Comparing Richard III And Pacino's Looking For Richard

Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ and Pacino’s ‘Looking for Richard’ ground the evil of Richard differently in their respective texts. Shakespeare’s Richard is not merely an ambitious villain, but the personification of a metaphysical evil – a Machiavellian prince whose vice-like character is derived from the medieval morality play. Broad contextual shifts have resulted in Pacino recreating a villain for our times, emphasising mainly the political characteristics of a tyrant-king rendered recognisable to a modern audience. Out of all of the numerous characteristics of human nature Shakespeare delved upon in Richard III and by extension Pacino in Looking for Richard, none are more compelling or personal than the human conscience.

Driven by a protestant
The Elizabethan context alleges that conscience is a religious duty whilst the dominant modern American audience attributes it to a secular moral responsibility. Pacino has omitted the dialogue between Clarence’s murderers as they reveal their fear of the divine price of their murderous behaviour. Instead, he chooses to focus the conversation on their own individual guilty consciences and the impact on their lives “Faith, certain dregs of conscience are here within me”. Pacino chooses to cut out the religious rhetoric to highlight that although the ideas remain pertinent, Elizabethan values are to an extent, irrelevant to the twentieth century audience. Rapid camera movements of Richard depict him as a tormented, fragmented and psychologically unstable man. Richard is haunted by the ghost of his conscience and ultimately, is punished by his madness rather than his death. ‘Looking for Richard’ emphasises that there is no fear of divine retribution but the impact of their immoral behaviour is on their individual identity. In the twentieth century context justice comes in the form of their own psychological fragmentation and guilty conscience, rather than sanctioned by