How Al Pacino's 'Looking for Richard' in its entirety uses the potential of film as a medium of communication or an art form is not the burden of this essay. Rather, it is the purpose of this essay to examine how the fragments of Richard III, the play, as enveloped in Pacino's film, have transcended their seemingly inherent theatricality to become a living play beyond the film. Two scenes are considered as an example of a pattern which occurs throughout the film, and consists of blending the documentary reality of 'looking to understand' and the end-product of the quest as played by costumed actors in a historic setting. The two scenes are the last scene of Act I (murder of Clarence) and the first scene of Act II (the reconciliation scene).

Critics of Pacino's film may well say that his expert usage of camera and editing falls short(est) precisely in his renderings of actual play scenes. The costumed scenes in a historic setting can be criticized for the lack of invention, risk or subtle meaning, as they appear as short clips of actors playing out the basic plot, almost merely to confirm the reading of the scene that actors have come to in the 'documentary part' discussions. Logic would advise any attempt similar to Pacino's that documentary style must necessarily detract from the believability of the playscenes. The realistic setting of actors reading Richard III should, logically, draw attention to playscenes as such, i.e. artistic inventions of a long-dead playwright, characters played by actors who walk our modern-day streets, dialogue that is written for them rather than spoken as felt emotion or a reaction to events, etc. . However, 'Looking for Richard' is an astonishingly successful symbiosis of documentary realism and the play, wherein one reinforces rather than detracts from the other and vice versa both in terms of meaning and suspension of disbelief on part of viewers. This symbiosis develops not instantaneously but through the film progression, and in a sense the film's real purpose is entirely dependent upon its success (what would Pacino have said about understanding or communicating Shakespeare if his attempt and his final offering had been disjointed one from the other?). The success of this symbiosis is the essential filmic characteristic of Pacino's work, that is, the playscenes' success is not inherent to them but to the way they interact with the documentary parts of the film.

Symbiosis between the playscenes and the documentary is achieved through careful editing the purpose of which is to achieve parallelism between the two elements. The play is being played simultaneously as actors discuss the scenes so that their discussion, or their reading the play, is blended into what looks like a final staging. At first this process is timid and gradual (Al Pacino begins Richard's opening scene discussing the soliloquy with Frederick, or scholars in interviews, and only after that do we see him as Richard in Richard's attire performing it. As the movie progresses, this blending process becomes bolder, cuts are made from a reading of the play to its performance without transitions, and they run both ways - counter intuitively from the 'staging' back to the reading. These sequences are put together in such a manner that their parallel continuity is emphasized over their potential discontinuity.

The viewer is consequently left with a sense that the play is happening as 'we' (the real people in the documentary with whose quest we are made to identify) are reading it. The play, Richard III, comes alive not as a work of art, or a product of discussions and conclusions, but as an alter reality that unfolds itself unstoppably not in some distant past, but in an everlasting present tense of its own. This effect is identical to the effect produced by a production on stage or on film of Richard III once the audience is immersed in the action and the characters, consequently accepting them as real and not as actors of fiction. This is of extreme importance because it creates the illusion of accessability not only to the playtext, but to the play itself. The initial two-fold parallelism consisting of the documentary and the staging of the play produces a third level: the play itself, somewhat reachable by the first two elements, but entirely self-sufficient and independent, and as unstoppable as the passage of time.

The turning point of the above described process is in Pacino's treatment of the murder of Clarence and the reconciliation scene. It is in this sequence that the staging of the play and the documentary first produce the effect of a play that is alive in its own reality. A subtle foreshadowing reveals this as we see Pacino and not Richard giving the murderers their warrant in a medieval setting (thus the documentary and the play worlds blend entirely). As Pacino becomes Richard in our eyes (and ceases to be Al Pacino), Richard is given life as a film character whose existence transcends the boundaries of the frame. He can move and maneuver, as Pacino says himself, implying what Bazin once noted in more specific terms: "In the theatre the drama proceeds from the actor; in the cinema it goes from the decor to the man" (Bazin in Davies, p. 8).

Pacino uses the film medium to emphasize the temporal parallelism between the murder of Clarence and the reconciliation scene. In a theatre production one could not have both scenes playing at the same time, but film allows Pacino to achieve the sense of parallel action. The sequence begins with a shot of Clarence sleeping while the murderers enter and discuss their 'dregs of conscience'. Background voices of Pacino and Kimball explain that 'meanwhile' the king has summoned everyone for the reconciliation scene. We see the king sitting in his throne, the others gathering, and we watch this together with Pacino and others as they review the take for a second before a cut to the real scene, in color. Even the actors in the documentary seem absorbed watching the play on the TV screen, so much so that we forget that they are watching the product of their own labors. We start to see the play as separate from them, existing as such. Powerfully dramatic and solemn music connects the two scenes in their chronological unity. The king is a crucial element in this birth of the play as he is the only actor never seen in his contemporary clothes, as an actor. He is the anchor of the play as the thing. He does not exist outside of it.

Pacino and Kimball comment on the importance of reconciliation in the background. There's a cut to the tower, as Clarence wakes, and realizes that he is to be murdered if he does not awake a sense of repentance in the murderers. The two scenes are parallel in many ways. One is dark, the other light. The darkness is the background of the white and fearful hope of reconciliation. Both are shot almost exclusively with close-ups or medium close-ups. The Clarence scene is emotional and tense. The entire sequence is referred to by actors not in terms of first person pronouns, but as 'they', and 'there', both of which exist not only for us in the audience, but for the cast as well. The actors wonder: 'do they really believe all this?', and Kimball makes the argument for solemn vows and their sincerity. The reconciliation scene is being played out as he speaks, and the cunning smile on Queen's face seems to rebuke his argument. She says: 'So thrive I and mine'. At this point the play has transcended the understanding of its players, and has become larger than them in the infinities of meaning that it can offer. As blood spurts over the face of the repented murderer, the king's circle vows the cease-fire of hatred, ignorant of the violence that Richard has already commenced in order to achieve the throne. Equally ignorant seem the actors following the reconciliation scene o their TV screen.

In the entire sequence of scenes we see our actors as actors playing out the same scene only for a split second as Rivers shakes Dorset's hand, yet that shot is accepted not as part of the play itself (in the play there's no reason for Rivers to shake his nephew's hand anyway), but our willingness to become psychologically tied to the characters, so much so that we are trying to get into their shoes and understand them by repeating, not creating, their experiences. The flow of the play is also interrupted by Pacino and Kimball commenting in the background, or absorbed into the moving TV-screen image of the king, or others asking for clarification thus bowing before the play as unreachable to them in its entirety. These interruptions are underlined by the same score that is primarily there in place of passage of time, and is complemented by the fact that we never get back to the scene where we left it, but somewhere further on, as far as it would have gotten during the interruption on its own. All of these devices are repeatedly used throughout the film when the play is fused with documentary qualities to maintain the unrelenting rhythm of a play that is happening, with or without us.

As the king retires to his chamber, the setting changes, and it is a modern day party still underlined with medieval music supposedly played there live. While actors discuss life and Shakespeare, the king seems to be dying alone in the next room, listening to the same music (and conversation) which now provides for unity of both space and time. He dies, the queen sobs, and our actors gather to watch his death on their TV-screen, shocked and worried about the future of both their project (which seems to be getting ahead of them) and the plot of the play: 'what next?'. Again, their identification with the characters in the play mimics the identification of the movie's audience rather than the inner identification of the actor with his character.

Although the scenes of the play are adapted to the screen very well in their ability to manipulate film space in order to achieve psychological meaning, they still remain in our minds part of the play. However, the real achievement of this movie is precisely the illusion of a play which is not a movie nor a staged perfomance, but an existing and living account of people who are thereby represented. The play, fragments of which we are fortunate to have glimpsed at, is fully living and transcends the boundaries of this film. It seems to not matter whether the actors here gathered have assumed some part in this play merely as actors. In the eyes of the viewer, they have merely identified with it as we do while we try to grasp the infinity of its existence. Al Pacino is an excellent example of this process of identification and absorption, as he himself becomes Richard, entirely inseparable from Richard in whatever setting towards the end, swallowed by the play. Yet, masterfully, the film does not alienate us from the play while indicating our inability to grasp it, on the contrary, our frustration and the frustration of the film itself is contagious: we wish to know and understand more than is given because we sense that most of it has been upheld. If Pacino wished to plant a seed of insatiable curiosity about Richard III by providing delicious crumbs and withholding all else with subtle self-constraint, he may deserve more praise for the intelligence of 'Looking for Richard' than he has received.

(c) 1999 by the author. All rights reserved.