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| Written by Elizabeth Brunner, 1997, for English 431 at Cal Poly under Professor StevenMarx |
| All the passions of the irascible rise from thepassions of the concupiscible appetite and terminate in them. For instance,anger rises from sadness, and, having wrought vengeance, terminates injoy. -- St. Thomas Aquinas |
| The ultimate insult from my highschool career proved to be neither the egg that Keith Frantz cracked overmy head nor the half-dissected cat that some fiend staked to my locker. No, my lasting shame resulted from election as "Most Studious" by the Classof 1981. I cried to my best friend, "How could they vote me QueenNerd?" and recited a long list of my naughtiest adolescent moments as proofof teenage rebellion. I forged a hall pass; I stole a library book; I snuckaway for slurpees during the lunch break. How desperately I wantedto be the bad girl rather than the teacher's pet. Ah, evil lurksin the heart of all -- and those of us who behave properly perhaps longfor vicarious evil most intensely. |
| In Richard III, Shakespearecreates evil personified. The wicked protagonist conspires againstkin, plots political takeovers, woos widows, sets assassins against children,and relishes each nefarious act. We watch Richard's bravado withwicked glee and delight in each boasting comment sent our direction. Once the bad guy becomes seductive, even amusing, in his blatant cruelty,the playwright must intervene to counterbalance his own brilliant wit. But how can this devil Richard be brought to his knees with the appropriatehigh style demanded by the script's momentum? Shakespeare leavesus the briefest of stage direction: "Alarum. Enter Richard and Richmond;they fight; Richard is slain" (V.v.). Once "the bloody dog is dead,"Richmond prays for "smooth-faced peace" (V.v.2,33). So soon afterRichard's tormented dream of accusing ghosts, this closing scene enforcesa mood described by Robert Ornstein as "one of somber reflection, not ofjoyous celebration" (263). However, the interpretive liberties takenby three twentieth-century filmmakers establish elaborated messages aboutthe horrors of bloodshed, the inevitability of power struggles, and themythmaking of villains. |
| The 1982 BBC production takesthe audience through a series of reactions: the bloodthirst for revenge,the prayer for redemption, and the vision of hellish destruction. We watch Richard circled by soldiers, baited like a bear as swords closein. We hear grunts of rage, brutish and coarse. Richard dropsto his knees and claws forward, lost in private agonies. The camerafocuses on his face; we observe the hard swallowing of a final mouthfulof air. Richmond fails to glory immediately in his victory but ratherresponds with distaste, with a slight gagging in revulsion, before declaringthe battle's end and praying for peace. If the film ended here, theaudience might leave confident that order could be restored and that anew regime could surpass the old. Yet in a final surreal scene, thecamera twists upward through a mountain of bloodied corpses. Wild-hairedMargaret cackles -- part horror and part triumph -- from atop the fleshpile, clutching Richard's body. Director Jane Howell emphasizes thebody count and the tragic sacrifice of so many young men to civil strife. But the extremism of crazed laughter juxtaposed with contorted victimschallenges more than warlord policies: Where is God when human-devils controlthe political scene? Why does divinity create a flawed offspring and thenabandon humanity to the race of Cain? Richard becomes just one morebody and violent revenge seems inadequate. Evil leaks off the screen,stains our hands, and offers no release. Facing the death mound asan audience, we condemn both our private failure to intervene in historyand God's failure to model adequate alternatives for earthly rule. |
| In contrast, the crown, as a symbolof changing political fortunes within the human sphere, dominates the finalscene of the 1955 Laurence Olivier film. After fierce battle, Richard'shorse is stabbed from underneath, toppling both stead and rider. The camera tracks the crown, rolling under the pounding hooves of nearbyhorses and landing under what Mark Eccles characterizes as a "thorn bush"(274). Richard ends up on the ground, recognizable without his faceshield and trapped in combat with the common infantry. Suddenly surroundedin a field with blood dripping down his face, Richard looks stunned byhis approaching mortality. The soundtrack by Sir William Walton momentarilypauses, forcing the audience to hear Richard's labored breath. Thevillain appears old, exhausted, human, even vulnerable -- before launchinginto his last hopeless attack. The enemy crushes forward. Onesoldier slits Richard's throat and then, from overhead, the camera witnessesrepeated stabbing en masse by the encircling soldiers. As the crowdpulls back, Richard suffers a series of death spasms, raises his swordaloft for a last grasp at dignity, and collapses face down. Slungin humiliation across horseback, his body is slowly led away. Againsta technicolor blue sky, the retrieved crown is lifted upward in victoryas the concluding shot while credits begin. Although I suspect patrioticoptimism in Olivier's intentions, the skepticism of a audience forty yearslater foresees only ongoing political dissent. Mob rule ends Richard'slife, not the orderly blow of a single replacement. That group thirstfor vengeance springs from the same primal emotions of jealousy, bitterness,alienation, and self-loathing as Richard's own fierce drive for the goldencrown. |
| In comparison to the deathscenes in the two earlier films, Sir Ian McKellen's 1996 version shocksus by allowing Richard to leave the world in glory. Set in the fascistThirties and begging comparisons to the reign of Adolph Hitler, Richardbecomes the consummate predator. McKellen transports Act Five toa world of gutted buildings, fireballs, machine guns, tanks, and Nazi imagery. Commanding his forces to stop shooting, Richmond follows Richard up throughthe bowels of an abandoned steel-frame industrial site. Poundingmusic builds to a crescendo over the sound of automatic gunfire and clangingmetal. Richard hesitates before slithering along a steel girder highabove the battle scene. In lines never penned by Shakespeare, Richardbeckons to his rival, "Let's do it pell-mell; if not in heaven, then hand-in-handto hell." Before Richmond can shoot, Richard smirks, lifts one glovedhand in farewell, and gracefully free-falls backwards to his chosen death. Slowly floating down, Richard grins back at the camera before being swallowedby red flames. In these final seconds, the soundtrack swings intothe happy lyrics of "I'm Sitting on Top of the World." The absurddissonance between music and image destroys any hope of retribution. Richard dies with panache, with style, with self-assertion. Of thethree directorial choices, McKellen's option leaves the viewer the mostdisturbed and unsettled. This Richard regrets nothings and must bedestined for the fame allotted to serial slayers in endless low-budgethorror films. Richard wins by electing to fall hell-bound with glee,while the audience loses both the catharsis of revenge and the certaintythat evil has been punished. Whereas in Howell's PBS production wecry out for God to intervene, this scene offers no possibility that Godexists at all. No doubt Richard will physically burn as fire consumeshis body, but what of his soul? The lack of remorse -- of even suffering-- as death approaches leaves the audience empty. Richard preservessordid elegance. We might giggle, but we cannot mourn. We mournneither the death of a hunchback king nor the death of young men on thebattlefield. McKellen closes with evil still alive, an evil enmeshedin the human condition and in our own hearts. |
| At best, the expression on Richard'sface haunts us. Like a medieval gargoyle, the diabolical one leersand taunts. Just as the twisted stone faces of gargoyles ape humannature from atop Gothic cathedrals, Shakespeare's Richard III representsour mutual darkside. Charlotte Spivack explains that these sculptures"remind the entering Christian that even while his soul seeks salvationwithin this structure, his body will pull him downward with the mockingdemands of its physical being" (35). Structurally, the gargoylesoften function as gutter drains, spewing forth waste water to protect theaesthetics of the church. Similarly, Richard epitomizes our hatredsand cruelties, reminding us of the evil inside; whether he cleanses oursins through his death depends on the director's approach to redemptionand transference. |
| Eccles, Mark. "Richard III on Stage and Screen." RichardIII. New York: Signet Classic, 1988. 265-78. |
| Hallett, Charles A. and Elaine S. Hallett. The Revenger'sMadness. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1980. (Epigraph) |
| Ornstein, Richard. "Richard III." Richard III. New York: Signet Classic, 1988. 239-264. |
| Spivack, Charlotte. The Comedy of Evil on Shakespeare's Stage. London: Associated UPs, 1978. |
| Author: Elizabeth Howell Brunner Email: liz@grantproposal.com Main Web Site: www.calpoly.edu/~ebrunner |  |