by Moe Zilla

Created on: July 04, 2008

Al Pacino spent four years on a special movie - part dramatic film, part documentary - which reveals Shakespeare's greatest villain. Pacino interviews people on the street for their feelings about Shakespeare - as well as Shakespearean actors like Kenneth Brannagh and Sir John Gielgud - while the documentary captures actors debating the motives of their characters.

But the film cuts suddenly to excellent recreations of the scenes - in a royal court, a medieval cloister, or even the field in England where Richard faces his final battle. Sometimes different performances will be spliced together, emphasizing key moments. Many scenes end suddenly, jumping back to the present where Pacino and his actors discuss the characters and the plot. Context surrounds the dramatic scenes, reducing Shakespeare's second-longest play to its essential essence. And the performances are fantastic.

Winona Ryder plays the widow of Richard's first victim, dazed by grief and contempt, who ultimately succombs to his charm. ("I will not keep her long," Richard gloats smugly, before a dry and evil cackle.) Kevin Spacey plays the Earl of Buckingham, registering doubts when asked by Richard if he'd kill two young prisoners in the Tower. The hapless Duke of Clarence pleads for his life with two wavering murderers - and his pleas for mercy receive a surprisingly convincing reading from Alec Baldwin. But Baldwin acknowledges on the DVD that audiences don't want to see Richard the III, "they want to see Al Pacino's relationship with Richard 3." And Pacino dives into the role, showing the British king's ruthless conniving - and his ultimate awareness of his wickedness.

Pacino began imagining the film 30 years ago while explaining Shakespeare's plays to college audiences during the 1970s. The 1996 film finally documents his visits to historic sites - the Tower of London, the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's birthplace - and records his conversations about the relevance of Shakespeare today. A man on the street argues that English words have gotten too far from the heart, and it's Shakespeare that can teach Americans to feel again. Actors and scholars are shown passionately sharing their feelings about the play - but Pacino is obviously the most enthusiastic of them all.

Pacino directed the film himself, though he thanks his editor on the DVD for highlighting the meaning of the footage by careful juxtaposition. ("I showed him reams of film," Pacino says in an epilogue - and in fact, 80 hours of footage was shot before the film was trimmed down to below two hours.) It shows a real faith in both the actors and the play, since in the end Pacino wasn't just filming scenes from a play, but the behind-the-scenes energy, a kind of actor's studio workshop on a classic play. Pacino hints at the real drama in the movie's clever title.

It wasn't "Richard the III" - It was "Looking for Richard"...

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