Richard Loncraine and Laurence Olivier's film versions of William Shakespeare's Richard III stage two extremely dissimilar versions of Clarence's speech relating his dream of drowning. The ways in which each presentation succeed and fail suggests that for such a speech to be wholly effective on film, the director must make some concessions to the theatrical mode of Shakespeare presentation. Loncraine's version, while occasionally deficient in this regard, compensates through its more imaginative visual presentation.

One obvious way in which a film presentation of a Shakespeare play can improve on a theatrical performance is in bringing the audience closer to the actor than a theater seat could, stressing nuances of performance that a live presentation could not do justice to. If this is the director's approach, the least they must do is accentuate the actor's performance through cutting, camera angles and setting so as not to merely serve the viewer filmed theater. In Olivier's film, the presentation of Clarence's speech is extremely basic, yet very effective. The speech is delivered during the course of three shots. The camerawork is fluid, but not excessively so, following Clarence as he paces his cell, describing the horrors of the ocean. Olivier does not intrude, allowing the focus to remain on Gielgud. Throughout the speech Olivier's directorial hand is visible less in his camera technique than in the film's mise-en-scène; Clarence's cell is a black shadowy void, a crucifix on the wall represents his character's eventual return to God, and the light streaming from his window represents that inevitable spiritual rescue, even in face of the grim reality his dream foretells.

One way in which the earlier Richard III betters the Loncraine version is in containing a longer version of Clarence's speech. By preserving more of Shakespeare's text, he enables Gielgud to achieve a stronger emotional climax than Nigel Hawthorne does in the Loncraine film. Hawthorne's relatively sedate reading is further hampered by Loncraine's visual presentation. At one point, as Hawthorne is being led from his cell and is describing his dream, he turns away from the camera. By hiding Clarence's face, Loncraine alienates the viewer from him; the emotional power of the words are blunted simply by not showing the expression on his face. When walking in the tower's outside courtyard, Hawthorne delivers the rest of his speech during the downpour of a thunderstorm, an effect more distracting than illuminating. Hawthorne's reading is subtle and understated, and is momentarily overwhelmed by the special effects that surround him. Although in these moments Loncraine's visuals are unfortunately overpowering, elsewhere in the course of the speech they are more effectively integrated.

Both Olivier's and Loncraine's films exploit the medium's visual potential by using framing to emphasize Clarence's isolation and imprisonment, in a literal sense and the more conceptual sense of his isolation from his royal compatriots and his entrapment in Richard's malevolent scheming. In Olivier's film, we first see Clarence in his cell through a barred window, the view of his bed partially obscured by its black shape. Loncraine's version expands on Clarence's vulnerability: we first see Clarence sitting alone in his cell, surrounded and dwarfed by the twisting shapes of the tower's pipes and plumbing, suggestive of the web of treachery that he is trapped within. At the end of his truncated speech, as Clarence wanders outside in the rain, the camera pulls back to show him as a tiny figure alone and trapped within the ugly expanse of the courtyard, suggesting his ultimate date with oblivion. Clarence's entrapment is further emphasized by the scenes that precede and follow his speech; Richard is shown bargaining with Clarence's murderers among animal pens, filled with creatures imprisoned and probably doomed to death as Clarence is.

It is also notable that the Loncraine film supplies another visual representation for Clarence's entrapment at the same moment that it distances the viewer from him; as he walks away from the camera, back turned, he is viewed through the bars of a cell door, a shot similar to the one that opened Gielgud's speech in the Olivier film. Loncraine also provides other visual elements that inform the speech, even as his cinematic technique undermines Hawthorne's delivery. As he describes the sensation of drowning, he stands next to a filthy and stagnant moat, and the downpour that punctuates its conclusion is obviously symbolic. Like the caged animals, it is an example where Loncraine realizes Shakespeare's text through powerful visual metaphors, that at times overwhelm the text itself. Having Clarence killed in a bathtub is not only a realization of his dream, but also serves to emphasize his vulnerability, perhaps more effectively than Hawthorne's performance does. It is through these visual echoes that Loncraine's film displays more imagination and thematic complexities than Olivier's version, even as it occasionally sacrifices the power of Shakespeare's words themselves.

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