Bibliography: Film to Book

Chapter 3. Timeless Villainy: Rehistoricizing= Richard III<= /p>

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Richard Loncraine’s Richard III (1995) is based on the 1992 Royal Shakespeare production directed by Richard Eyre, which met with success in both the National Theatre and on Broadway. Aside from shared first names, Loncraine was a fascinating choice= for a director, given a background primarily in commercial film and television advertisements and no previous experience with Shakespeare productions. Fortunately, staring actor and co-writer Ian McKellen required little direction, having previously played the role of Richard in Eyre’s production. The combination of Eyre’s recontextualized script, Loncraine’s unusually visual directing style, and McKellen’s playful familiarity with his character makes this a very fascinating model = of postmodern adaptation.

As Michael Andregg explains= , “Recent textual scholarship, in emphasizing the ‘original’ versions of Shakespeare’s plays, has provided a new context for justifying modifications to the texts we have scene.”[1] Yet this important evolution, as exemplified by Loncraine’s Richard III, remains plagued by a misallocated emphasis on fidelity that often discourages an investigation of the relationship between interpretation and ‘original’.

“Ric= hard Bowman, film critic for The American Spectator, praises the film's ‘consistent cleverness of its setting,’ finding that ‘in = some ways [it is] the best film adaptation of Shakespeare there has ever been.’ Yet, paradoxically, he concludes that the film ‘is not Shakespeare.’”[2]

My worry is that this criti= cal emphasis on fidelity instead of continuity is preventing both critics and scholars from recognizing and exploring the very significant achievements of postmodern Shakespearian cinema. There are important critical points within these films that critics often miss through too shallow a reading. Such fil= ms are intended to be controversial. But before someone condemns this film for= not achieving what it is meant to do, we must first identify what the intent re= ally is. Then we can debate the legitimacy of that intent and the degree to whic= h it is achieved. What critics may see as excessive and gimmicky often appears so only because particular elements are looked at in isolation from the “= ;big picture.” It is extremely difficult to see beyond what we don’t understand, and without understanding the intent of the filmmaker, it becom= es difficult to appreciate the achievements of the film. One critical review describes the film as “a time-travel experiment gone wrong,” wi= th “Fascist regalia” that “seems oddly beside the point.”[3] With all due respect to this critics opinion, I believe that it’s condemnation of Loncraine’s recontextualised Richard III is misled by a focus on “the real Shakespeare= ” that fails to realize what the “point” of the film actually is.=

Such films = are not made merely to preserve or re-produce Shakespeare through a traditional experience. Rather they are intended to explore continuity through a film t= hat breaks the traditional frame, re-imagining and exploring new contexts and relationships that can deepen our understanding of the original precisely through a departure from it. It is insufficient to simply say a film is bes= ide the point, when the point of the film is to explore that which it presents.= It is more productive to analyze the quality of such postmodern work in terms = of continuity within its presentation. Instead of asking, “is it Shakespeare,” we might better ask “what does this do to Shakespeare.” Keeping this question in mind, I believe there is much = more to say about Loncraine’s “time-travel experiment” and = 220;Fascist regalia” than such critics surmise.

Describing = his adaptation, Loncraine explains, “We tried, and I think we've succeede= d, to do something different with Shakespeare. Something that's never been done before.”[4] Inde= ed, Loncraine’s Richard III g= oes to great lengths to break new ground for the bard. Loncraine’s film re-imagines Shakespeare’s tragedy as a “suspense thriller”= ;[5], reminding us, according to one Newsweek reviewer, “that the Bard was = the Oliver Stone of his day.”[6] Part of the films success is making the complex play much more accessible to contemporary American audiences. But beyond that, Loncraine’s film of= fers a fascinating new exploration of historical continuity through Shakespeare&= #8217;s “timeless study of power, violence, and corruption”[7]

This film recontextualizes Shakespeare’s medieval play within a fascist 1930’s England. Through this new historical frame, English history itself is reinvented, as= the story of Richard’s battle for the thrown is juxtaposed with Adolph Hitler’s rise to power. Actor Ian McKellen justifies this recontextualisation through by considering the history of the play itself:<= /p>

“Mod= ern editions are an amalgam from a variety of sources-the original manuscr= ipt, before and after it was amended for performance; what his cast may have remembered having acted, when consulted months or years later by publishers; plus the imaginative accretions of subsequent editors’ McKellen, like many adaptors before and since, almost imagines himself channeling Shakespe= are, adapting the play as Shakespeare would have done, for, say, a touring production.”[8]

McKellen’s points out= that there is no true ‘original,’ only interpretations. He does point out that these interpretations have and should be guided with consideration= to their source. “‘The least I could do,’ McKellen writes, ‘was change by change, cut by cut, ask myself whether he would approve.’”[9] To the degree that this question inspires quality work, such a question can be= very helpful. But in the end it is only rhetorical, since there is no Shakespear= e to ask approval of. Playing with this idea is Pacino’s Looking for Richard, which actually features a real live Shakespeare in the audience. This scene illustrates the limits to which the question of approval can actually be productive. As often as approval can inspire quality, it may also discourage and intimidate through a feeling of inferiority. Loncraine’s Ric= hard III seems a well-balanced approach to what might meet with approval but also brings new originality to the ‘original’ text. =

After careful consideration one may find that Loncraine's film transforms Shakespeare’s play into a Nostradamus like vision of a then future and now past reign of the Hitler. The very comparison can only make us hate both villains the more as we associate ones villainy with the other. This effectively evokes a sense of revulsion beyond what Shakespeare’s original work might illicit on its own.

Most obviously we note the physical similarities between Hitler and Richard. Ric= hard appears to have the trademark Hitler mustache shaved out from the middle of= his own, perhaps a subtle way of encouraging us to fill in the blank. Styles of dress and physical deformities are also worthy of comparison. As an orator Richard, like Hitler, is deadly effective. In one particular scene we see h= im speaking before a crowd and are reminded of Hitler’s Nuremburg Rally.= The boar’s head flag is in the same color scheme as the Nazi flag. It is = easy to imagine Buckingham as Hitler’s appointed leader, Heinrich Himmler.=

Richard’s assassins remind of Hitler’s SS in all-black uniforms. In 1934 “= ;The Night of the Long Knives” saw Hitler’s SS murder many opposing leaders including Kurt von Schleicher, former Chancellor, and Roehm, the le= ader of the SA. Richard’s villainy seams to follow the same pattern. When President Hindenburg, the last remaining obstacle to complete power for Hit= ler, dies, he becomes Fuehrer, as does Richard III upon the death of King Edward. Richard III assumes absolute power, and wages war with the machines of 1940 Germany. And departing from Shakespeare’s text, Loncraine's Richard I= II commits suicide by jumping into the fire below him before allowing Richmond= to kill him. Richmond seams to represent the sweet face of America, and so Richard’s suicide may also be compared to Hitler’s suicide in h= is bunker shortly before the American’s found him.

Along with countless parallels to real people and events of the pre World War II era, Loncraine’s film also contemplates historical figures and moments that could have been. Casting American actress Annette Bening as queen Elizabeth, Robert Downey, Jr. as Lord Rivers, and Richard III as a fascist intentional= ly represent both an American and fascist presence in England’s monarchy that almost took place in the 1930s. Specifically, these characters represe= nt

“Edw= ard IV’s queen, Elizabeth, and her brother, Lord Rivers, as distinctive outsiders to the royal family, and, through dress and hair style, encourage visual allusions that suggested Bening-cum-Elizabeth, outsider wife to Edwa= rd IV, as that famous American divorcee and outsider wife to King Edward, Wall= is Simpson.”[10]

Executive p= roducer Ellen Dinerman further explains the clever logic behind this recharacterization:

It is commonly known that, upon his abdication, Edward visited Adolf Hitler, a= nd that one of his best friends was Sir Oswald Mosley, the head of EnglandR= 17;s fascist party. Intelligence reports only now being published show that had Hitler conquered England, he might have put Edward back on the throne.[11]

By recontextualizing Shakespeare’s medieval play within a fascist 1930’s England, the film effectively “provides sufficient historical distance to justify = the poetic language” as well as “enough ‘modernity’ to = make Shakespeare’s Plantagenets into contemporary figures.” But Loncraine’s achievement is not only in it’s recontextualization, but also in it’s depiction. Further complicating the experience are a= llusions to Hollywood styles and genres, mixes of British and American actors, and &= #8220;mise-en-scene, editing, and cinematography”[12]

the way th= e camera establishes the viewers' experience of the aesthetic frame. For Loncraine n= ot only fills the frame of Richard's story with vividly negative anecdotal similitude’s to a Nazi past but suspends those images—and the temporality of Richard's story—within the timeless absence of histori= city of the Hollywood gangster film.[13]

Yet another= reading of the continuity in Richard III can be “as an inspired conflation of two cinematic genres: British ‘heritage’ film and the American gangster movie.” [14]

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In terms of language change= s, this film is faithful to the letter of the text, but liberal in its collage and consolidation of different scenes. The film condenses the play through a nu= mber of means from replacing dialogue with visual cues, cutting characters and reallocating lines. In a way, the success of this collage is also an indica= tor of the continuity between scenes that allows one to be substituted for anot= her or moved out of its originally intended place.

In designing this “al= ternate reality”, the film combines real locations with Hollywood sets. Accor= ding to the DVD insert, there are over 40 locations throughout England. One of t= he most surprising decisions was to relocate the Tower of London. Tony Burrough explains, “We ended up in the basement of the old greater London Coun= cil building, using a vaulted area with open drains and pipe work running throu= gh it. Everyone knows the Tower is a famous London tourist landmark, but we didn’t want to use it. We wanted to create a more political prison, l= ike a KGB or SS headquarters. We weren’t creating reality, we were creati= ng a heightened reality.”[15]

“Loncraine gets nearl= y ten minutes into the film before using a single word of Shakespeare; by the time Richard begins his opening speech, the film has introduced not only the set= ting and background of the story but all the principal characters and their relationships”[16] The film opens with a telegram warning Henry VI of Richards advance. We are given just enough time to grow affection for the good character of Henry VI= and Prince Edward before Richard’s dramatic entrance during which he exec= utes them both. “the gas-masked invaders combined with heavy breathing of = the disguised Richard recall even more vividly the initial entrance of Darth Va= dder in Star Wars”[17] The credits roll to short but revealing scenes of each member of the royal family preparing for the celebration. First we see Richard’s stone co= ld expression, attired in military uniform, riding in back of a military color= ed limousine heading over Westminster Bridge toward the Palace; a giggling you= ng prince runs naked through a palace hall to the arms of a delighted Queen; an infirmed King Edward IV is administered his medication by a nurse as a tail= or attends him; Clarence hangs newly developed photos of his himself with his brothers, clumsily combs his hair and grabs for his camera; the Queen’= ;s brother, Rivers, dressed like a playboy, descends from an airplane and tips= and gives a phone number to his star struck flight attendant.

Then we see the family united on a balcony, Clarence sets the automatic timer to his camera and dashes up to j= oin them. The screen reads, “Edward is King. The York family celebrate th= eir victory. Now, they hope, begins their lasting joy.” We are transporte= d to a grand palace ballroom, actually shot in St. Culthbert’s Church in London, were the new royal family is celebrating. King Edward (John Wood) a= nd Queen Elizabeth (Annette Bening) dance to a big-band performance of Marlowe’s “Come Live With Me,” which set’s an ironi= c “all is well” tone, while a plethora of visual cues work to establish a su= btle but palpable tension in the room that signals that the York’s “= lasting joy” will not last. We see that the newly planted King Edward IV is o= ld and feeble as he struggles in dancing with his much younger wife, Richmond dancing with Princess Elizabeth under the scornful eye of the visibly defor= med Richard. Cold glances from his mother reveal their sour relationship. Looks= of contempt abound as Rivers greets the Queen. A triangle of looks beginning w= ith Richard to the King to Clarence clue us to Richards’s guilt as we see= his brother Clarence carried out by guards. This sequence “reveals that t= he film will operate not so much as a series of textual exchanges, but though a pattern of interwoven and overlapping visual codes derived from historical = and film iconography.”[18]

When at last Richard takes = the Jazz performs stage to deliver the first lines on Shakespeare, the camera zooms = in on his moustache, which, along with his haircut, are “iconically link= ed to Hitler” Half way through the speech we are transported to a the ro= yal bathroom, (actually shot in the Holbein room at historic Strawberry House,) where he continues while urinating, and then, talking to himself in the mir= ror, seems to catch sight of an imaginary camera and turns to deliver discourse directly to us.

When Richard directly and intimately addresses his audience, and comments upon himself as a performer, it result= s in a reflexive frame break-a mixing of levels of being. It is entirely consist= ent with the methods of framing in Shakespeare’s play that Loncraine̵= 7;s film should violate his audiences experience of the frame through methods Richard employs with others, such as breaching boundaries in face-to-face interactions.[19]

We wonder if, in the openin= g scene when he is in the urinal talking about how he was “rudely stampedR= 21; if he is sexually deformed. “From the film’s outset, McKellen portrays Richard as a sexual outsider: he is alienated from his family beca= use of his incapacity to continue the York Line in any form” [20] Richard uses his deformity as a weapon, slapping Hastings with his deformed= arm before having him executed. Richard seems to find sexual gratification only through homicide. He refuses to sleep with his wife, though he describes ho= w he killed her husband for love of her. He seams aroused as he looks at the pho= tos of Hastings hanging as if they were pornographic. He also gives an orgasmic sigh with a mouth full of chocolate when Tirle agrees to kill the youngling= s. Phallic imagery is everywhere, from the tower of London were he keeps his brother who is murdered naked in the tub, to massive gun on the tank that breaks through the wall of Henry VI headquarters in the opening scene befor= e he executes the King and Prince. He has Rivers stabbed though the stomach while having sex, and he even verbally relates to sexuality and death when he tal= ks of marrying his niece, “if I have killed the issue of your womb / to quicken your increase, I will beget / Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter” (IV.iv.296-98)

This rehistoricised and recontextualised production becomes an alternate reality to the more traditional experience. In designing this “alternate reality”, = the filmmakers very deliberately address issues continuity that enhance that can enhance the experience in a number of ways. This film effectively renders Shakespeare’s Richard III= more accessible to contemporary audiences, as well as opening up new creative interpretations for those already familiar with Shakespeare’s text. <= /p>
Leah Marcus observes that "our recovery of the past is always interpretation = and self-interpretation."57 In the mirror held up by Hollywood we begin to understand our relationship to our monsters, but only when the materials of= the film's imaginary style and "past" break down. The logic of the cinematic form itself liberates the viewer from an interpretative clos= ure that brackets the past from the present. "Only by facing the past,&quo= t; writes German historian Richard Leicht, "can we be free. We are our own past."58 Loncraine's film gives us a view into the experience of that past, not as a realistic record of life in fascist Europe in the 193os, but= as the cinematic experience of history. Richard's story is a projection of that which the civilized world demonizes as monstrous and perverse, in that what= the viewer sees is not the image itself but what exists in the "space betw= een image and viewer, a meeting point of desire, meaning, and interpretation."59

From Richmond and Richard, = from Medieval to Postmodern, from the Globe to Hollywood, the destructive temptations of sex, money, and power are as timeless as indiscriminate. Loncraine’s production offers a highly accessible window into a timel= ess history of such human villainy, apparent in political themes of power, violence, and corruption and social problems ranging from materialism to infanticide. While there are many ways of reading into the film, its though= tful originality is certainly a valuable contribution to both Shakespearians and Postmodernist thinkers alike.