Pacino begins his documentary with a voiceover reciting an extract from The Tempest, whilst the
audience sees Pacino in a basketball park, where a boy is shooting balls, an all American pastime-This is
juxtaposed with the tolling of the bells and images old world English architecture, ie cathedrals
Our revels now are ended .Pacino substitutes our revel is now at an end
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, (THE GREAT GLOBE ITSELF) added
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack (WISP) behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (Tempest IV.i.148–158
PAC” Who's gonna say, "Action around here?
Should I say it, or should you say it ? You wanna say it?
HADGE:- Anytime. You can say it
PAC: I don’t want to say it. Say it
SPACEY: You say it.
KIMBLE: (VOICEOVER)- And action!
PAC- How do I look? I can't see anything.
PAC ( fumbling to find the opening in the curtain in an old style theatre) Are they out there? This is my
entrance? (enters stage as if in an audition for the part of Richard 111, with a deformed arm, sees
director costumed as Shakespeare, stands frozen. Leaves.)
PAC. f---k!
PACINO IS AIMING TO EMPHASIZE HIS POINT THAT MANY AMERICAN RESPONDERS
HAVE FAILED TO CELEBRATE THE DEPTH AND COMPLEXITY OF SHAKEPEARE’S WORKS
BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN FEARFUL OF TACKLING THE COMPLEXITY OF THE
LANGUAGE. THEY ARE OVERAWED JUST AS PAC’S. CHARACTER WAS ON AUDITION.PAC.
CONSOLIDATES HIS POINT WITH A SERIES OF VOX POPS WHICH EXEMPLIFIES THE
AVERAGE, CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN OPINION OF SHAKESPEARE.
Various vox populi are incorporated at this point to represent the opinions of the
American everyman re Shakespeare and his works
STREET PERSON VOX POP “ I’m actually reading Richard 111 and I can’t get on with it, I’ve been
reading it for 6 months. ”
VOX POP (with European accent)“ You want to do it with your American accent?”
BALDWIN: We're getting $40 a day and all the doughnuts we can eat on this project.
STREET PERSON #: Shakespeare? What the fuck do you know about Shakespeare?
The following lines are read by a collection of actors from the Shakespearean play ‘twelfth night’. Depicts
are variety of interpretations.
Arise, fair sun...
...and kill the envious moon.
Like eager droppings into milk,
it doth posset and curd.
Some are born great,
some achieve greatness...
...and some have greatness
thrust upon them.
STREET PERSON 2 BLACK AMERICAN “Intelligence is hooked with language . when we speak with
no feeling we get nothing out of our society. We should speak like Shakespeare. We should introduce
Shakespeare into the academics. You know why? Because then the kids would have feelings.
PAC” that’s right!”
ST. PERSON 2 “so we have no feelings. That’s why it’s easy for us to get a gun and shoot each other.
We don’t feel for each other, but if we were taught to feel, we wouldn’t be so violent.
PAC “ Sk helps us with that?
ST PERSON 2 “ He did more than help us. He instructed us.”
PAC’(asks people on the street ) “Hi.You gonna see the play tonight
YOUNG COUPLE “How much it cost?”
PAC “It’s for free”
YOUNG COUPLE “Okay I’m going”
PAC Okay, thanks a lot. Your first Shakespeare play, you’re seeing?
YOUNG COUPLE “ yeah”
PAC ” It’ll be interesting, give it a try.”
PACINO (to person 3)“You’ve seen Shakespeare performed?
PERSON 3 “Yeah saw Hamlet’
PAC ”what? did you see it live ? how did you feel about it?”
PERSON 3“ it sucked”
PAC “It sucked??”
PERSON 3”Yeah, it sucked.”
PACINO (speaking to a young man on the street) “is there anything in Shakespeare that makes you think
it’s not close to you?” or connected to you in any way?
ST PERSON 4 “Yeah, it’s boring.”
STREET PERSON 5‘A bank in England uses Shakespeare as...
Cover my account number…… See, it's a hologram. They use it as ID to prove it's a real card.
PACINO: I see “What do you think of Shakespeare?”
ST PERSON 5 “He's a great export.”
STREET PERSON # “You know who's moving in on Shakespeare now?” The Japanese!
Because they're kicking the Americans' arse. And they're all interested in Shakespeare all of a sudden.
PAC ( to a little boy) You know Shakespeare? William Shakespeare? We're peddling him on the streets.
CROSS TO INTERVIEW WITH VARIOUS KNOWN ACTORS
KLINE “ I remember our English teacher sending us to see a college production of King Lear. I went with
my girlfriend and after 10 minutes of these people... They were doing this kind of Shakespearean acting.
We just tuned right out. We made out in the back row and left after intermission”
BRANAGH (who has produced and starred in many Shakespeare movie productions) “I was brought up
in a school where Shakespeare was taught in the first instance, very kind of straight forwardly and dully,
to be perfectly honest. We read it aloud and it made no sense because there was no connection made.
J. EARL JONES “ my own experience was in the fields in Michigan where I was raised on a farm and an
uncle, who was a northern guy, black northern guy, came out of the field one day and started narrating
Antony’s speech, the funeral oration.
PAC “from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ?”
JONES “yeah we’d heard stuff from the Bible, but my first time, as a kid, I was hearing great words,
having great meaning.
THE QUEST (displayed on screen, emphasising pacino’s intentions)
KIMBLE: “What brings us to Montreal? To Paris? To London? What takes us into dungeons, to
parapets...
PAC: To Japan next.
KIM: To Japan, maybe, is a quest.”
PACINO:” It’s always been a dream of mine to communicate how I feel about Shakespeare to other
people. So I asked my friend, Frederick Kimble, who is an actor and writer and also our colleagues,
Michael Hadge and James Bulleit to join me, and by taking this one play, Richard 111,and by analysing it,
approaching it from different angles,(here Pacino holds up a copy of cliff notes on Richard 111---a
contemporary but menial source of understanding of Shakespeare) putting on costumes, playing out
scenes, we could communicate our passion for it, our understanding that we have come to, and by doing
that communicate a Shakespeare that is how we feel and how we think today. Now that’s the effort we’re
going to give it here.
KIMBLE: We’ve done Richard three times. Twice. You did it at the studio, we’ve done it in Boston and
we’ve done it on Broadway. (pause)
PAC: At least the head start is that I’ve done it. You’ve done it. But the problem though Frederic is..
KIM: the audience hasn’t done it. That’s who hasn’t done it…,
PAC: The problem is, this is a difficult play.”
THE PLAY
PACINO asks people on the streets re their knowledge of Shakespeare, in particular R111. He limps with
a disabled leg and arm (similar to sk’s R111)
PAC (asks various street public) “if someone were to ask you about the play, Richard 111, what would
you remember about it?
MAN : “To be honest I really don’t remember that much, if anything at all.”
PAC” did you know that Richard 111 had a deformed arm and a deformed back?
MAN “”no I didn’t”
PAC “you didn’t know that?’
MAN: no
The play Richard 111 about the guy with the humpback? (pac is shown limping with deformed arm and
leg, down the steps, in 20thC garb) (addresses other members of the public)
GIRL: No
MAN2 : You got me there
MAN3 : mmh- mmh
PAC: he was a humpback, one arm, a horse a horse my kingdom for a horse?” remember that? Does that
come to mind?”
MAN3 “yes, it does”
PAC ( talking with kimble) I mean nobody knows who Richard 111 is ! nobody!
BULLETT(discussion in car with pacino) “no wonder it’s a hard play to get. We need relationships
between all those characters. Who can keep it straight!”
PAC “ Well I think the question is what is the understanding? The understanding is, is simply can you
follow the storyline and plot?” We’ve provided this kind of doco-drama type thing to inform some of the
scenes, so you know where you are. For instance, there’s an early scene with the queen, .( cross to this
scene being rehearsed on stage), her brother and two sons, which is outside in the anteroom waiting for
the king to call them in because he is inside sick.( cross to this scene being rehearsed on stage) The queen
is worried she is afraid the king will die, who is her husband. And when he dies the only ..the only people
left to inherit are her two young sons. by the king himself. She has two sons from a previous marriage
which are in the scene. And she is afraid that the character I play, Richard 111 of Gloucester, is going to
take hold of the situation and somehow manipulate them into thinking that eh, you know, that the kids
are…. (during pacino’s voice over we see allen(eliz ) on stage in costume with river, dorset and grey 1,3.
(Pac continues to give a 20thC interpretation of the plot. Ends with an uncertainty that it will be too
difficult to comprehend)” I’m confused just saying it! I can imagine how you must feel hearing me
talking. it’s very confusing . I don’t know why we’re even bothering to do this at all. But eh, we’re going
to give it a little try”
LANGUAGE:
After picking up a large, antiquated book of Shakespeare’s works
PAC “Let’s see what we can come up with , first of all let’s work out of a smaller book. This is hard to
carry. Oh it’s my entrance ..I see falls into a chair due to the weight of the book. Symbolises the enormity
of the task ahead. statement on the accessibility of traditional sk, changes to a more modern, portable
copy of sk, more akin to contemporary opinion.
( kimble and pacino discuss how to produce the beginning of act 1. their difference of opinion indicates
that sk can be interpretated differently. that different interpretations/productions are possible and viable).
PAC: It's good sometimes that you open it, and it is Richard, it's not Hamlet.
Sometimes in Shakespeare, there's a tendency...to confuse the plays.
ACT 1
KIM: The first act is an act about a sick king,and everybody maneuvering...
PAC: Sure.
KIM ...around. I wish that this play..could begin...on the body...On the sleeping king......Edward IV, your
brother, in bed.
PAC:Yeah.
KIM: And it pans up and you are standing over him, looking at him.
PAC: Yeah - Yes, but he's alive, the king is alive.
KIM:- Yes.
PAC: (switches to modern rehearsal of these ideas)I would prefer having him off in the distance. I'd like...
KIM:- Good. You can watch him.
PAC:- I'd like to walk...Frederic? Can you get the other end?
KIM: Yeah.
PAC:I'd like... ( addresses people off screen) Hi, how are you?
(Kimble and pacino are going through these ideas on production at Medieval museum, the Cloisters)
PAC: Frederic and I decided to go to The Cloisters... a museum that has a medieval setting... which is very
good for us because the play takes place in this period. We thought we'd rehearse the opening scene in this
atmosphere.
PAC: We're shooting him. We're shooting him.
PAC (interrupted by tourists) I'll be with you in a minute, if you can just wait for me out there
PAC:- So you're here.
KIM Okay. Okay.
PAC: And here we are.
KIM: Okay. (during this dialogue they are rehearsing one interpretation of the presentation of this scene)
PAC: Now, you're Richard's brother,the sick king, and I'm Richard.
KIM: Okay.
PAC: Yes. I move this way,and you follow me.
Begins 1st .soliloquy
PAC “Now!”
FEMALE SCHOLAR “ how exciting to start the play with “now!” Mmmh! you’d wake your audience up,
wouldn’t you? Now!”
PAC (in 20C garb) “Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York
1,1,2
KIM “ it’s a pun (explains the pun ‘sun’ and ‘son’)
The sun of York is the sun in the sky...over the English countryside of York.
York is also your family name, and you are one of three sons of York.
PAC “ let me say it again then” ( location has changed, now a lecture hall, Pacino repeats the opening
lines, to a group of students)
“PAC Now .. glorious summer. 1,1,
PAC(talking to scholar again) “ I recently came out and said the opening speech from Richard, to a group
of students”
(cuts back to students at lecture hall, Pacino asks the students) “’Our discontent made glorious summer’,
anyone know what that means?” (camera cuts to couple kissing in the background)
(AGAIN EMPHASIZES THE DIFFICULTY OF ENCOURAGING A CONTEMPORARY AUDIENCE
TO EMBRACE SHAKESPEARE
(cuts back to scholar) who were interested because I obviously meant something, but didn’t know what I
meant” (cut back to lecture)“Now is the winter of our discontent” “what am I saying?”
SCH.” (cuts back to scholar, explains) he’s referring to their part in the war of the roses”
(Pacino back at rehearsals in contemporary surroundings with a copy of Cliff notes in his hand! PAC
EXPLAINS THE PRIOR HISTORY. Around the table during rehearsals, Pacino explains that it’s
necessary to know prior history re the war of the roses. CONSTANTLY EXPLAINS THE PLOT USING A
CONTEMPORARY DIALOGUE THROUGHOUT DOCO
PAC: Before the play Richard III starts...we gotta know a little bit about what happened before the play
starts. What happened is, we've just been through a civil war.....called the War of the Roses...in which the
Lancasters and the Yorks clashed. Two rival families ,and the Yorks won. They beat the Lancasters and
they’re now in power. Richard is a York
PAC “My brother, Edward is the king now, and my brother Clarence is not the king, and me, I’m not the
king and I want to be! It’s that simple!”
SCH.” Key word clearly is…Right from the start is discontent.”
PAC “ So Richard, in the very opening scene of the play, tells us just how badly he feels about the
peacetime world he find himself in and what he intends to do about it.
( continues recital of opening soliloquy in 20Cgarb, at the Cloisters)
“Now is the winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this son of York
And all the clouds that lour’d on our house
In the deep bossum of the ocean buried”1,1,4.
FEM.SCH. (SK’S LINES ARE JUXTAPOSED WITH A CONTEMPORARY EXPLANATION OF THEIR
MEANING )” and part of the trouble is, the war of the roses, the wars of the crown are now over because
the crown has been won by the Yorks which means they can stop fighting”
PAC ( continues 1st sol in contemporary garb)
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths.
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments.
Our stern alarum changed to merry meetings.1,1,7
FEM.SCH.”continues explanation what do they do when the fighting stops?”
PAC:(continues 1st soliloquy) “Grim-visaged war..hath smooth'd his wrinkled front.
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasings of a lute” 1,1,13
FEM SCH.” And you see love making and relations with the other gender, is what you translate your male
aggressions into. But Richard111 has a little problem here.
PAC.” But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass. (recital switches to costume/stage)
RICHARD: I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed “1,1,20.
PAC: deformed! Deformed!!
KIM: He was a hunchback
RICHARD:….Unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace.
Have no delight to pass away the time
Unless to see my shadow in the sun
And descant upon mine own deformity. 1,1,27”
KIMBLE “ Shakespeare has exaggerated Richard’s deformity in order to body forth dramatically,
physically, metaphorically, expose the corruption of his mind ‘
RICHARD: “And therefore since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days”1,1,31
KLINE” Richard is always saying now here’s the situation, now here’s what I’m going to do , now watch
this and he does it! And they all leave and he says ‘now wasn’t that good?’, was that good or what, did
you see how I? this is fun! “
“ (shot of Edward ill, Richard with him , also shows clarence whilst. voice over reciting his lines)
RICHARD:“Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous
--------- (line omitted)
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...be mew'd up
About a prophecy,that says that G
of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be”.1,1,39
PAC (repeats last two lines in contemporary rehearsal)
About a prophecy,that says that G
KIM: right
PAC “ It says about a prophecy that ‘G’ of edward’s heirs. By G, what does that mean?
KIM “ Clarence, George, duke of Clarence, his first name is really George.”
PAC “whose first name?”
KIM “ Clarence’s, and that‘s why they call him ‘G’, I suggest that you change it to‘C”
PAC (reading lines) “about a prophecy which says that (exaggerating) that ‘C’ of Edward’s heirs the
murderer shall be” ( Pacino now repeats this line, using the substituted “C” in costume on stage. This is a
further attempt to unravel the discrepancies between the language usages which have caused the
Shakespearean language to be difficult to decipher for contemporary audiences.)
RICHARD: “Dive, thoughts, down to my soul.
Here Clarence comes.”1,1,41
PAC: cut!
PAC (around table, rehearsals in progress) “ see what we’ve gotta do what we should do, is get actors in
here, not audition them, just get them in and let them just sit around, just see and read. We’ll have
different people read different roles. Hopefully, somehow the roles and the actors will merge. The actors
will find the role. An actor will read one part, another actor reads another and hopefully the casting will
get done.
CASTING THE ACTORS
VARIOUS ACTORS AROUND THE AUDITIONING TABLE. During the process the confusion and
merriment highlights the complexity, even for seasoned actors, of understanding, casting, producing and
performing a Shakespearian production
Who's got Dorset?
How about Lord Grey?
Richard will read Dorset.
- He's gonna do Buckingham.
- I thought Jim would do it.
- He's doing Catesby.
- What do I read?
KIM ;Dorset and Grey are the same people.
PAC: Dorset and Grey are the same...?
KIM: Yes.
PAC:You two guys better sit on each other We used two actors in the same part. It'll take us four weeks of
rehearsal to figure out what parts we're playing.
PAC “In modern plays, you understand it, it’s there for you but in sk you have an entire company on the
stage good actors, not knowing where they’re going, where they are?”
PAC (in restaurant talking with Cox)“ As Americans, what is it that …that thing? That gets between us
and Shakespeare? That makes some our best actors just stop when it comes to Shakespeare?
“ the problem with being an American in Shakespeare is you approach it reverentially, we shouldn’t
but we do, we have a feeling, I think, of inferiority, to the way it has been done by the British.”
AMERICAN SCHOLAR “ I think Americans have been made to feel inhibited because they’ve been told
so long by their critics, by their scholars and by all the commentators of Shakespeare that they cannot do
Shakespeare. Therefore, they’ve got it in heads that they can’t. And you become totally self- conscious. I
think the great thing about American actors they are not self-conscious. But they are when it comes to
Shakespeare because they’ve been told they can’t do it and very foolishly they’ve believed that.
Sir John GIELGUD: ( acclaimed English Shakespearean actor) : Perhaps they don’t go to picture galleries
and read books as much as we do! Because I think it’s the effect of how everyone looked and behaved that
one got a sort of Elizabethan feeling of the period.
CONWAY (hastings) “experienced classical actors have a few things they can use at a moment’s notice,
the understanding of iambic pentameter, for one thing.”
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
PAC Everybody says, "lambic pentameter.Shakespeare iambic pentameter "What is that supposed to
mean?
FEMALE ACTOR: “Some say there are no rules.I say there are certain rules...
...like the iambic pentameter, that must be learned...and can be rejected once you’ve learnt them.
HADGE: "Pentameter" means "meter,"and "pen," meaning "five So there's five beats
BRANNAGH: Which, at its worst, sounds only like:
FEMININE SCHOLAR: "Why, so. Now have I done a good day's work."
BRANNAGH: De-da de-da de-da de-da de-da.
HADGE: And iambic is where the accent goes?
FEMALE SCHOLAR: That's de-tum de-tum de-tum de-tum.
KIMBLE: And five of them: Da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da. Make a pentameter line, five iambs. An iamb
is like an anteater. Very high in the back and very short, little front legs. Da-da!
Comparison of iambic pentameter –Kimble-“ anteater”!! (even pacino is bemused!)
METHOD ACTING AND SK’S LANGUAGE
REDGRAVE (English SK’N actress)” sk’s poetry and his iambics floated and descended through the
pentameter of the soul, and it is the soul, if we like, the spirit of real concrete people going through hell
and sometimes moments of great achievement and joy. That is the pentameter that you have to concentrate
on, and should you find that reality all the iambics will fall into place” (the stresses of iambic pentameter
annunciate the emotional vicissitudes of the character.)
PAC/ BALDWIN ( Richard in costume/on stage with Clarence) Act1,1,41…1,1,72 (the lines from sk are
recited whilst the montage of shots further clarifies what is being said)
RICHARD: Dive,thoughts, down to my soul.Here Clarence comes.
Brother, good day. What means this armed guard
That waits upon your grace?
CLARENCE: His majesty
Tendering my safety, hath appointed
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
RICHARD: Upon what cause?
CLARENCE:Because my name is George.
RICHARD:….Clarence. What is the matter? May I know?
CLARENCE: Yea, Richard, as I know. But I protest as yet I do not. But, as I can learn
he hearkens after prophecies and dreams.
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G.
And says a wizard told him that by G...
His children disinherited should be.
And, for my name of George begins with G,
It follows in his thought that I am he.
These, as I learn,and such like toys as these...
Have moved his highness to commit me now.
RICHARD: Why, so it is, when men are ruled by women.
'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower, Clarence.
‘Tis my Lady Grey his wife, 'tis she
That tempts him to this extremity...
We are not safe, Clarence. We are not safe.
Pacino offers a contemporary explanation of the situation for the audience
PAC: “Now if Richard’s brother Edward was king, right and then he dies. Clarence his other brother is
next in line. Right?”
PAC: “No the kids were next in line. After the king’s kids came Clarence”
PAC: “So Richard figures, “let me get rid of Clarence, and then I work out how I get rid of the kids”
RETURNS TO BAL/PAC (in costume on stage) Act 1,1,113…119
RICHARD: Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
CLARENCE: I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
RICHARD: Your imprisonment shall not be long.
I will deliver you, else lie for you.
Meantime, have patience.
BRACKENBURY (GUARD) THIS LINE HAS BEEN ADDED It's time, my lord.
CLARENCE: I must perforce. Farewell.
PAC: (further explanation of plot) “well it looks like Richard’s plan is really starting to work now. He got
the king to put Clarence in the tower by poisoning the king’s mind against him. So now he’s got one
brother locked up, the other brother, who’s king, is sick. So he’s in pretty good shape now. He can move
around. He can manoeuvre. He’s got room
RETURNS TO BAL/PAC ALSO CONWAY AS HASTINGS (in costume on stage) “Act 1,1, 120…129
RICHARD: Go tread the path thou shalt ne'er return.
Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so
That I shall shortly send thy soul to heaven...
GUARD:Prisoner approaching. Prisoner Hastings exeunt.
RICHARD: Who is this? The new-deliver'd Hastings?
HASTINGS: Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
RICHARD: As much unto my good lord Hastings.
Well are you welcome to this open air.
How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?
HASTINGS: With patience, noble lord,as prisoners must.
LANGUAGE
AGAIN IT IS STRESSED THAT THE DIFFICULTY OF UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE IS DUE TO
THE COMPLEXITY OF THE LANGUAGE. PACINO HAS SUBSTITUTED A NUMBER OF THE WORDS
IN THE PREVIOUS EXCHANGE TO SYMPLIFY MEANING.
PAC: (speaking to Harris, a literary scholar) It’s interesting you can do something from Shakespeare,
think that you’re feeling it or whatever. You love it and you think you’re communicating it and the person
you said it to has not understood a word you said and you can’t believe that they didn’t get it”
VOX POP : ( young black American) “thoust and you know, just the way it’s worded, sometimes that
confuses the people of, you know people of this time period.”
PACINO USES THE CONTEMPORARY COMPARISON OF RAP MUSIC TO EXPLAIN THE
COMPLEXITY OF SK’S LANGUAGE. THAT EXPRESSION IS TRANSITORY, IT CHANGES
OVER TIME.
Pacino compares Sk’s language with rap music.
HADGE: “Shakespeare used a lot of fancy words. You know. And it’s hard to understand, grasp those
words”
PAC “Excuse me. They’re not fancy words. That’s where we get confused. But they’re poetry. It’s hard to
grab hold of some rap slang too. It’s hard to get hold of it until your ear gets tuned. You have to tune up.”
CONWAY: “In a contemporary play someone would say “Hey you go over and get that thing and bring it
back to me” That would be the line. When Shakespeare says it “Be mercury, set feathers to thy heels and
fly like thought from them to me again”
PACINO/CONWAY (RICHARD/HASTINGS in costume) Act 1,1,139..This is a further occasion when
Pacino substitutes a contemporary word whilst reading sk’s text. Line 1,1,139…142 changed from
“melancholy” to “sickly”
Shakespeare’s version in italics
HASTINGS (CONWAY) The King is weak and sickly...
HASTINGS: The King is sickly, weak and melancholy
and his physicians fear him mightily.
(Now) By Saint John (Paul), that news is bad indeed.
O, he hath kept an evil diet long.
and later in doco“Warwick’s youngest daughter” to “young Anne” 1,1,156
Richard “For then I’ll marry young Anne”
Richard “For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter”
PAC: “You shouldn’t have to understand every single word that’s said. Why? Why? Do understand everyI mean it’s not important. It doesn’t matter. As long as you get the gist of what’s going on. Just trust it
you’ll get it.
ROLE OF WOMEN and METHOD ACTING
ALLEN (with DORSET/RIVERS and GREY in costume Act 1,3,6..1,3,8 (Elizabeth commenting on her
perilous position if king Edward should die, the men trying to soothe her. She seems to be more astute to
her perilous situation)
Q.Elizabeth: “And if he were dead what would betide on me?”
RIVERS: “No other harm but loss of such a lord.”
Q. ELIZABETH: The loss of such a lord includes all harms.
(Around the table during rehearsals, Allen (Q. Elizabeth) is the only female actress. Kimble trying to
explain Elizabeth’s disturbed state. A contemporary and feminist analysis of Elizabeth’s strength and
foresight is argued by Allen. Her passion in argument typifies how she too has consumed her character’s
role, as in method acting )
KIMBLE “they’re trying to soothe her because she is an hysteric. They’ve got a lady here who is way out
of control”
ALLEN: “But doesn’t that weaken …? But doesn’t that weaken the reality , the underlying reality of
what’s happening?
KIMBLE: It strengthens the incompetence of others
ALLEN: But why make them incompetent? Why make them weak?
KIMBLE (forcefully) Because they went to Ludlow with little train and got their heads cut off
ALLEN: But then it’s no great deed on his part if you make them weak.
PACINO: “ they’re not weak’
ALLEN: No, I don’t think that they’re weak, nor do I think that they’re stupid. I think
by diminishing their importance , you diminish his actions. It’s bound to happen. It’s a very familial thing
to say: “calm down it’s going to be alright”, but underneath they know what the scoop is, and I keep
throwing it back at them; “Stop! you know damn well what’s going on. And that’s why I’m hysterical!
You know it! If he dies that’s it!”
(During this heated exchange the other men/actors around the table have been listening in stunned
silence. Also the camera cuts to the rehearsal, in costume, of the scene that they are discussing.
Immediately after Kimble states that Elizabeth is “an hysteric” there is a long shot of allen/eliz with her
hands thrown in the air as if she is hysterical ..(method acting style) …A correct feminine argument by
Allen?..OR correct assessment of the situation by Kimble…OR a further example method acting?
PAC: (defusing the discussion) Let’s start the scene. (the same scene is rehearsed from the beginning
Act1,3,1,1..1,3,13., but now still around the table. Allen/Eliz, Dorset/rivers and Grey go through their
lines, with Allen even more passionate in the recital of her line, she even includes a line for more
emphasis. In comparison, the men’s responses sound weak and feeble.
RIVERS: Have patience, madam. There's no doubt his majesty
will soon recover his accustom'd health.
GRAY: In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse
Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort.
And cheer his grace with quick and merry...
ELIZABETH(And that's the way you want me to behave, is that it?)—(added line by Allen
to Shakespeare’s script for effect/point of argument to Kimble)Rivers throws his arms
up in frustration)
If he were dead, what would betide on me?
RIVERS: No other harm, (Mother,) but loss of such a lord.
ELIZABETH: The loss of such a lord includes all harm.
GRAY: The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son
to be your comforter when he's gone.
ELIZ: Ah, he is young His minority
is put into the trust of Richard Gloucester.
A man that loves not me......nor none of you. 1,3,13
Allen’s inclusion of the line into Shakespeare’s script reinforces both her belief of the strength of women
in Shakespeare’s play and her absorption of the character through method acting
The camera moves onto the streets
PAC: We gotta come up with ideas, ways in, direction.
KIM: We need a plan.
PAC:We've got to start writing prefaces or, like, a list that says,
"Today we'll do these scenes. I want you to talk about Lady Anne
and what happens to her."
PAC: (TO MAN ON THE STEET) How are you? How you doing?
How do you feel about Shakespeare?
PAC: This feels good.
KIM: That's good.
Pacino speaks in Italian to a man on the street. Then aks if he speaks English and asks
PAC: William Shakespeare?
MAN: William Shakespeare, right.
PAC: Do you like him?
MAN: Of course.
PAC: Yeah? Tell me about it. Did you ever see Shakespeare?
Man: I never studied.
PAC: You've never seen? Never seen the show, but you still like him?
MAN: Sometimes I see something good on TV.
PAC: Oh, TV.
MAN:I like it .WHY NOT?
PAC: But Shakespeare, you don't see?
MAN: No.
PAC: That's too bad.
KIM: NO, There's no Shakespeare on TV.
PAC: No. Perfectly fine .Sometimes it comes on.
MAN: "To be or not to be. That is the question," right?
KIM: Right.
PAC: YEAH! That is the question.
RETURNS TO ACTING ON STAGE, FULL TRADITIONAL DRESS
RICHARD (PAC):They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.
ELIZABETH (ALLEN)I fear our happiness is at its height.
RICHARD: Who is it that complains unto the king
that I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not?
------LINE LEFT OUT
Because I cannot flatter, Iook fair,
smile in men's faces, deceive, cog,
duck with French nods and apish courtesy...
I must be held a rancorous enemy.” 1,3,50
PAC: The world they live in, the world they exist in is privy to these kinds of...
KIM: Is internecine family quarrel.
PAC: That's right.
KIM: They are clawing at each other for the throne.
METHOD ACTING ….Pacino and Allen are reciting their lines around the table of actors cutting to
scenes in costume on stage. The intensity with which they deliver their lines portrays their absorption of
their character.
ELIZABETH (ALLEN) Brother Gloucester, we know your meaning.
You envy my advancement and my friends'.
God grant we may never have need of you!
RICHARD (PAC): Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.
Our brother is imprison'd by your means...
myself disgraced the nobility of the house
held in contempt while great promotions
are daily given to ennoble those
that scarce, some two days since,
were worth a noble.
ELIZ (ALLEN): By Him that raised me to this careful height...
from that contented hap which I enjoy'd
I never did incense his majesty
against the Duke of Clarence.
RICHARD: You're gonna say (SK:YOU MAY DENY) you are not the mean
of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment? 1,3,91
PAC:You see what Richard is doing here? He's stirring the pot.The king is dying, so he's fearful and
paranoid...and sending people off left and right to jail. This is a situation Richard loves. He can use the
fear, the general turmoil to his advantage. He knows these people hate each other. He'll use their hatred to
manipulate them. You know, to divide, then conquer.
RETURNS TO THE STAGE REHEARSAL BUT IT BECOMES VOICEOVER AS WE SEE THE
DYING KING EDWARD LISTENING TO THE QUARREL.
ELIZABETH (ALLEN): My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne...
these blunt upbraidings and these bitter scoffs.
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty
of these gross taunts.--I'd rather be a country servant...
-----LINES OMMITTED
RICHARD What! Threat you me with telling of the king?
Tell him, and spare not. 1,3,114
-----LINES OMMITTED
Let me put it in your minds,if you forget...
what you are ere this, and what you are.
Withal, what I have been,
and what I am. 1,3,133
MARGARET: (ASIDE) A murderous villain, and so still thou art.
PAC: Well, it is a complicated play too.
GIELGUD: All those relationships and the wives, the Queen Margaret stuff is difficult.
MARGARET: (ON STAGE)Hear me, you wrangling pirates,
that fall out in sharing that which
you have pill'd from me! 1,3. 159
PACINO GIVES COMMENTORY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF MARGARET.
MARGARET
PAC: Now Margaret was the queen before the Civil war took place. She was a Lancaster, and she was
dethroned by the Yorks. She's a kind of ghost from the past, who haunts the Yorks with her curses.
MARG(PARSON) (ON STAGE) A husband and a son...
ALLEN (AROUND THE TABLE DISCUSSING MARGARET’S ROLE) Don't you think she rants and
raves around the castle like this a lot?
PARSON: No!
ALLEN No?
PARSON: I don't think so. I think she just comes in this day .because it's a crisis time. She feels it.
MARG: Give way, dull clouds,
to my quick curses!
ALLEN: It's primordial I think. She brings that kind of music into this experience.
MARG: Poor painted queen...1,3 239
----------LINES OMMITTED
The day will come that thou shalt wish for me to help thee...
curse this poisonous bunchback'd toad.2,3, 244
LINDFORS: Reading this play, as I take word by word everything she says happens.
CUT TO STAGE REHERSAL
MARG:Beware of yonder dog!
Look...Have not to do with him, beware of him.
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him...
and all their messengers await on him.
RICHARD: Thou hateful wither'd hag,have done thy charm.
MARG: And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me
The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.1,3,218
.-----------OMMITTED LINES
Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive,rooting hog.
Live each of you the subjects to his hate...
and he to yours,and all of you to God's! 1,3,300
CUTS TO ROUND THE TABLE REHEARSAL
CONWAY: We don't say a word. We let her go.
LANGUAGE AND ACTING, DECEIT: (voice over Whilst camera scans contemporary view of actors
who are playing the parts of those cursed by sk’s marg.)
REDGRAVE (famous English Shakespearean actress)“The music, literally, I mean the music and the
thoughts and the concepts and the feelings have not been divorced from the words, and in England you’ve
had centuries in which word has been totally divorced from truth and that’s a problem for us actors.”
The scene cuts to further vox pops, the same black American homeless street person is shown eloquently
explaining the beauty and depth that lies in Shakepeare’s language. He is representative that erudition
when it comes to Shakespeare is not confined to the academic thespians
BLACK MAN –VOX POP: If we think words are things and we have no feelings in our words and then
we say things to each other that don’t mean anything. But if we felt what we said, we’d say less and mean
more.-----(moves on) -Spare some change” ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS IT HAS BEEN THIS
PERSON, ALTHOUGH HE APPEARS TO BE HOMELESS, WHO HAS BEEN THE MOST ERUDITE
WITH HIS VIEWS ON SK. SUGGESTING THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR THE EVERYMAN TO
HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE, INSIGHTFUL UNDERSTASNDING OF SK.
THE BIRTH PLACE OF SHAKESPEARE (rather farsical look at the beginnings of Shakespeare)
PAC: It'd be interesting to see where he...Is that possibly...?
KIM: Where Shakespeare was born.
PAC:I think that's Shakespeare up there in the window.
PAC: Knock first. Knock, Frederic. Hello. Frederic, you've...
KIM: Okay. Where was William Shakespeare born?
PAC There's the bed of birth.
KIM: You gotta be kidding.
PAC: I wouldn't kid about a thing like that. It's too late.
KIM: It's a very, very small bed I was expecting to have an epiphany...an outpouring of the soul upon
seeing...
PAC: Well why don’t you Go out and come in again.
KIM: Where he was born.
PAC: If you're really an actor, you can come back and have an epiphany. I did. Only...
KIM: Did you have an epiphany? I did not see it.
PAC: I'm not showing it. It's an inner one. We're not alone.
HEARS FIRE SIRENS
KIM: Every once in a while...
PAC: There's a fire truck out there. I think we tripped an alarm.
KIM: We should pause and think what brought us to where we are
PAC: You talked too loud and it set off an alarm.
GUIDE :Fire alarm. I got the fire officer.
KIM: We set it off.
PAC: There's a fireman. Oh, yes. Hello.
GUIDE: Unfortunately, the sensor head is here. There. That's going to be the problem.
PAC: Yeah? What is it? Is it...?
KIM: That's a real bummer. We come 6000 miles to see where Shakespeare was born...
FEMININE SCHOLAR: “It’s the greatest period in British arts you know,. This extraordinary
development and maturing and death of drama. In 20 years sk’s over. You’ve got our greatest british
drama and sk learns incredibly fast and already, in this early play, he’s thinking about human beings as
actors and about the stage and the imagination as a bit of life.”
GETTING IN DEEPER (ON THE STREETS- OUTSIDE SET)
PAC :Hey, Jimmy? How's the sandwich?
KIM: We're gonna bite the bullet and do Act 2 of the play.
HADGE (BECOMING IRATE WITH THE PROPOSAL)What we said was, we're gonna shoot Richard's
death and murder of Clarence, and that's it.
KIM: No, the king makes peace.
PAC: (BECOMING OBSSESSED WITH HIS CHARACTER, WITH HIS PROJECT)What are you
saying Mike? We got an end of a movie to shoot.
PAC: "My horse..." "A horse. A horse. My kingdom for a horse." (LIKE RICHARD, PACINO IS
DETERMINED TO LET NOTHING STOP HIM ACHIEVE HIS END)
CREWMAN Fellas, the cops are here. Police say we need a permit.
HADGE: You said you'd take care of things.
PAC: What, I need...?Why do I need a permit?
KIM: We have to give up a meal like this?
OFFICER: You have to go, guys. You have to go.
PAC: Hope you like turkey.
CASTING LADY ANNE
KIM: so we are gonna get young Lady Anne.
PAC:I want somebody very young. Very young.
KIM: How young?
PAC :As young as you can get and be able to do Shakespeare and understand the scenes.
Someone young enough to believe...in Richard's rap.
KIM: The problem is, we need someone who can speak the part...which is part of the reason you always
have an older actress...because it takes maturity.
PAC: You know, we don't need...The problem of projecting the role...because it's a film, so we won't have
the need for the actor to project. We need a film actress.
KIM: Great, great.
PAC: Someone like...We'll think of someone.
KIM: Well...
RICHARD: (IN COSTUME) I will marry the beautiful Lady Anne.( SK: WARWICK’S DAUGHTER)
What though I kill'd her husband and his father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends...
is to become her husband and her father.1,1,156
SCHOLAR: This language is the language of thoughts . In the theatre, to do this you have to speak loud,
and there are very few actors who can speak loud and still be truthful. That's the actor's problem. Every
actor knows the quieter he speaks, the closer he can be to himself. When you play Shakespeare...in closeup, in a film...and have a mike and can really speak the verse... as quietly as this, you are not going against
the nature of verse. You're going in the right direction because you're really allowing the verse...to be a
man speaking his inner world.
WAS THIS OBSERVATION INCLUDED BECAUSE RYDER’S VOICE WAS LATER DUBBED
BECAUSE IT WAS INAUDIBLE?...ANOTHER DIFERENCE OF THE ERAS?
ANNE (RYDER) Set down...set down your honourable load..if honour may be shrouded in a
hearse.
RICHARD: Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
PAC;(RICHARD, CONTEMPORARY)I'll have her.I'll have her.
But I will not keep her long.1,3, 217
PAC: He says he'll have her...but he will not keep her long.
HADGE: okay what are you asking, why he wants her?
PAC: Well, I think it's clear, he's out to get this girl. To take her...in her heart's extremest
hate. He's killed her husband in the civil war. Tears in her eyes! And murdered her father-in-law The
bleeding witness of my hatred by. He's out to get her.
To win her! Ha!
ANNE:I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
RYDER: Her mourning is genuine because she loved...
KIM: She goes out on the street, and is it an accident that she meets Richard...
the man who killed this man and her husband? Is it not possible that if...?Did she have not any idea...that if
she went out with a corpse...making frequent stops...?
PAC: You don't like that? Does anybody have a better thing than Frederic on this?
KIM: You just said that we didn't answer the question...what was motivating...
PAC: Did that upset you?
KIM: (with agitation) No. Then what did you say? You said you were gonna find a scholar from
somewhere...who'd speak directly into the camera and explain...what really went down with Richard and
Anne. And I am telling you that that is absolutely ridiculous! You know more about Richard III...
...than any fucking scholar at Columbia or Harvard. (Ryder giggles throughout this diatribe)
PAC: Fred.
KIM: (yelling)This is ridiculous! You are making this entire documentary in order to show that actors
truly are the possessors of a tradition...the proud inheritors of the understanding of Shakespeare, for Christ
sake! Then you turn around and say, "I'm gonna get a scholar to explain it to you." This is ridiculous!
PAC:I hereby knight you, Frederic.
KIM: Ph.D.
PAC: Ph.D. Of the realm.
KIM: Oh, God. Ridiculous.
PAC: No, but the point is this, Frederic. A person has an opinion. It's only an opinion. It's never a question
of right or wrong.
KIM: There's no right or wrong.
PAC:It's an opinion. And a scholar has a right to an opinion as any of us.
KIM: But why does he get to speak directly to the camera?
IN KIMBLE’S FRUSTRATION TO EXPLAIN THE PURPOSE OF THE MARRIAGE OF RICHARD
AND ANNE HE HAS BECOME FRUSTRATED. RYDER GIGGLES THROUGHOUT…IT APPEARS
RYDERS INABILITY TO GRASP THE COMPLEXITIES OF HER CHARACTER’S ROLE IS
COMPARABLE WITH ANNE’S LACK OF VISION OR CHOICE.
THE REACTION OF THE “SCHOLAR’ INDICATES THERE ARE MANY ‘OPINIONS’ TO THE
COMPLEXITY OF SHAKESPEARE
SCHOLAR: I don't really know why he needed to marry her, historically. I simply don't know.
Um, it's...(DESPITE KIMBLE’S EXPECTANT EXPRESSION THERE IS NO ANSWER GIVEN)
RICHARD: Stay, you that bear the corse. Set it down.
Villains, set down the corse.
Or, by Saint Paul, I'll make a corse of him that disobeys.
PALLBEARER: My lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.
RICHARD: Unmanner'd dog!Stand thou, when I command.
Advance thy halbert..higher than my breast, or, by
Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot.
Spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.1,2,42
PAC:Richard needs Anne... because he wants to be king, right. So he needs
a queen, now Lady Anne is
perfect for the job. Also, she needs protection. She needs protection bcause she was on the losing side of
the War of the Roses. She's young, she has no husband. Basically, she has no future. For Richard, she's
someone who'd represent...the other side, the Lancasters coming over to his side. It says to the public that
Lady Anne has forgiven him for murdering her husband...therefore exonerating him from his crime.
ANNE: And thou unfit for any place but hell.
RICHARD: Yes, one place else...if you'll hear me name it.
ANNE: Some dungeon.
RICHARD: Your bed-chamber.(Anne spits in his face)
PAC: (CONTEMPORARY)I'll have her.
RICHARD :Gentle Lady Anne to leave this keen encounter of our wits...
and to fall something into a slower method...
was not the causer of the timeless deaths of these two men...
Henry and Edward, as blameful as the executioner?
ANNE: Thou was the cause, and the accursed effect.
RICHARD: Thy beauty was the cause of that effect. Thy beauty. That did haunt me in my
sleep to undertake the death of all the world...
that I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
Teach not thy lip such scorn. It was made for kissing, lady not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive...Io, here. Here...
I lend thee this sharp-pointed dagger.
If thou wish to hide in this true breast.
And let forth the soul that adoreth thee...
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke...and I humbly beg the death upon my knee.
Nay, do not pause.For I did kill King Henry...
but 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.
Nay, now dispatch. 'Twas I stabbed Edward but 'twas thy heavenly face
that set me on.
Take up the sword again, or take up me.
ANNE:Though I wish thy death, I will not be thy executioner.
RICHARD:Bid me kill myself. I will do it.
ANNE: I have already.
RICHARD:That was in thy rage. Speak it again...
and, even with the word, this hand...which, for thy love,
did kill thy love...will, for thy love, kill a far truer love.
ANNE:I would I knew thy heart.
RICHARD: My heart is figured in my tongue.
ANNE:Well, put up your sword.
RICHARD:Say, then, my peace is made.
ANNE: That shalt thou know hereafter.
RICHARD: Shall I live in hope?
ANNE: All men, I hope, live so.
RICHARD: Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
ANNE; To take is not to give.
RICHARD: Look, how my ring encompasseth thy finger.
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.
Wear both of them for both of them are thine.
Leave these sad designs to him that hath most cause
to be a mourner.
ANNE: With all of my heart and much it joys me too,
to see you have become so penitent.
PAC: Ha! (MOCKS HIS SINCERITY)
ANNE: Tressel and Berkeley.
T&B: Yes, madam.
ANNE: Go along with me.
RICHARD: Bid me farewell.
ANNE: Since you teach me how to flatter you...
imagine that I will say farewell again. 1,2,212
RICHARD: Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her. But I will not keep her long!1,2,217
MICHAEL HADGE: : We’re never gunna finish this movie
KIM: It’s organic. It’s gotta be what it is
HADGE: “How much more are we gonna shoot? It’s a movie about a play. We’re making a documentary
about making shakespeare a little more accessible to people. Those people out there, those people in the
street they’re not gonna get R111. I can’t even get it. It’s too complicated.” COMPLETE
JUXTAPOSITION OF CLASS STRUCTURE AND VIEWPOINT.
KIMBLE:’’ Then why is it sk’s most popular play? Why is it performed more than any other sk play? “
PAC: ”wait I didn’t get, what did you say? “
HADGE: ”Who says it’s popular?”
KIMBLE’’ It is! It’s performed more than Hamlet’
HADGE “so what!”
Action jumps back on stage, to scene where Richard organises Clarence’s death.
Richard: I run before my horse to market.
Clarence still lives and breathes.Edward still reigns.
When they are gone then must I count my gains. 1,1,162
THE MURDERERS -- EVIL
RICH: But, soft! Here come my executioners.
Are you going to dispatch this thing?
MURDERERS: We are, my lord. Come to have the warrant...
that we may be admitted to where he is.
RICH: Well thought upon. I have it here about me.
But, sirs, be sudden in your execution.
Do not hear him plead. For Clarence is well-spoken...
and may move your hearts to pity if you mark him.
MURDERERS: Be assured we go to use our hands...not our tongues.
RICH: I like you, lads. About your business straight.
MURD: We will, my noble lord.
RICH: Go, go, dispatch. 1,3,358
THEY SEARCH FOR THE CORRECT SETTING FOR CLARENCE’S DEATH SCENE
KIM :Here's a place for the Clarence scene. Just get Clarence very tight...in here, and you have all of the
dead pigeon feathers...and the guano and the texture...of the wall. Just imagine you're close in.
PAC: (looking unconvinced) It doesn't work. It's not just the pigeon stuff. It doesn't work. It has no sense
of...What are you...? When do we...?
KIM: No enclosure
PAC: Frederic, it's pointless
HADGE: For God's sakes, it's a prison.
PAC: We need a place...where Clarence is being held prisoner It's gotta be a... It's a prison.
KIM: Aha. See the tower. It's going to be in the chamber...where the bell ringing unit is. It's a really
beautiful space. It's got this shaft of white light coming down from the top.
JIM: That's where we'd place that.
PAC: This is nice. Nice light.
SCENE CUTS TO STAGE REHEARSAL OF CLARENCE’S MURDER CONSCIENCE
GUILFOYLE(MURDERER 1)Shall we stab him as he sleeps?
MACVITTIE:(MURDERER 2)No. He'll say it was done cowardly, when he wakes.
M1: He shall never wake until the great judgment-day.
M2: Faith, certain dregs of conscience are here within me.
MI: Remember our reward, when the deed is done.
M2: Come, he dies.
M1: Where's thy conscience now?
M2: In the Duke of Gloucester's purse.
M1:When he opens his purse to give us thy reward..thy conscience flies out.
M2:'Tis no matter. Few or none entertain it.
M1: What if it come to thee again?
M2: I'll not meddle with it.It makes a man a coward.
A man cannot steal, but it accuseth him.A man cannot lie, but it cheques him.
A man cannot lie with his neighbor's wife but it detects him.
And any man that means to live well endeavors to trust to himself and live without
it. Come...shall we fall to work?
SCENE CUTS TO THE SCENE OF AMMENDNENT BETWEEN ENEMIES BEFORE EDWARD’S
DEATH.
PAC: While this is going on with Clarence, his brother is in the castle...trying to make peace with
everybody.
KIM: They've all been summoned for the atonement meeting. That's why everybody is in the castle.
The making peace. The king's family are in incredible conflict. He dares not die until he knows they
aren't going to pull the whole thing apart...as soon as he's dead.
KING EDWARD: I every day expect an embassage from my Redeemer to redeem me hence.
PAC: You see the king wants this peace to happen because he wants to make sure... that after he's gone
his children will continue the reign.
KIM: He and his wife must hope that they will. We know that you have another agenda. (Kimble
addresses Pacino as you, although he is referring to Richard, as if they have become one and the same)
Cuts back to the murder of clarence
M2: Srike!
M1: No, we'll reason with him first.
CLARENCE(BALDWIN) Where art thou, keeper? Give me a cup of wine.
M2:You shall have wine enough, my lord...anon.
CLARENCE: (BALWIN) In God's name, what art thou?
M1: A man..as you are.
CLAR:But not, as I am, royal.
M1: Nor you, as we are, loyal.
CLAR:Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?
M2: To...
M1:To...
CLAR: To murder me?
M1:Ay.
M2:Ay.
CLAR: Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?
M1: Offended us you have not ...but the king.
CLAR: I shall be reconciled to him again.
M2: Never, my lord. Therefore...prepare to die. 1,4,175
Cuts back to scene of atonement, switches from stage to around the table
EDWARD 1V: Hastings. Rivers, take each other's hand.
Dissemble not your hatred…..swear your love.
HASTINGS: So prosper I...as I swear perfect love!
RIVERS: And so swear I.
EDWARD 1V: Madam, yourself is not exempt from this.
Wife, love Lord Hastings..let him kiss your hand.
ELIZABETH: There, Hastings. I never more shall remember
our former hatred...so thrive I and mine. 2,1,24
LINDFORS: Do they really believe all this? Do they really believe it when you say, "Take their hand"?
PAC: It's a vow.
KIM: A solemn vow. In this time, that's a solemn thing. Only people who want to go to hell would be
willing to make vows and not keep them.
Cuts back to scene of Clarence’s murder.
CLAR: If you are hired for meed...go back again,
and I will send you to my brother Richard...
who shall reward you better for my life...
than Edward will for tidings of my death.
M2:Come, you deceive yourself.
M1'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.
CLAR: It cannot be..for he bewept my fortune...
and swore, with sobs, that he would labor my delivery.
RICH: ( repeated from earlier scene)Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
M1:So he doth..when he delivers you from this earth's
thraldom to the joys of heaven.
M2:Make peace with God...for you must die, my lord.
CLAR: Have you that holy feeling in your soul...
to counsel me to make my peace with God?
And are you yet to your own souls...
so blind, that you wilt war with God by murdering me?
O sirs...consider, those that set you on to do this deed...
will hate you for the deed.
M2:What shall we do?
CLAR:Relent...and save your souls.
M1: Relent! No. 'Tis cowardly and womanish.
CLAR:Not to relent is brutish...savage...devilish.
My friend...I spy some pity in thy looks.
O, if thine eye be not a flatterer, come
thou on my side, and entreat for me...
as you would beg, were you in my distress.
A begging prince what beggar pities not?
M2: Look behind you, my lord. 1,4,263
Cuts to scene of the atonement—news of Clarence’s death
EDWARD: (YULIN) Is Clarence dead? The order was reversed.
RICHARD: But he, poor man, by your first order died.
EDWARD: Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death?
My brother killed no man.His fault was thought...
and yet his punishment was bitter death.
Who sued to me for him? Who kneel'd at my feet,
and in my wrath, bid me be advised?
Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?
The proudest of you all...have been beholding to him
in his life. Yet not one of you would once beg for his life.
O God, I fear thy justice will take hold on me, and you...
and mine, and yours for this!
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. 2,1,134
Cuts to a montage of shots at a production party with medieval instruments playing. Discussion on the
value of Shakespeare, actors, the arts.
Woman1: What is it in theatre? Why do we want to do it? We want to do theatre
because of that personal presence.
Mac DONALD: West Germany gave a billion dollars a year, a billion to the arts.
COX: I gave up a TV movie in France to do Richard III in Milwaukee. I was talking to my teacher, and
she said, "You will benefit."
PAC: Kevin Costner did that TV show. You lost out. Look at his career.
COX: He's afraid to do Shakespeare.
PAC: No he’s not, he's in the other room practicing.
CAMERA KEEPS CUTING TO EDWARD DYING ALONE WITHOUT ASSISTANCE
SHOT OF A LARGE VOLUME OF SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS (Pacino is frivolous whilst Yulin,
playing Edward is dying, shows similar compassion that Richard would for Edward.)
PAC; The Anointed Shakespeare.(is he making the fau par on purpose??)
WOMAN: "Annotated."
PAC: It's got beautiful pictures.
WOMAN: It's got beautiful pictures
PAC: That's what I like about Shakespeare, the pictures., I love pictures!
ALLURE OF EVIL/ LUST FOR POWER ALSO METHOD ACTING
CUTS TO SCENE OF EDWARD DEAD, ELIZABETH DISTRESSED
After the scene where Edward dies, his face shown through the camera lens with coins on his eyes
HADGE “he’s dead! Okay! Okay!
PAC (appearing agitated) “Well what are we gonna do?” Uh? Okay? (questioning the effectiveness of
the scene/ or his/Richard’s next move?..)
KIMBLE “ I Like it.
HADGE “what’s next?”
PAC (ignoring hadge, addressing kimble aggressively) “what do you mean “I like it!?” Pacino appears
equally as agitated/ exuberant as sk’s Richard would be at this point in his process to be king .he has
overcome his major obstacles. To exaggerate this, the scene switches to show Pac and crew trudging
through a forest in search of a suitable burial spot in order to dispose of King Edward’s body. Through
the guise of method acting pacino relates his character’s, richard’s lust for the throne, in a sense merging
the two identities
MAN 1.“what time is it? 3.30? What are they doing, do you know?”
MAN2. “I don’t know. Freddie said something about burying the king.’
MAN1.” Is that in the play?”
NOW TO TAKE THE CROWN – METHOD ACTING
The scene cuts to Edward (in costume), lying on the bed dead. After this they stage a mock ‘wake’ ,in
20thc fashion. A deep wail can be head from Allen (Elizabeth) whilst Pacino(Richard!!!) puts an arm
around her to comfort her on the loss of her husband, Yulen (Edward).. In true method acting, both
characters are still consumed and have become the characters they play on stage.
PAC: “here it goes, this is it!”
KIM “This is the crunch”
PAC “Now we can say Richard is the most powerful man at this point. Alive! All this is said through a
voice over whilst PAC (rich) is comforting ALLEN(eliz) at the ‘wake’. ALLEN/Eliz is inconsolable whilst
we hear Richard in voice over OR is he actually whispering the words in Allen’s ear???
RICH: all of us have cause to wail the dimming of our shining star” 2,2,101.
KIM “The crisis is, are they going to live by the words that they spoke to the king? Or are they not? Is the
peace going to hold?
PAC (Rich).(around the table) “I hope the king made peace with all of us…And the
compact is firm and true in me”
RIVERS: and so in me
HASTINGS: and so say I.
RICH: Then go we to determine Who they shall be that shall post to Ludlow 2,2,142.
PAC: Who is going to go to Ludlow to get the young prince...and bring him back to be king?
Who 's gonna do it?(voice over while we see Rich and Buck on stage in apparent collusion) And
Buckingham says,"Whoever does do it...we go along too."
BUCK: (on stage) Whoever journeys to the Prince, (FOR GOD SAKE (added) let not us two
stay at home.2,2,147
SPACEY:: Buckingham decides politically to align himself with Richard. He does everything in the world
for him in order to....help him, obviously wanting to help himself.
Pacino and Spacey (Buckingham) discuss the deceit/politics behind Richard’s and Buckingham’s
moves.Pacino and Spacey act out following scene in 20C garb.
PAC (rich)“ PAC: (AROUND TABLE, ARM AROUND SPACEY) When I am king...claim thou of me
the earldom of Hereford...and the moveables whereof the king my brother was
possess'd. 3,1, 197
Spacey displays he coverts (as Buck)Pacino’s (rich’s)promise of fortune/power by the close of his
eyes/facial expression, whilst pacino places his arm around him. The actors discuss the logistics/politics
of their character’s partnership whilst sitting on the coach together
SPACEY” Buckingham is like the Secretary of State. This guy who went off. Like the guys who did the
Iran -Contra stuff, the dirty work. Propped up to the king”
PACINO mmm “Without Buckingham there’s no Richard as king”
SPACEY yeah “ Couldn’t do it alone. But they never can!”
SCHOLAR “Sk saw Richard and Buckingham as gansters. They were thugs .High class, upper class
thugs”
Shot of Pac and Spac with hats on backwards, indicative of belonging in the same gang .Spacey says
jokingly pointing to both caps.
SPACEY “there’s been no influence here has there?? No influence??
Crosses on stage to Allen (Elizabeth), after she has been told by a messenger that the “the mighty dukes,
Gloucester and Buckingham” have ordered the deaths of her brother, son and friend 2,4,46
PACINO “ you’re a pretty smart guy” (referring to Buck)
ALLEN (Eliz)on stage ‘I can see it I see the ruin of my house… ………..…I see, as a map,
the end of all’ 2,4,51-56
Back to 20C commentary between Pac and Spac re their character’s partnership
PAC” Now what’s happened here is Rich and Buck have betrayed everybody
SPACEY laughs
PAC “they lied. They went to Ludlow to pick up this prince. They were supposed to be peaceful with
everybody but what they did they forced him out from under his uncle’s arms and they’ve stolen this kid
KIMBLE” They’re bringing him back. What they’ve really got there is the throne of England, in their
arms.”
PAC: they’ve got the future
KIM: “they’ve got it”
Much of this has been said in voice over whilst the scenes play the meeting of the young princes on horse
back. We now see Richard limping up to meet the prince’s entourage singing
PAC and KIM “he’s got the whole world in his hands”
Switches to voice over of part of rich’s opening sol. Globe theatre where Pacino explores the acoustics of
sk’s theatre and tries to get a feel for the essence of the lines he has to deliver, the character of Richard.
The irony in the connection of the reference in the song to the “world” and the cut to the “globe’ should
be noted.
GLOBE THEATRE Site built 1599
PAC:Welcome...to London.
CURATOR: This is the first chance since 1640’s to see the Globe Theatre.
This is where Shakespeare...wrote his plays, where he acted.-the theatre Shakespeare owned.
PAC: So this is the spot? You say. If you stand in the middle of it, what happens?
CURATOR: It's like a sounding board, like a resonating chamber. You can hear the wonderful acoustics.
PAC:I hear it already.
PAC: Now is the winter of our discontent..
made glorious summer...
by this son of York.
And all the clouds
that lour'd on our house...
in the deep bosom of the ocean...1,1,4
Pacino approaches a woman at the Globe who is writing down information
PAC: Hi. Are you working on this?
ARCHIVER: I am. I've been recording it since 1980 .
PAC; You've been recording this since 1980 ?
ARCH: Yeah. The whole shebang.
PAC: Really? And who is this?
ARCHIVER: This is the son of one of the builders.
The boy (Timmy Pairie)then appears in costume, as Prince Edward, son of Edward 1v who
is welcomed to London by Richard. Pacino constantly tries to correlate the two,
shakespeare’s production with his own.
RICH: Welcome, sweet prince, to London.
My thoughts' sovereign.
The weary way hath made you melancholy.
PRINCE: I want more uncles here to welcome me.
RICH: Sweet prince...those uncles which you want
were dangerous.
Your grace attended to their sugar'd words...
...but look'd not on the poison of their hearts.
God keep you from such false friends!
PRINCE: God keep me from false friends!
But they were none.
RICH: The mayor of London comes to greet you. 3,1,17
PAC: Okay, now they got the kids. They got the young prince whose gunna be king. They got his brother.
KIM: Uncle Richard has one big happy family.
PAC: Yeah. Somebody's gotta go.
Cuts back to previous scene, in costume, on the road.
RICH: Will't please you pass along?
Myself and Buckingham entreat your mother to come...
and welcome you at the Tower.
PRINCE RICHARD: (YORK)What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?
RICH: What should you fear at the Tower?
PRINCE R: Nothing.
PAC: Why has he put them in the Tower?
KIM: He's going to kill them.
PAC: The Tower is where they execute...They chop people's heads off. There are a lot of rooms up there.
So it can also go for meetings and different places. But there is one specific spot up there....where they...
They do the... You know, do the thing.
COX: (Catesby) The one person who is in line is a child. What a wonderful opportunity
for all of us to get what we want.
PAC:Of course.
CONWAY (HASTINGS) In fact, I'll basically be running the country.
PAC: One person 's standing in their way: Lord Hastings.
HASTINGS
PAC: Hastings loves this kid, the prince He really wants him to be the next king.
Even, though the kid's in the Tower right now, he believes he will be.
KIM: He's tough.
PAC: Tough Guy Hastings. He was the former king's closest friend. They even shared the same mistress.
Mistress Shore. Who is Mistress Shore?
KIM: She's Shakespeare's device to connect Hastings and the king. They share the same woman.
PAC; Good idea. Hastings is really a great threat to Richard and Buckingham.
KIM: He can stop them, so they have to stop him.
BUCK: What shall we do...if we perceive Lord Hastings
will not yield to our complots?
RICH: Chop off his head. 3,1,194
LANGUAGE
Scene in 20c garb reciting the lines around the table, re assessing Hasting’s approval to make Richard
king.
However all the following speech is delivered in contemporary language. It is derived from SK. 3,2,38-44
COMPARE BOTH RESPONSES, GREAT EXAMPLE OF THE VERNACULAR OF BOTH PERIODS.
HASTINGS: How? ‘wear the garland’? Dost thou mean the crown?
CATESBY: Ay, my good lord.
HASTINGS: I’ll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders
Before I’ll see the crown so foul misplaced.
But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it? 3,2,38-44
CONWAY: (Hastings) What are you talking about, Richard? You mean Richard wear the crown
COX: (Catesby) I think it’s the only way. think about it “
CONWAY: “let me tell you something. I will have this crown (indicates his own head and neck) this
crown ripped off and shoved into a cow’s belly before I would allow that scum to defile the crown by
putting it on his head “
The other actors laugh at this interpretation. Meaning remains the same just the context of the language
changes
SCHOLAR “The text is only a means of expressing what’s behind the text. So if you get obsessed with
the text . This is a great barrier to American actors, who get obsessed with the british way of regarding a
text. That isn’t what matters. What matters is that you have to penetrate one way or another, into what, at
every moment, it’s about.”
SPACEY: So at this point, Hastings does not take the threat of Richard seriously?
Kim: absolutely not!
BRIGGYMAN: Anything can go on. You really think that this guy...?
THE COUNCIL MEETING
PAC: So now we've got Stanley. Lord Stanley. He's a friend of Hastings and he's trying to convince
Hastings they should get out of the country because Richard's planning a takeover. Some treachery, and
it’s going to happen at the council meeting which has been set up to pick a date of coronation for the
young prince.
HASTINGS: My noble lords. The cause why we are met is,
to determine of the coronation.
In God's name, speak. When is the royal day?
BUCK: Is all things ready for the royal time?
STAN: It is, and wants but nomination.
ARCHBISHOP: To-morrow, then, I judge a happy day.
KIM: Tomorrow has been prepared as a great, great feast day...of coronation and requires only that we at
this table (the actors) say yes.
PAC: We think we have been brought together just to rubber-stamp the little Prince. It's a fait accompli,
the prince will be king. They're just there to pick the date.
BUCK:Who knows Richard's mind in all this? Who is the most inward
with the noble duke?
HAST: On the duke's behalf I'll give my voice...
which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.
ARCHBISHOP: In happy time, here comes the gentle duke.
RICHARD: My noble lords and cousins all, good morrow.
I have been long a sleeper. But I trust...my absence doth
neglect no design, which might have been concluded.
BUCK: Had you not come, my lord....William Lord Hastings
had pronounced your part...I mean, your voice...
for crowning of the king.
RICH: Than no man might be bolder. His lordship knows me well,
and loves me well. My lord of Ely! When last I was in Holborn...
I saw good strawberries in your garden there..
I do beseech you send for some of them.
ARCHBISHOP:Marry, and will, my lord with all my heart.
RICHARD: Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you. 3,4,35
ALLURE OF EVIL/ PURSUIT OF POWER
Conway on discussing the impact of the scene where the noblemen are gathered to decide the date for the
coronation of King Edward. 3 ,4- He compares the treachery in Shakespeare’s scene to a scene from “the
godfather”, one of Pacino’s most accredited roles. Michael Corleoni is a contemporary comparison to
Richard.
CONWAY “Remember we talked the other day about a gathering of the dons, in a way.? There’s a lot of
suspicion in this room. I think there’s a danger to be in this room. All of us in one spot and it’s like
somebody says “just wait here, I’ll be back or you know wait in this room“ and it’s been like “what’s
going on?” (Conway is using the contemporary analogy of the meeting of the mafia, eg the movie “the
godfather part two ” for which Pacino won an academy award, and in which Pacino played a don who,
through similar treacherous methods as Richard ,secured the most powerful position in the mafia.
Machiavellian element. Note the baptisimal scene-PAC What’s going on is simple. They have to cut out Hastings and only Richard has the power to do it.
He’s a royal and he’s a york, only he’s got to move fast because this is his last chance to stop Hastings
from making the prince king.”
KIMBLE” they’re going to suck in Hastings by using his mistress Jane Shore as bait. Provoke him to say
the wrong thing and nail him”
PAC “then everyone in the room is going to have to make a choice. It’s either Richard or Hastings.
Cuts to stage
Archbishop: Where is my lord, the Duke of Gloucester?
I have sent for these strawberries.
HASTINGS: His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning.
There's some conceit or other likes him well...
with that he bids good morrow with such spirit.
There's never a man in Christendom
can lesser hide his love or hate than he.
For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
STANLEY: What of his heart perceive you
by any livelihood he show'd to-day?
HASTINGS: Marry, that with no man here he is offended.
For, if he were, you'd seen it in his look.
RICHARD: I pray you all...tell me what they deserve...
that do conspire my death...with devilish plots
of damned witchcraft.and that have prevail'd upon my body...
with their hellish charms?
HASTINGS: The tender love I bear your grace,
my lord, makes me most forward...
in this princely presence to doom
the offenders, whosoe'er they be.
I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
RICHARD: Then be your eyes the witness of their ill.
Look...how I am bewitch'd. Behold mine arm...
like a blasted sapling, wither'd up.
And this is Edward's wife...that monstrous witch...
consorted with the harlot strumpet Shore...
that by their witchcraft...thus have marked me.
HASTINGS: If they have done this deed...
RICHARD: If!If...thou protector of this
damned strumpet...Talkest thou to me of "ifs"?
Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul...
I swear, I will not dine until I see the same.
Lovel and Ratcliffe, look that it be done.
The rest, that love me...rise and follow me.
HASTINGS: Stan...Stanley!
Woe for England! Not a whit for me.
For I, too fond, might have prevented this.
LOVELL: Come, dispatch. Tis bootless to exclaim.
HASTINGS: Bloody Richard!
PAC: He was the only fly in the ointment. They’ve got the inner circle. They’ve intimidated all the dukes
and earls. They managed to intimidate all of them so now all that is left is winning the people.”
DECEIT
Spacey comments, using contemporary examples, how persuading the people/ mob has essentially been
the same procedure throughout history. Large numbers of people together, are apt to lose their
individuality and become gullible to one consensus. Suggests this has been/is universal..
SPACEY voice over “everytime there’s an election in this country, whether for mayor, whether it’s for
president or city council, it’s always the fact people are tired of the way it’s been and just want a change “
scene shows spacey standing on a podium, 20c, cap turned back indicating he is a member of Pacino’s
gang, trying to rouse the people to accept his agenda
Scene is on stage but not in costume…still both wearing their caps
RICH: How now, How now, what say the citizens
BUCK: Now by the holy mother of our lord, the citizens are mum!
RICH: I expected them to be boisterous ,
And that they would come and rally and did they so?”
BACK: No, so God help me, they spake not a word…looked deadly pale” 3,7,23-26
PAC: “and did they so? (repeats line and laughs)
SPAC: “ No! what are you deaf!!
Pacino and Spacey are bantering with each other in humour during this exchange .seems to further extol
their union both on and off stage. Further 20C commentary between Pacino and Spacey re the
manipulation of the people, the evil both are planning to make Richard king.
SPACEY: “So I’m saying, whatever their reaction it doesn’t matter, we still had this plan.”
PAC” we still had this plan”
SPACEY” so they’re being told that here, right before your very eyes, is the man who will make it better.”
Some voice over occurs as we see Richard in costume standing righteously between two priests, bible in
hand!
BUCK: And, see...a book of prayer in his hand,
true ornaments...to know a holy man. 3,7,98
SCHOLAR “Irony is really only hypocrisy with style. Here again we love Richard’s irony, in a way. In
fact we know he’s as hard as nails, that he’s only pretending to be religious.”
PAC “ they canvas like politicians, complete with lies and innuendo. They manage to malign this young
prince, who is indeed the rightful heir to the throne and they know it! And they say he was a bastard that
his father was a bastard, Richard’s brother. It’s an act and these people are buying it, it’s a complete lie!”
Whilst these next speech is being delivered, we see a combination of Spacey on the
political platform(20thc) and Buckingham convincing clergy and citizens of Richard’s
righteous worth as king. Different contexts, same agenda!
BUCK:We heartily solicit you...
to take on the kingly government
of this your land...not as protector, steward, substitute,
or lowly factor for another's gain.
But as successively from blood to blood...
your right of birth, your empery, your own.
RICH: Since you will buckle fortune on my back...
to bear her burden, whether I will or no...
I must have patience to endure the load.
CROWD: Long live Richard, England's worthy king!
Long live King Richard! 3, 7, 239
DECEIT/ PURSUIT OF POWER
REDGRAVE “ in the midst of these noble concepts, these treaties and diplomatic pacts, he was saying,
the truth beneath all this is absolutely the opposite. The truth is that, those in power have total contempt
for everything they promise, everything they pledge. And that’s what sk’s great play is about.”
Crosses to party where American amateur directors are discussing their personal interpretations of how
they have produced/ adapted Shakespeare’s plays for a contemporary audience. Pacino in method acting
style, slumps against Kimble seemingly overcome by his desire to become king or the need to escape other
producer’s attempt to ‘contemporize’ Shakespeare.
PACINO ‘’You must get me out of this. Get me out of this documentary! This was a bad idea. I’ts gone
too far.
KIM; Take you away from all this ?
(Kim on his knees in front of his ‘king’!)
PAC: I want to go, I want to be, I want to be king already. I want to be king! I want to be king , Frederic.
Make me king!
RICHARD IS KING
ALLURE OF EVIL/ CONSCIENCE
Cuts to scene of Richard’s coronation
KIMBLE” as soon as he gets what he wants, as soon as he gets Lady Anne, as soon as he gets the crown .
then the whole thing.”
PAC “ the emptiness of it.”
Cuts to stage
RICHARD: Cousin of Buckingham!
BUCK: My gracious sovereign?
RICH: Give me thy hand. Thus high, by thy advice
and thy assistance...is King Richard...seated.
But shall we wear these glories for a day?
Or shall they last...and we rejoice in them?
BUCK: Still they live and for ever may they last!
RICH: Buckingham...now do I play the touch.
Young Edward lives. Think now what I would speak.
BUCK: Say on, my loving lord.
RICH: Shall I be plain. I wish the bastards...dead. 4,2,20
Scene where Pacino and Spacey are discussing the reasons for Richard’s need to kill the young princes.
The dialogue reveals that both share a similar opinion as would the characters they are playing on stage.
SPACEY ‘ why is it necessary now to kill them? Your king! What difference? It’s? “
PACINO” but as long as they live???”
RICH: What sayest thou now? Speak suddenly. Be brief.
BUCK: Your grace may do his pleasure.
RICH: Thou art all ice...thy kindness freezeth. 4,2,24
FEMALE SCHOLAR” everybody may have a price but for a lot of people there is a fundamental decency.
It takes quite a long time for them to reach that point. The action of the play, the sense of exciting
movement is Richard’s finding out the point beyond which people won’t go”
RICH:Say, then that I have thy consent..that they shall die? 4,2,25
Scene 4,2,11-33,on stage. Richard requests that Buckingham organises the murder of the two princes.
Buckingham is unsure whether he wants to give consent to this part of the plan. Spacey also comments on
his view of his character’s, Buckingham’s position, summation at this point in the proceedings.
SPACEY” it’s an interesting question where Buckingham is. How far he’s willing to go, where he’s
willing to draw the line. It’s almost as if everything Buckingham does in the play, somehow he manages
to keep the blood off his hands. On stage
BUCK: Give me some little breath, some pause, dear my lord...
before I speak positively in this.I shall resolve you herein presently.
CATESBY: The king is angry.
RICH: None are for me...that look into me
with considerate eyes. 4,2,29
FEMALE SCHOLAR “ He is bound to be left alone because nobody can love the King beyond the degree
of their own egotism or their own goodness. There’s going to be a point. He has reached Buckingham’s
point.”
On stage 4,2, 45-48.
RICH That deep-revolving..witty Buckingham...
shall no longer be neighbour to my counsels. What?
Hath he held out with me so long, untired...
stops he now for breath? Well...so be it.
SPACEY” when he went away, did he agree to do it, or was he gonna come back and say I can’t but give
me what you promised.”
KIMBLE” I have a feeling that he’ll come back and say. Okay. We have to do it, let’s bite the bullet. Let’s
do it! But it’s too late”
CUTS BACK TO THE STAGE
BUCK: My Lord, I have consider'd in my mind
the late request...that you did sound me in.
RICH: Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to Richmond.
BUCK: I hear the news, my lord.
RICH: Stanley.
STANLEY: Yes, my sovereign?
RICH: Richmond is your wife's son...(SK -he is your wife’s
Buck: My lord...I claim the gift...my due of promise...
which your honor and your faith is pawn'd.
The earidom of Hereford and moveables which you promised I
RICH: Stanley...look to your wife.If she convey letters to
you shall answer it.
BUCK: What says your highness to my high request?
RICH:I do remember me, Henry the Sixth did prophesy...
when Richmond was just a little boy that Richmond would be
BUCK: My lord! The earidom...
RICH: Richmond! When last I was in Exeter...
the mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle there...
and call'd it Rougemont.At which name I started,
because a bard of Ireland told me once...
that I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
BUCK: My Lord!
RICH: Ay, what's o'clock?
BUCK:I am thus bold to put your grace in mind
of what you promised me.
RICH: Ay, but what's o'clock?
BUCK:Upon the stroke of ten.
RICH: Let it strike.
BUCK: Why let it strike?
RICH: Because that, like a Jack...thou keep'st the stroke,
betwixt your begging....and my meditation. Tick-tock.
I am not...in the giving vein to-day.
BUCK: May it please your grace...to resolve me in my suit?
RICH: Thou troublest me.I am not...in the vein. 4,3,123
son) Iook to it.
shall possess.
Richmond,
king. Perhaps. Perhaps...
tick-tock...
Cuts to rehearsal off stage, taken from Act 1 scene 3 highlighting the foreshadowing of Marg
MARG: Thou dost scorn me for my gentle counsel?
And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
O, but remember this another day...when he shall split
thy very heart with sorrow...and say poor Margaret...
was a prophetess! 1,3,303
cuts back to scene 4
BUCK:And thus be it so? Repays me my deep service
with such contempt....made I him king for this?
O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone...
to Brecknock...while my fearful head is on! 4,3,128
Kimble and Pacino discussing Richard’s position after the fallout between Richard and Buckingham.
KIMBLE “you stand on brittle ground. Will it last, or is somebody next week gunna say, “ Hey they got a
bum rap. Let’s push the case for the kids. The kids have got to go!”
On stage –act 4 scene2 is performed. Richard pays Tyrel to kill Edward’s children in the tower. He now
believes he has removed all obstacles from his position as king.4,2,69-84 However, his own treacherous
character makes him unable to trust anyone. Elizabeth is shown to be inconsolable at the news of the death
of her sons. A viewpoint not explored in Shakespeare’s play. Pacino depicts Richard’s present state by
using a quote from before the prince’s death.
RICH: I am so far in blood...that sin will pluck on sin.
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye. 4,2,68
THE LAST ACT
Any production of Richard III, the last act dribbles out for me - I'm gone.
PAC:- For me, the last act... Richard is the most accessible because it's clear...that Richard has attained
this power now. He's king and he's on the decline because as soon as he becomes king, right away they are
they coming at him from all sides. Richmond is attacking. (off stage Pacino wins arm wrestle cheers
victorious -still in power!
RICHMOND
PAC:This guy, Richmond his family were the losers... in the War of the Roses.
He had fled to France and he was there raising an army... to get the throne back for his family, the house
of Lancaster.
Scene on stage shows messengers delivering updates re the present conditions of the ensuing war.4,4,519537. Off stage Pacino shows signs of agitation with Kimble, example of Method acting
KIMBLE” he suspects everyone around him. He has no friends.
PAC “ I,m listening , I’m listening!!” (off stage Pacino accosts a crew member)
RICHMOND RALLIES HIS SUPPORTERS
RICH:Fellows in arms...and my most loving friends.
Thus far into the bowels of land we march'd without impediment.
And here receive we from our father Stanley...
lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
Ah...The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar...
that spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines...
this foul swine is now even in the centre of this isle.
OXFORD: Every man's conscience is a thousand men...
to fight against this guilty homicide.
RICH: Then, in God's name, march.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings.
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. 5,3,24
METHOD ACTING/ ALLURE OF EVIL/POWER
Pacino appears to emulate the psychological state that R111 is feeling at this stage of the play by
replicating it with a physical demise of his own. Pacino coughs after drinking coffee, appears flu like.
PAC “ am I dying, am I dying? That’s what I want to know.
KIM (largely ignoring pacino)” when are we gonna kill Richard. I have a worse question.
PAC” (as if there couldn’t be a worse question) ‘excuse me!!” (looks away)
KIMBLE “ I have a feeling that YOUR Richard will have earned his death and we should think about
some way to do it.
PAC ( flu like coughing) “close-close -close the door” ( repeat bout of coughing
KIM (taking pacino’s temperature, who seems to be obsessed with his health) Your 98.6 put it under your
tongue!
PAC ( a little obsessive) “if I’m 98.6 then you’re a Shakespearean actor!
Pacino reads an account of the battle of Bosworth from the text. The account chosen makes Richard sound
somewhat of a hero.
PAC:"On the 22nd of August,1485 there was a battle fought for the crown of England. A short battle,
ending in a decisive victory. In that field, a crowned king, manfully fighting in the middle of his
enemies...was slain and brought to his death."
RICH: Here, pitch our tent, here...even here in Bosworth field.5,3,1.
THE BATTLE
PURSUIT OF POWER/ ALLURE OF EVIL/ CONSCIENCE
SCHOLAR” I think what is fascinating, is that when you come to the last act, to the battle of Bosworth,
the battle itself goes for very little, apart from “ my horse, my horse. My kingdom for a horse.” Apart from
that it seems to me that the battle is really the ghost scene. The ghost scene is the battle. “
PAC (voiceover) “ Richard is visited in his sleep by the ghosts of all the people he murdered”
RICHARD (DREAMING) Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.
Give me another horse!
PAC (voice over whilst showing the theatre) “So Frederick and I decided to go to the actual theatre where
this play, where Richard 111 was performed some 300 years ago, and this ghost scene was actually acted
on the stage right here, in London. We’d thought we’d rehearse and see if maybe in a rehearsal we could
get a sense of those old spirits. You know, method acting type stuff. “
PAC (talking, rehearsing with kimble) “I’ve always had trouble with this speech. It shows, it’s good when
an actor has trouble with a speech and he just goes in there and tries to do it”
KIMBLE” I’ve heard you talking about Richard as a man who cannot find love. And a person, who finally
in the last scenes, knows that he does not have his own humanity, that he’s lost it.
MARG: (VOICE OVER) Tormenting dreams!
KIM: But he has let the pursuit of power totally corrupt him. He is alienated from his own body and his
own self.”
(pacino practices the ghost scene on stage ( in 20C garb) with Kimble. Scenes cut back and forth to show
pacino(R111) in costume acting the ghost scenes 5,3 182- however, in a more contemporary, more secular
context, Pacino deals with them as dreams rather than ghostly apparitions. The resultant factor is the
same, Richard’s/Pacino’s conscience is plagued, he despairs. (shown as a montage of quick cut scenes)
BUCK: Dream on of bloody deeds and death! 5,3,175
ELIZ: Where are my children? 4,4,144
MARG: TOAD!
BUCK: Despair, Despairing. Death 5,3,176
RICH: Give me another horse!
ELIZ: where is thy brother, Clarence?
RICH: (screaming) Get me a horse! ,Get me a horse! ( SK A horse! A horse! My Kingdom
for a horse!) 5,4,13
ELIZ: Yet thou didst kill my children 4,4,435
Despair and Die
RICH: Bind up my wounds 5,3,181
HASTINGS: Bloody Richard! 3,4,102
Pacino portrays Richard’s dilemma of his conscience—the seemingly talking to himself in despair---by
performing the same Sk scene simultaneously on stage and in practise. A means of portraying Richard’s
conscience and ego in debate.
RICH: (wakes from a nightmare)Soft! I did but dream. Soft!I did but dream.
O coward conscience...how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue.It is now...dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
PAC (in practise) Richard.
RICH: (on stage) Richard.
RICH: What do I fear? Myself? There is none else by.
PAC: (in practise) Is there a murderer here? No
RICH: (on stage) Yes, I am.
PAC: (in practise)Then fly! From myself? No. No. I love myself.
RICH: (on stage) Alas...I hate myself...for hateful deeds.
PAC: (in practise) (out of line) Guilty. Guilty.
RICH: (on stage) Committed by myself.
Guilty.
RICH: (on stage)I am a villain.
PAC: (in practise) I am a villain.
RICH: (stage) Yet I lie. I am not. Fool,of thyself speak well.
Fool...do not flatter. I shall despair. There is no creature loves me.
When I die....no soul shall pity me. Wherefore should they...
PAC: (practise)since that I myself...find in myself...no pity to myself? 5,3,207
RATCLIFFE: ( practise) My Lord!
RICHARD“ who’s there?
RAT: Ratcliffe my lord t’ is I. 5,3,213
PAC ( jokingly)” well get out of here, I’m working.”
KIM “you got it!”
PAC Let’s try it one more time. (Pacino’s eagerness for complete absorption of the character/ role of
R111).This time he substitutes Catsby for Ratcliffe
RICH:Catesby,
CATESBY: my lord. 'Tis I.Catesby.
The early village-cock...hath twice done salutation
to the morn. Your friends are up....and buckle on their armor.
RICH: Catesby.I've had a fearful dream. Catesby, I fear...
CATESBY: Nay, nay, good my lord...be not afraid of shadows.
RICH: By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night...
have struck more terror in the soul of Richard...
than can the substance of soldiers armed to proof...
and led by shallow Richmond. 5,3,224
Come, come with me. (ADDED)
STANLEY:The silent hours steal on, and flaky
darkness breaks within the east. 5,3,90.
RICH: (FROM EARLIER IN THE TEXT)Stanley, look to your wife. If she convey letters
to Richmond, you shall answer. 4,2,96
STANLEY: (GIVING ALLEGIANCE TO RICHMOND) Prepare thy battle early in the morning...
and put thy fortune to the test of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war. 5,3,94
The consummation of the two personas, Pacino’s and Richard’s is more apparent. Whilst the speech
Kimble refers to is Richard’s oration to his troops, Pacino has a speech which he is working on sitting on
the table in front of him in the restaurant they are in.
KIM: You have to give a speech in half an hour. Maybe we should...
-PAC:No, I got the general...gist of it. Got the gist of it.
The scene cuts between the oration of both Richmond and Richard to their soldiers. Note the difference in
tone, attitude, choice of language.. Richmond’s righteousness is conveyed by him kneeling in prayer
directing his oration to God.. It is Richmond who will restore order. In comparison, Richard appears
ragged, raucous and agitated.
RICHMOND:O Thou...whose captain I account myself...
Iook on my forces with a gracious eye.
Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath...
that they may crush down with a heavy fall...
the usurping helmets of our adversaries! 5,3,116
RICHARD: What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?
Remember whom you are to deal withal.
A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways...
a scum of Bretons, and base lackey peasants...
whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth...
to desperate adventures and assured destruction. 5,3,326
RICHMOND: Make us thy ministers of chastisement. 5,3,117
RICHARD: You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest.
You having lands, and blest with beauteous wives...
they will restrain the one, distain the other.
And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow? 5,3,330
RIHMOND: To thee I do commend my watchful soul...
ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes. 5,3,120
RICHARD: A milk-sop..one that never in his life felt
so much cold as over shoes in snow? 5,3,333
RICHMOND: O, defend me still! 5,3,121
RICHARD:Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again.
Lash hence these overweening rags of France...
these famish'd beggars, weary of their lives.
If we be conquer'd let men conquer us not these bastard Bretons.
Shall these enjoy our lands? Lie with our wives?
Ravish our daughters? Hark! I hear their drum.
Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yoemen!
Draw, archers...draw your arrows to the head!
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood.
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves! 5,3,348
THE SCENE OF THE BATTLE IS BATHED IN RED (Amidst violent fighting Richard is thrown from
his horse.)
RICHARD: My horse! My horse!
HASTINGS: (voice over) And in a bloody battle end thy days!
Despair and die! 5,3,152
This scene is set outside on the plains, the scene for the battle. The various actors are at the top of the hill
watching the ensuing battle offering commentary as if they were part of an audience/on lookers
commenting on the battle’s process.
ALLEN (as Elizabeth) “They withdraw”
KIMBLE (in costume) “the ranks are breaking !”
ALLEN “see! they’re deserting him!!”
The scene switches down onto the battle field in costume 5,4,7-13
RICH:A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY: Withdraw, my lord, withdraw...
RICHARD: Slave, I set my life upon a cast,
I'll stand the hazard of the die.
There be six Richmonds in the field.
Five have I slain to-day.
CATESBY: My lord!
FEMALE SCHOLAR “ although he’s frightfully clever, he is, at the same time, like a kind of boar who
has subsumed into himself all these frightful animal images and all that all the rest have to do is hunt the
boar. And that‘s what they do and they get him!”
RICHARD: A horse! A horse!
My kingdom...for a horse! 5,4,13
STREET PERSON (VOX POP) “he’s a hearty dude, and in the end he’s surrounded, and he just goes ,
you know, he’ll give up anything for a horse. You know this guy’s rich, a king and he needs a horse. You
know.”
RICHARD: My kingdom...for a horse! 5,4,13
Pacino portrays his character’s death with a certain heroism. He fights Richmond, on his knees with two
arrows in him and with only one strong arm!! ( no need for political bias here!). Rather, Pacino is
determined to portray the character he has become, through the process of absorption of the character,
method acting , with a certain stoic honour right to the end. 5,5,1. Compare with Shakespeare’s stage
directions of the battle, which are simply “They fight Richard is slain
Cuts immediately to, Pacino who acts out the death scene,, as if he has been stabbed, with kimble ,in 20Cgarb,
on the stairs outside a 20C building, with background bells chiming. Pac is lying on kimble’s lap.
KIM “ I didn’t mean it . I didn’t mean it”
PAC” I love you Frederic “
KIM” “ I didn’t mean it.”
PAC (looking at the camera laughing) “he didn’t mean it??” and you kill me after all I did for you.”
Cuts back to the original shot of the actor playing Shakespeare, in the earlier audition, who looks away in
disdain. Shaking his head
KIM” Richard’s dead. At last we can rest!”
RICHMOND: God and your arms be praised, victorious friends,
the day is ours...the bloody dog is dead. 5,5,2
SOLDIERS: Dead!
Scene switches to the battle scene where Richard is shown dead again
Hadge and Bullet after watching the end scenes seeming exasperated.
HADGE” is this it? Is this it?
BUL “ I hope so!”
HAD” are we done? This is it”
HAD “ you know, if I told him about the other 10 rolls of film, he’d want to use them!”
Cuts to a still shot of Richard dead, holds, no sound
PAC “ I love the silence, I love the silence. After silence, what else is there? What’s the line?”
GIELGUD (iconic sk’n actor) “the rest is silence “ (Hamlet act 5)
PAC” “silence. Whatever I’m saying , I know Shakespeare said it!”
Pacino ends the documentary as he begins it, with a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest 4,1, 148-158.
Metaphorically, referring to Pacino, himself and as an actor, and his ‘dream’, intentions in the doco.
Richard is dead there is no more! Scenes show Richmond in glory, actors in procession. Then returns to
the opening scene, the basketball court with the boy throwing baskets.
Our revels now are ended .Pacino substitutes our revel is now at an end
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (IV.i.148–158)