I watched the movie Looking for Richard last night and it easily became one of my favorites of the year. Directed by Al Pacino, it’s a movie about making a movie version of Richard III. The back-story is basically this: Al wins the Oscar for Scent of a Woman 1992 and then takes four years “off” to produce and direct Richard III, all on his own dime, filming not only the various acts and scenes of the play itself, but everything else in between. This includes interviews with actors, personal thoughts on the text, interviews with British experts and scholars, more thoughts on the text, and so on. It sounds disjointed but it’s actually really coherent and organized (apparently they had months and months of film footage that had to be edited down to movie length. The editors of this thing should probably have gotten an Academy Award). Down-to-earth, extremely thoughtful, and thoroughly enjoyable, it’s just a great analysis of everything and anything Richard III. And it’s funny too. For example, it starts with the following joke about the perils of miscasting a Shakespeare play, told by Al himself:
"John Wayne is cast as Hamlet and, as you would think, does a terrible job. During the play, the crowd is booing and throwing things at him because he’s so bad. Finally, at the end, he comes out and addresses the audience, excusing himself by exclaiming “Don’t blame me…I didn’t write this shit.”Love it. For a guy like me, in the middle of a huge geek-out on Shakespeare, I felt like I had found a kindred spirit, albeit a much more involved, studied, and talented one. So, if you have any interest in deepening your understanding and appreciation for Shakespeare's Richard III, this is most definitely the movie for you.
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