Dreams play a major role in the text of Richard III. Often premonitions of tragedies to come visit characters in their sleep, as well as ghosts to tell of their approaching revenge. Both Clarence and Richard himself experience these forms of dreamy prophecy, respectively. The means of their experience and their reactions thereto, however, vary widely between the play's text and the film versions of Olivier and Loncraine. Film possesses the capability of showing a dream as it happens in the subconscious mind of the character, whereas a play must use other means to display this. This allows film viewers often to relate more closely to the characters, establishing a connection less likely in the theatre. However, when the theatrical element is completely removed from a film, some of the most important and beautiful parts of the text disappear, essentially pushing the viewer away. Therefore, the two film interpretations of the dreams of Clarence and Richard display a need for a necessary balance of filmic and theatrical elements in order to keep the beauty of the text without alienating the audience.

In the play, the ghosts of those slain by Richard's hand appear in turn while he sleeps, cursing him for his deeds and thereby arousing his guilty conscience. However, they also appear to Richmond, giving him encouragement to win in the next day's battle. Since the ghosts appear to both characters, and it is unlikely that Richard and Richmond would have the same dream, the ghosts cannot be figments of Richard's subconscious imagination but actual supernatural beings. Richard's guilt, therefore, rises to the surface thanks to an external force, alienating from the play any viewer who has not been visited by the ghosts of people he has murdered.

In Loncraine's film version, however, a close up shot shows the face of the sleeping Richard obviously in the midst of a fitful dream. The lighting creates a pale green, ghostly effect in the room. In the background, as Richard sweats and twitches, the viewer hears the echoed voices of characters that have cursed or in some way reprimanded Richard. These voices arouse the king's guilty conscience, which jerks him from his slumbers. The use of a separate soundtrack to show a guilty conscience brought on by repeated lines while showing a close up face shot allows the director to discard the external means necessary in a theatre production to draw out the conscience. The ghosts are gone from this film version, and the subconscious emerges as the unambiguous bearer of guilt. The alienation caused by the ghosts, therefore, becomes irrelevant. However, the prophecies spoken by the ghosts in the text, "despair and die," for example also disappear. Foreshadow and prophecy, two important elements of the play, do not appear in the Loncraine version. Thus, while it establishes a connection with the audience, it also alienates it from much of the message of the text.

By taking advantage of the medium of film but keeping much of the text, Olivier's version of Richard's dream creates a balance of the theatrical and filmic elements. While the text makes use of ghosts to awaken Richard's conscience and Loncraine uses a dream, Olivier leaves the decision to the viewer. He creates an ambiguous scene, interpretable as displaying a conscience aroused by either supernatural or subconscious forces. The scene starts with the camera panning away from Richmond's tents at night towards the darkened battlefield. It pans all the way across until Richard's tent appears in the bottom left corner. A series of cuts follows, first to a long shot of Richard fitfully asleep on his bed, then back to the battlefield where a greenish light appears and shimmers, then back to a close up of Richard's sweating face. This creates the effect of whatever we see on the battlefield moving closer to Richard's head and possibly into his dream. The next cut shows the battlefield again, this time with a bright, moving light, out of which emerges in turn the ghostly apparitions of Clarence and the two princes. They say their lines from the text, accenting "despair and die." The scene then cuts back to a close up of Richard, again creating the effect of him experiencing the ghostly apparitions as we do. After another cut to the battlefield, the apparitions of Hastings and Anne emerge in turn, say their lines, and float dreamily back into the light. Complete darkness follows, and the apparition of Buckingham flies screaming towards the camera, whose face fades into that of Richard, who is in the process of a fearful and startled waking. When Ratcliffe enters the tent, a shaken Richard exclaims "I have dreamed."

This scene leaves the answer to the question whether ghosts or a dream have aroused Richard's conscience unanswered. Richard himself seems sure that he dreamed, however the apparitions resemble what we may imagine as a ghost. The apparitions speak the lines of the ghosts in the play, yet the use of film allows them to appear to the viewer as if they spoke inside Richard's dream. Therefore, by combining the filmic and theatrical elements in this scene, Olivier does not alienate the audience with unrealistic ghosts or lost lines. He draws us in further by forcing us to ask a question and form our own interpretation, whether Richard was haunted by supernatural ghosts or his own subconscious.

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