Comparison Of King Richard III And Looking For Richard

A Significant element of both Shakespeare's Elizabethan era and Al Pacino's postmodern age, the theme of the pursuit of power is, however, portrayed disparately by the two authors due to the distinct contexts and values of their times. Shakespeare's history play King Richard III conveys this central subject in the Machiavellian protagonist, Richard's ambitious machinations to attain political authority, whereas Pacino embeds this overarching theme in his own adept strategies to influence the audiences in the docudrama "Looking for Richard". Through vivid portrayals of characters and plots, both texts intrigue and direct their audiences to explore the contrasting perceptions in their different time periods, regarding the role of destiny and

In his opening soliloquy, Richard discloses his resentment towards the divine power that determined his physical deformity in the image "cheated of feature by dissembling nature", the derogatory reference and negative connotations conveying his disparagement of God's power and his determination to challenge it. This rebellion against God's arrangement seems successful in the earlier parts of the play especially in his successful wooing of Lady Anne, reflected in the tragic irony of her gullibility over Richard's spurious show of repentance: "with all my heart, and much it joys me, too". However, the play's tragic structure constructs a parallel scene near its end, depicting Richard's failure to woo young Elizabeth and the irony of his credulity at the success of his manipulation as he misconceives Elizabeth to be a "relenting fool and shallow, changing woman". His arrogant misunderstanding contributes to theme of revenge on Richard and the restoration of justice by destiny. This emphasis on the superiority of a higher power is reinforced by Shakespeare's depiction of

The film's circular structure is constructed with the intertextual use of Prospero's speech from The Tempest, metaphorically depicting life as an "insubstantial pageant" thus downplaying the importance of strict moral absolutes. This is reinforced by the hyperbolic imagery "rounded with a sleep", portraying the ephemeral and uncertain nature of life and hence the importance to experience life in all its richness rather than to surrender to the moral scruples of a bygone age. The irrelevance of moral restrictions is further developed by the close up shot showing Pacino in his debate with Kimball, as he asserts in starkly antithetical binaries: "A person has an opinion. It's only an opinion. It's never a question of right or wrong. There's no right or wrong." This idea of individualism is explored throughout the film by Pacino's consistent use of impromptu interviews to obtain the vox populi, consisting of a variety of opinions, shown by the contrasting commentaries, "It's boring.", and "He did more than help us. He instructed us.", while the focused centre shots exert equal individual weight on each opinion. Pacino skillfully resolves the film with the motif of silence after the enactment of Richard's death, as the camera captures him in