplays the extent to which others are
responsible for extrinsically motivating him.
Point of Comparison Two:
Agency, Complicity and Conscience
Key Concerns
In this table you will summarise the key concerns that are relevant to this second point of comparison. Complete this
table carefully before looking closely at the extracts from King Richard III and Looking for Richard as this will provide
your analysis with direction and help you to better understand the similarities and differences concerning ‘agency,
complicity and conscience’ in each text.
Richard III
●
●
●
Looking for Richard
Although Richard is a skilful manipulator, the moral
weakness of others in the play facilitates Richard’s
rise to power.
● Lady Anne is seduced by Richard’s flattery.
● Buckingham is lured into committing immoral
acts by promises of wealth and monarchical
preference.
● Tyrrel is persuaded by financial gain to kill the
two princes.
● Bishop Ely overlooks the flaws in Richard and
Buckingham’s indictment of Hastings.
●
In addition to the moral weakness of others, many of
the characters in the play are shown to be lacking in
agency (the capacity to act). They may well be aware
of Richard’s character, but find that there are
structural impediments in place preventing them
from acting. This contributes to Richard’s ability to
seize power as there are no effective checks on the
power he exercises.
● Queen Elizabeth is limited by the desire of the
ailing King Edward to have the family reconciled,
along with her inability to change Richard’s
status as the “protector” of the princes. She is
also reliant on the men around her (King
Edward, her brothers, her sons and later the
Archbishop) for protection against Richard,
however they all prove deficient in this regard.
● Queen Margaret is limited by her status as the
former queen.
● Hastings is blinded by his belief that Prince
Edward will become king upon the death of his
father.
As a consequence, the audience is encouraged to
consider the extent to which others are responsible
for Richard’s tyranny and the subsequent civil war.
●
●
●
With the exception of Buckingham, in Looking for
Richard, Pacino diminishes the role others play in
facilitating Richard’s rise to power.
This serves to accentuate Richard’s manipulative
skills beyond that of Shakespeare’s original Richard,
allowing Pacino to emphasise the ‘self-made man’
aspect of Richard’s character (though he is far from
really being a self-made man being a nobleman and
a brother to the king); consistent with Pacino’s
purpose and audience.
Through reducing the emphasis on the roles of a
number of the characters, accentuating the extent of
familial conflict and heightening emphasis on
Buckingham’s complicity, Pacino highlights the way
in which a system of rule can be successfully
manipulated by an individual so as to secure them
power.
Similar to Shakespeare, in presenting the
personalities around Richard to be lacking in agency,
Pacino demonstrates to a modern audience the
relevance of effective checks and balances on power.
●
Consistent with Shakespeare’s pro-Tudor purpose,
the play presents the House of York as morally
weak. Consider the portrayal of the House of York:
● Sick and ailing - consider King Edward’s illness,
Richard’s deformity and mental illness and
Clarence’s various betrayals (of his own house
and the House of Lancaster) as symbolic
renderings of moral weakness.
● Plagued by self-interest and disconnected from
the common people.
● Divided and dysfunctional.
●
●
●
Richard is ultimately punished for his tyranny. He is
presented as a man who is plagued by his
conscience by the end of the play. He is also
presented as a man who becomes fearful of dying
alone and afraid of answering for his sins and
violence in the afterlife (something that inspired T.S.
Eliot’s The Hollow Men).
●
By contrast to the moral weakness and lack of
agency exhibited by members of the House of York
and their allies, Richmond is presented as:
● Swift and decisive in his action against Richard
● Honourable, justified and virtuous in taking arms
against Richard
● Merciful and just in victory.
●
Consistent with Pacino’s purpose in attempting to
render Richard recognisable for twentieth-century
audiences, in Looking for Richard, Pacino considers
how far people are prepared to go for power. In
doing so, he challenges the value of ambition and
the ‘self-made man’ - two core values of the
American Dream - encouraging the audience to
consider the point at which these values become
corrupted by the pursuit of power and success and
the extent to which they are rendered ‘empty’ or
meaningless when power and success are achieved
at the expense of moral integrity.
“As soon as he [Richard] gets what he wants, as
soon as he gets Lady Anne, as soon as he gets the
crown, then the whole thing… The emptiness of it.”
(Kimball and Pacino). The achievement of gaining
the crown is hollow: power is meaningless when it is
gained at the cost of integrity and morality.
Similar to Shakespeare’s Richard, Pacino’s Richard is
also punished for his tyranny. However, in staging
Richard as a man plagued by his conscience, Pacino
visually emphasises Richard’s alienation as a
consequence of his ruthlessness. This is presented
to the audience as the most tragic outcome of
Richard’s quest for power - that his lack of humanity
has resulted in a solitary king on the battlefield with
no one prepared to defend him. He has “let the
pursuit of power totally corrupt him” and has
become “alienated from his own body and his own
self” (Kimball).
Pacino diminishes the role of Richond, presenting
him in a morally ambivalent (mixed or contradictory)
manner, consistent with the late twentieth-century
moral relativism (the view that moral judgments are
true or false only relative to some particular
standpoint and that no standpoint is uniquely
privileged over all others).
● He achieves this through:
● Richmond’s ‘prayer scene’, which establishes a
man who believes himself to be acting according
to God’s will, but is later undermined by the
image of a man standing over the wounded
Richmond, unwilling to show him any mercy.
Replacing Richmond’s final monologue with Prospero’s
‘Our revels now are ended’ soliloquy from The Tempest.
This serves to emphasise both Richard’s quest for power
●
and Pacino’s docudrama as an ‘insubstantial pageant’.
Point of Comparison Three:
‘All the World’s a Stage’ - Theatre & Performance
Key Concerns
In the table below is a summary of key concerns that are relevant to this third point of comparison. Read this table carefully
before looking closely at the activities for King Richard III and Looking for Richard as this will provide you with direction
and help you to better understand the similarities and differences in relation to the ideas of ‘theatre and performance’ in
each text.
Richard III
●
●
Looking for Richard
Through this representation of Richard’s character,
Shakespeare has exercised considerable influence
over the historical narrative - shaping a perspective
of historical personalities, events and situations
through selectivity and emphasis. This reveals the
power of the theatre to manipulate public
perception; something Queen Elizabeth was well
aware of and actively sought to do through
censorship and the establishment of the ‘Queen’s
Men’.
●
Shakespeare presents the past as a cautionary tale.
He warns against abandoning belief in the ‘Divine
Right of Kings’ lest England end up with a ruler like
Richard III, thus communicating the validity of the
Tudor reign.
●
●
●
●
In presenting Richard as a duplicitous character,
Shakespeare has constructed a meta-theatrical
historiography, which conveys the importance of
integrity, honesty and loyalty. Richard’s
metatheatrical role in which he constructs a “direful
pageant” communicates both the power of
performance and the destructive nature of deception.
Throughout the play, Richard takes on a number of
roles ranging from loving brother and uncle,
desperate lover, benevolent statesman and
protector of the crown. In presenting Richard as an
accomplished actor, Shakespeare highlights the
susceptibility of the court to manipulation by those
●
In Looking for Richard, Pacino has sought to
capitalise on the enduring fascination with the
character of Richard III - Shakespeare’s most
frequently performed play and hence a testament to
the influence Shakespeare’s characterisation has had
on the historical narrative.
In recreating Richard, Pacino has rendered him a
recognisable tyrant figure for twentieth-century
audiences - testament to the power of Hollywood
and the medium of film in this context.
Pacino has sought to find a Richard that speaks to a
post-Cold War American context. In pursuing an
exploration of Richard’s character, Pacino has
demonstrated the relevance of Richard’s quest for
power and the capacity of such a quest to corrupt
the individual.
In doing so, Pacino suggests that this is what
characterises twentieth-century history and politics;
that Richard can be found all around us and within
us.
Similar to Shakespeare, Pacino also emphasises
Richard’s duplicitous nature. However, in doing so,
Pacino’s role as writer, director and actor merge to
such an extent that Pacino seizes control of the
content of the docudrama and its presentation. This,
arguably its own quest for power, is ultimately
rendered just as “direful” and “insubstantial” a
“pageant” as Richard III’s quest for power; Pacino
despite his many skills and accomplishments, did not
finish making his King Richard III film.
who are drawn to power. In this way, he adds
weight to the argument in favour of the ‘Divine Right
of Kings’ as a guarantee of moral and just leadership
and a solution to the lure of power.
●
Powerful language is a feature of the lines attributed
to many of the characters in the play. In
demonstrating the power of words and expression,
Shakespeare demonstrates the allure of language;
its beauty, power and also its limitations.
●
Pacino seeks to capitalise on the power of celebrity
and the influence of the medium of film as a modern
type of language to “communicate how I feel about
Shakespeare to others.”