Shakespeare on Screen: Richard III (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shakespeare on Screen: Richard III Curtis Breights Shakespeare on Screen: Richard III. Edited by Sarah Hatchuel and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin. Rouen: Publications de l’Université de Rouen, 2005. Pp. 333. €22.00 (paper). Ever since the arrival of the Shakespeare-on-Film auteur Kenneth Branagh some 20 years ago, the cultural apparatus has produced a plethora of diverse Shakespearean adaptations for cinema and television. There are now so many cultural artifacts that it is easy to justify generating books devoted to adaptations of single plays, such as Shakespeare on Screen: Richard III. This fine collection, edited by Sarah Hatchuel and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin, arose from a two-day conference at the University of Rouen in 2005. It contains “thirteen articles, one filmo-bibliography and one filmic object.” This volume is different from similar volumes in that it captures the feel of the conference itself by including “Discussions” from the participants at the end of each essay. The “filmic object,” which did not come with my copy, is Gérard Dallez’s 2005 video, Looking for Anne. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll briefly treat each essay in the order in which it appears, since the editors do not divide the contributions into sections. In “Reorchestrating Shakespeare’s music: language and sound in Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard,” Ariane Hudelet explains how “the film is a lesson on how to hear and how to listen” (30). She asserts that “we know that the film was first made to be shown in American high schools” (23), but I’d like to see a footnote regarding precisely how we know this, since it seems crucial to issues of reception. This article is valuable because, as Hatchuel comments, “sound and music are very often overlooked in film studies” (37). A movie such as Aki Kaurismäki’s Hamlet Goes Business (1987) is perhaps the best example of why an aural approach can yield fascinating insights into filmic construction. In “‘Change shapes with Proteus for advantages’: the hybridization of film form in Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard,” Sébastien Lefait argues that in attempting to adapt Richard III for [End Page 143] stage or screen, Pacino discovered that he needed a new form, and that “this film form, just like the play and character created by Shakespeare, should operate in the twilight zone of illusion and reality, i.e., somewhere at the border between documentary and fiction” (58). He concludes that Pacino achieves a new form “created to look for the truth of the play here and now, and not . . . for its previous reality” (60), and hence that it “should be considered as a very successful adaptation of Richard III” (60–61). As the editors affirm, one strength of this volume is its eclecticism. Mariangela Tempera’s “Winters and horses: references to Richard III on film and television” mines a rich vein of allusions to the play. Readers interested in tracking down several subtle references should consult this essay. Curiously, the essay itself does not seem to contain a definitive argument regarding the allusions, which might be difficult in any case. But the author, in response to a question regarding the value of “this montage” for a university student analyzing the play, avers that it might not teach him much about Richard III, “but he will learn something about the reception of Richard III at the level of popular culture” (87). In a different approach to multiple works, Mark Thornton Burnett’s “Parodying with Richard” addresses four artifacts: The Goodbye Girl (1977), the first episode of Black Adder (1983), Freaked (1993), and The Street King (2002). He argues that these diverse works “share a parodic energy,” and that they “parodically mine and mime Richard III in such a way as to mediate perceived sources of authority, and the place of marginality and alterity, at the contemporary moment” (92). This essay is especially valuable for its analysis of The Street King, a film that has not yet garnered much in the way of extended critical attention. Although I found myself disagreeing with some of its conclusions regarding the film, it remains a stimulating and informative discussion. One of the best essays...