King Richard and Al Pacino HSC Essay
Question- “Analyse how the central values portrayed in King Richard 3 are creatively reshaped in Looking for Richard.
Within art and literature, the context of the composer and audience significantly affects the ideal and values embedded in a text. Shakespeare’s play King Richard III reflects an Elizabethan context bound by a belief in a divinely ordained world order and consequently examines how the nature of power and ambition is gained through using human susceptibility to deception and manipulation. However in Looking for Richard, Al Pacino creatively reshapes Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard’s quest for power with postmodern ambiguity and secular beliefs to unchanging elements of human nature and the continuing struggle to discriminate between appearance and reality. The interweaving of Shakespeare and cinematography celebrates the power of art to illuminate humanity’s continuing preoccupation with human frailty and to both reflect and shape the dominant values of different contexts.
Reflecting Elizabethan moral absolutes, Shakespeare acknowledges that a capacity for deception, manipulation and the quest for power is central to the human condition and clearly delineates the complex nature of evil in the character of Richard. Shakespeare dramatically portrays Richard’s villainous intentions and motivations to the Elizabethan audience in the opening soliloquy announcing- “he is made villain” to “usurp” the throne like a symbolic “usurping boar” being physically and morally “deformed” by his craving for power. Subsequently, Richard uses his guises as a tool for deception; he is a passionate lover desperately “wooing Lady Anne” yet a conniving murderer killing her husband, also ironically appearing to be a “loyal loving brother” by eradicating “George” himself. Shakespeare then reaffirms the results of human’s corruption and insatiability for power to the Elizabethan audience as he “proves a villain” must “fall prey to his” own “subtle and treacherous”
Within art and literature, the context of the composer and audience significantly affects the ideal and values embedded in a text. Shakespeare’s play King Richard III reflects an Elizabethan context bound by a belief in a divinely ordained world order and consequently examines how the nature of power and ambition is gained through using human susceptibility to deception and manipulation. However in Looking for Richard, Al Pacino creatively reshapes Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard’s quest for power with postmodern ambiguity and secular beliefs to unchanging elements of human nature and the continuing struggle to discriminate between appearance and reality. The interweaving of Shakespeare and cinematography celebrates the power of art to illuminate humanity’s continuing preoccupation with human frailty and to both reflect and shape the dominant values of different contexts.
Reflecting Elizabethan moral absolutes, Shakespeare acknowledges that a capacity for deception, manipulation and the quest for power is central to the human condition and clearly delineates the complex nature of evil in the character of Richard. Shakespeare dramatically portrays Richard’s villainous intentions and motivations to the Elizabethan audience in the opening soliloquy announcing- “he is made villain” to “usurp” the throne like a symbolic “usurping boar” being physically and morally “deformed” by his craving for power. Subsequently, Richard uses his guises as a tool for deception; he is a passionate lover desperately “wooing Lady Anne” yet a conniving murderer killing her husband, also ironically appearing to be a “loyal loving brother” by eradicating “George” himself. Shakespeare then reaffirms the results of human’s corruption and insatiability for power to the Elizabethan audience as he “proves a villain” must “fall prey to his” own “subtle and treacherous”