Richard III

Richard III started out as a play written by William Shakespeare that depicted the rise to power and short reign of Richard III. There have been several movies based on this play, three of which I’ve seen. The first, Tower of London (1939) starred Basil Rathbone as Richard, Boris Karloff as his executioner Mord, and Vincent Price as Richard’s older brother Clarence. The second, Tower of London (1962), was Roger Corman’s remake of the 1939 movie with Vincent Price as Richard. Both of these movies were made as horror movies. The third Richard III-inspired movie, oddly enough titled Richard III, has Sir Ian McKellen playing Richard. This movie was done as the tragedy that Shakespeare wrote in the 16th century. It is an adaptation by Sir Ian McKellen of the Royal Nation Theatre production of which he had been starring. Sir Laurence Olivier also adapted Richard III as a tragedy in the 1950s. Unlike the earlier movies, all of which had been set in the 15th century. Sir Ian McKellen’s film set the story in 1930s Britain in what appears to be a fascist country. According to Sir Ian:

We were creating our own world, our own history of the 1930s and our invention of what might have happened if Britain had been involved in a civil war sixty years ago. We decided we wanted to find eccentric places and turn them into elements of the story. We decided Victorian Gothic was a nice way of placing King Edward's court in a traditional context. When Richard takes over,he moves his headquarters away from the palace into accommodation derivative of Speer's Berlin or Mussolini's Rome. 'We drew on elements we liked about the look of the 1930s as they really were and used them as keys. The costumes, for example, were very specific to 1936. We're using 30s furniture and props and architecture that has survived from the 30s.

Those “eccentric places” referred to by Sir Ian are landmarks of contemporary England. Through the use of special effects, the Battersea Power Station [think of the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals] is transported to the coast of Kent and becomes Richard’s bombed-out headquarters, the Bankside Power Station becomes the Tower of London where Richard’s nephews and his older brother Clarence are imprisoned [and later murdered], the Brighton Pavilion is relocated close to Dover and becomes King Edward’s country retreat.

For those unfamiliar with the Richard III, it is the story of one man’s ambition to claim England’s throne and the ruthlessness he uses to eliminate all the family members who stand in the way between him and the throne. The film starts with England embroiled in a civil war. The ruling king, from the House of Lancaster, was under attack from the House of York [historically, this was the War of the Roses]. The House of York was aiming to place the eldest son, Edward, on the throne. The “rebel” army, led by Edward’s younger brother Richard of Gloucester, is advancing on the king’s headquarters at Tewkesbury. As the film begins we see a close-up of a teletype message at the king’s headquarters which says “Richard Gloucester is at hand. He holds his course toward Tewkesbury” [Tewkesbury was one of the decisive battles in the War of the Roses]. The king [Henry VI] and his son [Prince Edward] look very worried, the king goes to bed, and the son goes to another room to have dinner. While Price Edward is eating, a tank bursts into his room, troops wearing gas masks swarm in, and someone shoots and kills the Price Edward. Then that same person who killed the prince found the king praying at his bedside. He approached the king, then shot and killed him too. The soldier then takes off his mask to reveal him to be Richard Gloucester.

The scene then shifts to the new king’s palace, where the House of York is celebrating its victory over the House of Lancaster. All of the players, with the exception of Richard, are attired in formal dress. Richard, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the army, is dressed in full dress uniform. It is a not-so-subtle way of distinguishing him from the rest of the family. During this celebration we get to see many of the characters of the film: Richard [Sir Ian McKellen] King Edward [John Wood], his American-born Queen Elizabeth [Annette Bening], the Duke of Clarence [Sir Nigel Hawthorne], the Prime Minister Lord Hastings [Jim Carter], the Earl of Richmond [Dominic West], his uncle Lord Stanley [Edward Hardwicke], Queen Elizabeth’s brother Earl Rivers [Robert Downey Jr.], the Duchess of York, mother to Edward, Clarence and Richard [Dame Maggie Smith], the Duke of Buckingham [Jim Broadbent], and Princess Elizabeth [Kate Steavenson-Payne]. Most of the characters are paired up with another character, engaged in some conversation, while Richard is alone, mingling among the crowd of well-wishers and quietly observing the festivities. Sir William Catesby, the King’s private secretary, leans over to whisper something to the King. Both men look in Clarence’s direction. Then, inexplicably, Clarence is arrested and taken away to the Tower. Once the big band that is providing the evening’s music finishes a song, Richard then approaches a microphone to begin a soliloquiy:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York!
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war has smoothed his wrinkled front:
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fight the souls of fearful adversaries

After Richard has finished toasting his brother the King, he heads for a bathroom, where he continues his soiloquiy. Both Shakespeare and Sir Ian [who wrote the screenplay with Richard Loncraine, who also directed] depict Richard Gloucester as a hunchback with a withered arm. They suggest that these deformities are the source of Richard’s evil. While he is no longer addressing the gathering celebrating victory, Richard turns to the camera and speaks directly to the audience [which is called ‘breaking through the fourth wall’], which to me makes us complicit in everything he has done or is about to do.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass,
I, that am rudely stamped -
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them:

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on my own deformity.

Why, I can smile; and murder while I smile;
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears
And frame my face to all occasions!
And, therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid...

Then Richard reveals his first act: "To set my brothers, Clarence and the King, In deadly hate, the one against the other." That’s out first clue that Catesby is really working for Richard.

Richard then spies Clarence being led away to a boat for transport to the Tower. He asks Clarence what is going on and why he’s under guard. Clarence doesn’t have a clue and says as much. Richard promises Clarence to intercede with their brother the King to make sure that Clarence’s imprisonment is a short one. Clarence believes him, but Richard has no intention of getting Clarence out of his current predicament. Once Clarence is led away, Richard moves onto his next task: to woo Lady Anne.

Lady Anne [Kristin Scott Thomas] is Prince Edward’s widow. She finds him in a morgue at a public hospital. She begins to speak:

O, cursed be the hand that made these holes;
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it;
Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!
If ever he have child, abortive be it.
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the life of him,
Than I am made by my young husband's death

Little did she know she was cursing herself. Through the door to the morgue steps Richard. She starts to cuss out Richard for the deed he has done in killing her husband. He protests that he did it out of love for her. She spit in his face. He expresses remorse for killing her husband, and in so doing picks up a scalpel, places it in her hand tells her to kill him. She can’t bring herself to do it, so he picks up the blade as if to kill himself. She tells him to put down the blade. When he asks if there is any hope that they would be together, she says all men I hope live so… So he takes the family signet ring off his own finger with his teeth and then places the saliva-covered ring on her ring finger. With that gesture she is no longer angry with Richard, but now fascinated by him. He walks out of the morgue, knowing that Lady Anne is now his.

Meanwhile back at the palace, King Edward signs a pardon for his brother Clarence. The pardon countermands the order he signed earlier [at Richard’s behest] to execute Clarence. The King is not a well man. He has a persistent cough and needs an oxygen tank to breathe. He gets around with the aid of a wheelchair. Unbeknownst to the King, Catesby delivers Clarence’s pardon to Richard, who burns it. Clarence’s fate is sealed. Richard turns to the camera and says:

"Clarence still breathes. Edward still lives and reigns. When they are gone, then shall I count my gains."

While Queen Elizabeth has breakfast with her brother Earl Rivers, she tells him the King’s doctors fear for his health. She also tells Rivers the King has appointed Richard as Lord Protector of the King’s young sons because they are underage. She also reminds Rivers that Richard has no love for her or her brother the Earl.

Richard then makes his way to the army barracks where he recruits assassins to kill his brother Clarence. The two men accept the job and go to the Tower. They find Clarence in a bathtub. They tell him why they’re there. After some brief conversation one of the assassins cuts Clarence’s throat and then pushes his head underwater. Clarence dies, unbeknownst to the king. The king then has a get-together at his country retreat where he implores everybody [Buckingham, Rivers, Richard, Elizabeth, Catesby] to kiss and make-up so as to have on big happy family. When Richard informs the King that Clarence was dead, he goes into respiratory arrest and dies. Shortly thereafter, Rivers is impaled and dies after having sex with a Pam Am stewardess.

Richard, as Lord Protector, then meets the Prince of Wales at the train station and advises the presumptive king that he would be safer if he and his younger brother went to the Tower. The Price of Wales takes Richard’s advice and goes to the Tower. Richard has gotten the boys away from their mother, Queen Elizabeth. Lord Stanley and the Earl of Richmond see what is going on, and Richmond flees to France.

There is then a meeting to determine when the young prince will be crowned king. They [Lord Hastings, Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Catesby, Buckingham] gather at Richard’s headquarters. Hastings presumes to speak for Richard the Lord Protector, but then Richard walks in, making apologies for sleeping late. Richard sits at the table and laments the state of his arm, that it was damaged by witchcraft perpetrated by Queen Elizabeth. Hastings questions whether Elizabeth could have done such a thing. Angry, Richard labels Hastings a traitor and says “Off with his head. Now, by Saint Paul, I swear I will not dine, until I see the same. The rest who love me, rise and follow me.” Everyone else gets up and leaves, leaving Hastings with James Tyrell, one of Richard’s bodyguards and Clarence’s assassin. Tyrell says to Hastings “The Duke would be at dinner. He longs to see your head.” Hastings is hanged shortly thereafter.

With the promise of an Earldom, Richard enjoins the Duke of Buckingham to start a campaign of lies to insinuate the marriage between his late brother the King and Queen Elizabeth was not a legal one, which would make the young princes who stand between Richard and the throne illegitimate and thus ineligible to succeed King Edward. The Lord Mayor of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury beg Richard to take the throne, which he “reluctantly” accepts right before he goes to a meeting that has the look and feel of a Nazi Party rally.

Once Richard is crowned King, he orders Buckingham to kill the two princes in the Tower. Buckingham hesitates. He’s not too keen on murdering children. Richard notes Buckingham’s hesitance and is annoyed. Buckingham demands from Richard the Earldom which Richard promised to him. Richard refuses, saying he wasn’t in a giving mood that day. Buckingham, thus rebuffed, heads to France to join Richmond. Richard then asks Tyrell to do the deed. He kills the princes. Meanwhile, Richard hatches a plot to kill his own wife Anne [who has become a drug addict], and then marry his niece, the Queen’s daughter Princess Elizabeth [who fancies Richmond] in order to secure his claim to the throne. He also wants to deny Richmond’s claim. Richmond came from the Lancaster branch of the Plantegenet family. In due course, Anna dies. We see her lifeless body lying on her bed, eyes wide open, a spider crawling across her face.

As the body count rises, Richard loses more and more allies. Even his own mother the Duchess of York turns on him. Lord Stanley then defects to Richmond's side. Richard threatens to kill Stanley's young son, but Stanley calls his bluff and defects anyway [the boy survived the movie]. With only one card left to play, Richard sees Queen Elizabeth to try to arrange a marriage between him and Elizabeth [his niece, her daughter]. She doesn't like the idea but plays along. When they finish talking, Elizabeth and Richmond get married in a hurry.

Richmond's forces invade England and attack almost immediately. The Duke of Buckingham was captured and killed, but Richard's forces, though numerically superior, are caught off-guard and defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The fighting takes place around the Battersea Power Station. Richmond chases Richard. During the chase Richard's jeep gets stuck and he bellows Shakespeare's famous line "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" Richmond quickly catches up with Richard. Richmond wants to capture Richard alive, but Richard has other ideas. He says to Richmond "Let us to't pell-mell; if not to heaven, then hand-in-hand to hell!" and then throws himself to his death in an inferno. While he's falling you here Al Jolson singing "I'm Sitting On The Top Of The World."

My wife always wants a movie to end like this - a bomb drops and everybody dies. This movie comes close. Everybody didn't die at the end of the movie, but most of the players died along the way to the ending. By my count, these folks from the "victory celebration" scene died - King Edward, his brother Clarence, the king's two sons, the Queen's brother Earl Prince, Lord Hastings the Prime Minister, Richard's wife Anna, the Duke of Buckingham, and finally Richard himself. Machiavelli would be proud. I always found Shakespeare's tragedies to be more interesting than his comedies. That Sir Ian had the brainwave to set the story in more-modern times was a masterstroke. Ordinarily whenever I see a movie that has a lot of good big-name actors, that's the kiss of death because the movie in question needs a lot of star power to make up for a lousy story. Not so this movie. This one is brilliant! Even if you have no use for Shakespeare, this is a good one to watch, again and again.