Shakespeare on Screen: Richard Loncraine's "Richard III"

Spoilers Below

How do you make Shakespeare cinematic?  As a filmmaker you have to tell the story through the visuals as much through Shakespeare's words.  You have to provide a strong context in which the story of the play is being told, something visually distinct that compliments the story. For this piece I'm going to be looking at Richard Loncraine's  Richard III- starring Ian McKellen and based on a 1990 stage version starring McKellen and directed by Richard Eyre- and highlighting how the filmmakers made the film one of the most cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare's plays.

In discussing how Loncraine's tells the story visually it's best to start at the film's beginning, with the near dialogue-less murder of King Henry VI (Edward Jewesbury) and his son Prince Edward (Christopher Bowen) by Richard of Gloucester (McKellen). We start with a close-up of a ticker tape message, warning of Richard's approach to the Henry's mansion  headquarters. Some time later a tank bursts through the wall and Richard and his men attack while wearing gas masks. The sound design envelops the audience in Richard's breathing, just as how his family will be enveloped by his machinations. The ticker tape and the World War II imagery establishes the film's context, which is an alternate 1930s England. The setting is both modern in relation to the play's1400s setting but still in the past. Just like Shakespeare's audience knew of the real Richard III, contemporary audience understand who Hitler was, whom the film will create parallels with Richard. But more on that later.

I like how Loncraine stages the murder; Richard bursts in to Henry's room, with Henry in the foreground praying and Richard in the background. The camera closes in on Richard as he shoots Henry, leaving his death to the imagination. We also have the dark humour of a praying man being sent to heaven by a devil. Richard then takes off his mask, revealing himself to the audience. This opening scene and reveal provides Richard a striking cinematic entrance. It shows Richard's ruthlessness and makes him scary to the audience right from the outset 

The film continues to  introduce its other characters visually as we see Richard's family, the Yorks, preparing for and then at a party celebrating Richard's brother, Edward's (John Wood) ascention to the throne after Henry's death. After these introductions we hear the first lines of the play. "Now is the winter of discontent" is usually delivered to the audience but here Richard delivers it to Edward and his party guests, praising his newly crowned brother. As the speech continues the camera closes in on Richard's teeth, emphasizing his growing anger. We then we cut to Richard entering the bathroom as he reveals his bitterness to us. Editor Paul Green visually establishes Richard's two-faced nature and the contrast between public celebration and private bitterness. And Richard in a bathroom peeing as he's talking about his brother is  a nice bit of visual humour.

Location and setting are integral to how a film visually tells its story. Let's look at the film's setting, which I touched on earlier Shakespeare's play was already a fictionalized version of the real Richard III's life. Co-screenwriters Loncraine and McKellen do something similar, crafting their own alternate history- a 1930s England which gives way to fascism. This provides a visually distinct context in which to place the story and allows for visual parallels between Hitler, the Nazis, and Richard. In the scene where Richard agrees to become King Richard and his followers are dressed in black military uniforms like those of the SS. It's not subtle but it gets across the film's ideas in a purely visual way. The main idea is that Shakespeare's Richard, like Hitler, manipulated his way to power and that tyrannical rulers have always existed throughout history. Shakespeare could have written about Hitler if he lived during WWII.  

I now want to look at several of the film's locations. First, I want to say production designer Tony Burrough's work doesn't overwhelm the words or story, largely because he took a realistic rather than stylized approach to them. The first example relates to Richard arranging for his brother Clarence (Nigel Hawthorne) to  be taken to the tower, where he will have him killed. During his time in the tower Clarence has a horrible dream of drowning, which he recounts. In the play the scene takes place in Clarence's jail cell but in the film a guard takes him outside where it begins to rain, an clear visual metaphor for Clarence's dream. It also foreshadows him being drowned in his tub by men under Richard's orders.

Another significant location in the film is the morgue where Lady Anne (Kristen Scott Thomas) sees her dead husband, the aforementioned Prince Edward. In the play Anne is speaking over her father in law King Henry's coffin but the film makes a strong visual choice setting the scene in a morgue. It makes Richard's seduction of Anne even more grotesque and shocking. And like Clarence's death, Anne's death is foreshadowed by putting her in a place of death. The setting also symbolizes Richard being a man surrounded by and unfazed by death.

One other location I like is Richard's private theatre. When Richard tells the Duke of  Buckingham (Jim Broadbent) that Edward's widow Queen Elizabeth's (Annette Bening) young sons need to die so he can be secure as King he's watching a film of himself being coronated. We see Richard's arrogance but also that same arrogance being undercut by his fear of the princes.  

The murder of one of the princes and two other murders which occur offstage in the play are portrayed in visually memorable ways in the film. Elizabeth's brother Rivers (Robert Downey, Jr.) is stabbed from underneath a bed, Hastings (Jim Carter) is shown hung from an extremely low angle, with a use of shadows and light that invokes a film noir kind of shot. And we get a flashback one of the princes being suffocated by a red cloth. We can see the the outline of his face through the cloth, making the suffocation even more sickening to watch 

On the subject of what is portrayed onscreen that is left offstage in the play, the film gives a silent role to Elizabeth's daughter Princess Elizabeth (Kate Steavenson-Payne), the future Queen of England and wife of Henry VII, Richmond (Dominic West). Visually, it was important to Loncraine and McKellen to give Elizabeth a presence due to these factors. It also makes her a silent witness to the film's events.  And those events end with Richard's death. Richard received a cinematic entrance and he receives a cinematic exit as well, willfully falling in to a ball of fire during a confrontation with Richmond during the end battle. Richard's fall is accompanied by Al Jolson's "I'm On Top of the World." This all makes Richard's death oddly triumphant. He was on top of the world, he was King and he went out on his own terms. 

So, now I turn it you. What do you think of Loncraine and McKellen's interpretation of Richard III and its use of setting and location?  Comment and let me know.