“What’s this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?”
What, exactly, is Looking for Richard, the 1996 directorial debut-documentary of Oscar-Emmy-Tony winning actor Al Pacino?
First: Looking for Richard is Pacino’s sincere pursuit of the reasons why Americans don’t like William Shakespeare. Despite the fact that “Richard III,” the historical play Shakespeare wrote during the period 1592-1594, may be the most often-performed play of The Bard, at least according to Looking for Richard, few Americans have wrestled with it in favor of other plays that are easier going (e.g. we like “Romeo and Juliet” because young people fall in love, but “Hamlet” is a bore). In this light Looking for Richard is an on-ramping project to encourage reconsideration of Shakespeare as an artist still very much embroidered into the now.
Second: Looking for Richard is an explanation of how flexible Shakespeare’s plays are when properly updated in new circumstances over time. This is an old saw for partisans who contend, believably, that the universal themes of the playwright and his art speak across the centuries to enliven current events with worry over truly old problems.
Third: Looking for Richard is a vanity project that lets Pacino employ a number of his friends, admirers, and idols, and several experts, to consider questions of interest about Richard III (1452-1485), the one-time King of England, from 1483 until his death in 1485. Much of this involves spontaneous interviews with anyone Pacino and his crew happen to meet in the streets of New York, behind-the-scenes “takes” of Pacino and his crew members discussing “Richard III,” the actual King Richard, the point of Looking for Richard, and what Pacino is trying to say, and many re-enactments of sections of “Richard III,” employing the likes of Kevin Spacey, Aidan Quinn, Harris Yulin, Penelope Allen, and Alec Baldwin.
This is all very good, then. Influential, charismatic friends of an influential, charismatic performer try to convert the curious (us) into agreeing that an often-ignored work by a legendary figure may actually be the greatest work in that figure’s very great career.
You know what Looking for Richard isn’t, though? It isn’t an explanation of why Al Pacino is so interested in “Richard III,” or King Richard III, or Shakespeare, or how any of this material can be playfully enjoyed as anything other than getting away with it.
When an important artist, and Pacino is an important artist, decides to devote resources of time, treasure, and concentration on a passion project, the inevitable point is to disclose something about why that devotional object is so fascinating. We never get this peeling-the-onion moment when Pacino explains, in direct language, why he’s so drawn to this play. Why not “Richard II?” Or “Henry VI, Part 3?” Or “Timon of Athens?” Or “Pericles, Prince of Tyre?”
Did young Al once read the play with its great near-concluding line, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” and decide his career was made? Did Lee Strasberg whisper into the emergent Al’s ear that he must beware George? Did one of mature Al’s paramours describe him in his maturity as a monstrous king, like Richard? Any of these personal connections cement the bond between curiosity seekers and the artist in full naval gaze. Absent this kind of clear anchor, Looking for Richard is mostly the story of some prominent people hanging out until the next project yolks them to something more orderly.
–October 31, 2018
