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Role Of Power In Looking For Richard III

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“These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air… and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a wisp behind.”
– Looking for Richard

How has your study of Looking for Richard enhanced your understanding of the role of power in Richard III?

The role of power and its nature is essentially futile. We rise and we fall, we are melted into thin air, without leaving a wisp behind. Now that I have your attention, hello, and welcome to all you power hungry listeners. In today’s episode, were going to delve a little deeper into the role of power and what better way to do so than to explore how Al Pacino’s documentary drama Looking for Richard enhances a modern audience’s understanding of William Shakespeare’s historical tragedy Richard III. Through its …show more content…

Thus, the appropriation conveys the transcendent idea of the role and construction of power, and through the manipulation of form, enhances our understanding of the historical drama.

Shakespeare’s construction of King Richard III as manipulative and vice like acts as the agency fulfilling his desire and lust for power. He portrays Richard, the historically maligned figure, as the usurper, meddling with the role of power. The motivations behind Richard’s lust for power are revealed initially, in “And thus I clothe my naked villainy…And seem a saint when I most play the devil.” The metaphor conveys the extent of his duplicitous nature through the contrasting religious imagery and depicts the extreme lengths to achieve his goal of usurping the throne. Shakespeare manipulates his use of form, making it an “insubstantial direful pageant”. Metatheatre, allows for Richard to put on many facades to create an inauthentic image of himself that appeals to the values of the Elizabethan context. This is made evident as Richard is instructed by Buckingham to appeal to societies sense of religiosity, in “Intend some

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Language is transformed to effectively explore both resonances and dissonances that ultimately shape new meaning overtime. Texts reflect the concerns of their time, allowing Literature to mirror the values of the times. In Richard III, Shakespeare uses King Richard to align the mediaeval values established through the great chain of being during the Elizabethan era. In comparison, Al Pacino’s docudrama “Looking for Richard" effectively explores a more newer approach to King Richard ultimately suiting a more contemporary audience during postmodernism. Thus, it is through the Elizabethan era and the war of the roses, that Shakespeare was able to align and become reframed in Looking for Richard.

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In Shakespeare’s Richard III, Richard’s incredible ability to manipulate others transcends to real life as the character manipulate the audience’s feelings towards. He is able to change the way that he is viewed by him, going from a conniving monster to a clever and impressive ally. This character is able to reinvent his image through the act of manipulation which is what gave him his original unpleasant title, as he gains the ability to mass manipulate an entire audience into thinking they are the only one’s he is true to, when in reality they are the ones being duped by the most. Although Richard III is a real historical figure and manipulated people in his own life, the manipulations of the character of Richard III are entirely at the hands

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All works of great art are endlessly dismantled, reconstructed and recycled, to allow timeless ideas to resonate with contemporary audiences. Al Pacino recontextualises Shakespeare’s play, Richard III (RIII), allowing for greater accessibility to contemporary audiences in 1990s America. In his docudrama, Looking for Richard (LFR), Pacino retains the enduring values of the relentless pursuit of power being intertwined with human nature. This is encompassed within RIII and displayed through the resonance of Richard acting against the Elizabethan theocracy. Further, the portrayal of Pacino’s Richard resonates with that of Shakespeare through the consistent demonstration of the dichotomy of his psyche.

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