Richard III (1995 film)

Richard III

Theatrical poster
Directed by Richard Loncraine
Produced by Stephen Bayly
Lisa Katselas Paré
Written by William Shakespeare (play)
Ian McKellen
Richard Loncraine
Starring Ian McKellen
Annette Bening
Jim Broadbent
Robert Downey Jr.
Kristin Scott Thomas
Maggie Smith
Adrian Dunbar
Dominic West
Music by Trevor Jones
Cinematography Peter Biziou
Edited by Paul Green
Distributed by United Artists
Release dates
  • 29 December 1995 (1995-12-29)
Running time
 104 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Budget £6,000,000

Richard III is a 1995 British drama film adapted from William Shakespeare's play of the same name, starring Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr., Nigel Hawthorne, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, John Wood, and Dominic West.

The film relocates the play's events to a fictionalized fascist version of Britain in the 1930s.

Plot

England, 1930s. A bloody civil war is concluded with the King Henry VI and Prince Edward murdered by the soon-to-be Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Ian McKellen) of the rival House of York.

Richard's elder brother Edward, Duke of York (John Wood) becomes King Edward IV. Meanwhile, Richard deceives and marries Prince Edward's widow Anne Neville (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Hungry for power Richard is determined to make himself King and pits King Edward against his brother, the Duke of Clarence (Nigel Hawthorne), who is detained incarcerated in the Tower of London.

Queen Elizabeth (Annette Bening) intercedes on Clarence's behalf and Edward IV spares his life. However after sowing doubt and casting suspicion on the Queen and her brother Lord Rivers (Robert Downey Jr.), Richard commissions James Tyrrell (Adrian Dunbar) to execute Clarence, allegedly in compliance with the King's death warrant under the pretext king's stay of execution was delivered too late.

Richard informs King Edward of Clarence's death at a meeting with the Prime Minister Lord Hastings (Jim Carter), and the king suffers a stroke.

As both royal princes, including the heir apparent, Edward V are underage, Richard becomes regent taking the title of Lord Protector with the support of the ambitious and corrupt Duke of Buckingham (Jim Broadbent). In order to further undermine his rivals for the throne Richard has Lord Rivers assassinated while sharing a hotel bed with the an air stewardess he met on his journey back to England, killed by an upthrust blade emerging from the mattress, fatally wounding Rivers and traumatising his partner.

Rivers' bizarre and sordid death damages the Queen's reputation sufficiently Richard can use the scandal to cast doubts on the legitimacy of her sons, who are Edward IV's natural heirs.

Reluctant to support Richard's attempt to lay claim to the crown, Prime Minister Lord Hastings' refusal so enrages Richard he accuses Hastings of treason, inciting his loyalists to summarily execute the Prime Minister by hanging. Having made an example of his only vocal opponent Richard persuades the Lord Mayor of London and members of the House of Lords to acknowledge his claim and crown him King.

Following his coronation Richard, now King Richard III, employs Tyrrell to murder the princes. Impatient for his promised reward for his loyalty, Buckingham demands the lands of murdered Lord Rivers. This Richard dismisses in high-handed manner, with the line 'I am not in a giving vein'.

Aware his reign in not yet secure, Richard now seeks the hand of Elizabeth, in order to consolidate his reign and avoid yet another civil war but this proves sufficient distraction Buckingham and others hostile to Richard leave country: Earl of Richmond (Dominic West) who is shown in naval uniform, as predicted by Richard 'flies to France' taking with him into exile the Archbishop of Canterbury (Roher Hammond) and Richard's mother, Duchess of York, whose distaste and contempt for her son make her arguably his sternest critic.

Anne Neville, world-weary, frustrated and drug addicted has been shown fatalistic decline, now aware she was taken as a trophy with no other value and as such she will soon be discarded. She will soon be seen utterly immobile, Richard's culpability powerfully suggested by a spider's progress over her glazed eyes.

Richard's attempts to consolidate his hold by marrying Queen Elizabeth fails when she too flees the country. With his hold on power slipping and the legitimacy of his claims to the crown fatally weakened, Richard prepare the final battle against the rebels, who plan a seaborne invasion and an advance on the capital.

In a pivotal scene[1] Commander of the Air Force Lord Stanley (Edward Hardicke) - the only character among Richard's confidant's who resists donning the Lord Protector's sinister fascist uniform - reveals the true meaning of his line 'I was not and never will be false': Richard's troops, assembling in a marshalling yard ready to meet Richmond's invasion are attacked from the air. The attack, symbolized by a lone Bomber overflying the ruins of a marshalling yard where troop trains and tanks are wrecked and burning, achiever total surprise, Richard looking on helpless, knowing this has fatally weakened his position.

He meets Richmond's troops, who have made swift progress, being effectively unopposed, in the wreckage of a coastal strongholds, a massive structure reduced to rubble burning debris and twisted girders. The two men seeking each other out, when his vehicle stalls Richard climbs the structure until he is cornered. Having nowhere else to go but edge out onto exposed metal beams over an inferno. Refusing to surrender McKellen delivers Richard's last line in this adaptation: Let's go at it pell-mell; if not to heaven, then hand-in-hand to hell!.

As Richard falls into the fire the camera refocuses on Richmond, whose saturnine smile to the cinema audience echoes those of Richard, who has breached the 'forth wall' throughout. The implication, that Richmond my be no less conniving and Machiavellian than Richard, but that he is better at it, suggests he is not morally superior, be has merely beaten Richard at his own game.

Defeated, Richard is last seen grinning triumphantly as he is consumed by the inferno, the film closing with the eerily upbeat tune "I'm Sitting On The Top Of The World" (Ray Henderson, Joe Young and Sam Lewis) in the classic version sung by Al Jolson giving rise to speculation this was a cinematic nod to the closing scene, and last line, of White Heat: "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"

Concept

The film's concept was based on a stage production directed by Richard Eyre for the Royal National Theatre, which also starred McKellen. The production was adapted for the screen by McKellen and directed by Richard Loncraine.

The film is notable for its unconventional use of famous British landmarks, often using special effects to move them to new locations. The transformed landmarks used include the following:

The visually rich production features various symbols, uniforms, weapons, and vehicles that draw openly from the aesthetic of the Third Reich as depicted in Nazi propaganda (especially Triumph of the Will) and war films. At the same time, obvious care is put into diluting and mixing the Nazi references with recognizable British and American uniform styles, props, and visual motifs (also familiar to the average cinemagoer). The resulting military uniforms, for instance, range from completely Allied in cases of positive characters to almost completely SS in the case of Richard's entourage. Another example of this balanced approach to production design is the choice of tanks for battle scenes between Richmond's and Richard's armies: both use Soviet tanks (T-55s and T-34s respectively), mixed with German, American, and British World War II-era vehicles. To convey the out-of-place nature of the common-born Queen Elizabeth, she is reconfigured as an American socialite similar to Wallis Simpson, and she and her brother are treated with marked disapproval by members of the Court.

Perhaps the play's most famous line—"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"—was recontextualized by the more recent setting; during the climactic battle, Richard's jeep becomes stuck, hung up on a pile of debris, and his lament is cast as a plea for a mode of transport with legs rather than wheels.

The film enlarges the role of the Duchess of York considerably by combining her character with that of Queen Margaret, as compared with Laurence Olivier's 1955 film version of the play, in which the Duchess hardly appeared at all and Queen Margaret was completely eliminated. The roles of Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, and Dorset are combined into Rivers. The death scenes are shown rather than implied as in the play, and changed to suit the time (Hastings is hanged rather than beheaded) and historical accuracy (Clarence dies by having his throat cut in a bathtub, rather than being drowned in a wine barrel). Lord Rivers—who usually dies offstage (or, in the case of Olivier's film, offscreen)—is impaled by the device of a sharp spike spurting up from the bottom of his mattress while he lies in bed during sex with a woman in a hotel room. Each character's pre-death monologue is also removed, except that of Clarence and Buckingham.

McKellen himself stated on his website:

When you put this amazing old story in a believable modern setting, it will hopefully raise the hair on the back of your neck, and you won't be able to dismiss it as 'just a movie' or, indeed, as 'just old-fashioned Shakespeare.[3]

Cast

Awards

Reception

Richard III received universal acclaim from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 96% "Certified Fresh" rating, with an average score of 8.1/10.[6] Empire magazine gave the film 4/5 stars, referring to it as "fascinating" and "cerebral".[7] Jeffrey Lyons stated that the film was "mesmerizing",[8] while Richard Corliss in Time referred to the film as "cinematic".[8] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "the picture never stops coming at you".[8] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars (out of four) and included the film among his Great Movies list.[9]

Brighton's Royal Pavilion, in a shot quite similar to the one in the film

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Richard III was released on February 27, 1996.

No. TitleArtist Length
1. "The Invasion"  Trevor Jones 1:37
2. "Come Live With Me"  Stacey Kent 5:40
3. "Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent"  Trevor Jones 1:01
4. "Mortuarty"  Trevor Jones 1:26
5. "Bid Me Farewell/I'll Have Her"  Trevor Jones 1:21
6. "Clarence's Dream"  Trevor Jones 3:04
7. "Crimson"  Trevor Jones 3:13
8. "Clarence's Murder"  Trevor Jones 2:05
9. "The Tower"  Trevor Jones 2:06
10. "The Blessing"  Trevor Jones 0:27
11. "Conspiracy"  Trevor Jones 0:35
12. "Toe Tappers"  Trevor Jones 2:14
13. "Let Sorrow Haunt Your Bed"  Trevor Jones 1:29
14. "The Reach of Hell Long Live the King"  Trevor Jones 1:15
15. "Good Angels Guard You"  Trevor Jones 0:28
16. "Coronation Haze"  Trevor Jones 1:11
17. "Prelude from Te Deum"  Trevor Jones 1:41
18. "The Golden Dew of Sleep"  Trevor Jones 0:30
19. "My Regret"  Trevor Jones 2:46
20. "Pity Dwells Not This Eye"  Trevor Jones 0:25
21. "Westminster"  Trevor Jones 3:14
22. "My Most Grievous Curse"  Trevor Jones 0:49
23. "The Duchess Departs"  Trevor Jones 0:52
24. "The Devil's Temptation"  Trevor Jones 0:54
25. "Richmond"  Trevor Jones 0:52
26. "Defend Me Still"  Trevor Jones 2:47
27. "I Did But Dream"  Trevor Jones 0:45
28. "Elizabeth and Richmond"  Trevor Jones 1:37
29. "My Kingdom for a Horse"  Trevor Jones 0:39
30. "Battle"  Trevor Jones 4:42
31. "I'm Sitting on Top of the World"  Al Jolson 1:49
32. "Come Live With Me"  Stacey Kent 5:40
Total length:
 59:14[10]

"Come Live With Me" is a 1930s-style swing song, performed by Stacey Kent at the ball celebrating Edwardd IV's triumph. It is an original composition by Trevor Jones.

References

  1. ↑ "Richard III". Screenplay by Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine. mckellen.com. Retrieved 22 April 2006.
  2. ↑ Stern, Keith (1995). "Richard III: Notes". Mckellen.com. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "The 68th Academy Awards (1996) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 5 August 2011.
  4. ↑ "Berlinale: 1996 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
  5. ↑ "Richard III". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  6. ↑ Errigo, Angie. "Empire's Richard III Movie Review". Empireonline.com. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 Stern, Keith (1995). "Richard III: Reviews". Mckellen.com. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  8. ↑ Ebert, Roger (7 October 2009). "Richard III Movie Review & Film Summary (1996)". rogerebert.com. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  9. ↑ "Richard III Soundtrack". AllMusic. Retrieved 7 March 2014.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 27, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.