Richard III Vs. Looking For Richard

8 Pages 2002 Words

particularly need to know the background information of the story, as the parts we need to know are shown within the movie, even parts that occurred before Shakespeare’s play begins. Looking for Richard unfortunately does not do this in this fashion, but rather cuts out of the play to show Pacino talking about it, which is quite difficult to get your head around- because the movie jumps in and out like this quite often. In McKellen’s version, you don’t particularly need to know that it is the War of the Roses, but rather sit back and enjoy the movie for what it is.

To understand the two movies in both cases, you obviously must understand the characters as well. The way’s the characters are presented in each film easily reflect the way the film is presented overall. In Looking for Richard, the characters are greatly exaggerated (especially in terms of their way of speaking); much in the same way as Shakespeare’s other plays are also presented. In my opinion, the language is the most important aspect in Pacino’s presentation, and so I think this is the reason the actors exaggerate this so greatly. However, in Richard III, the emphasis is on the story itself, and so the language is simply incorporated into the story. If the story had been the most important aspect of Pacino’s version, than Pacino would not have cut in and out of scenes the way he did. Pacino was more interested in explaining the story and language, rather than entertaining the audience in the same way as Richard III. Simply compare the characters from either movie and yo...