Playing Shakespeare. Vol. 1. Dir. John Carlaw. Perf. John Barton, Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen. ITV Productions Ltd., 1984, 2009. DVD .
Looking for Richard. Dir. Al Pacino. Perf. Al Pacino, Estelle Parsons, Aidan Quin, Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacy. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1996. DVD .
Seminar Discussion Questions:
In Looking for Richard Al Pacino offers an intense rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world. In his role as both director and actor Pacino’s interviews and in-depth analysis of Shakespeare’s Richard III explore the tensions between the play as text and the play as entertainment. Discuss.
"You don't need to understand every single word that's said, as long as you get the gist of what's going on. Just trust it and you'll get it," says Pacino (Looking for Richard). To what extent is Pacino’s statement true about performing Shakespeare?
"He helped us and instructed us in the art of feeling." (Annoymous street-person) Pacino notes, "by juxtaposing the day-to-day life of the actors and their characters with ordinary people, we attempted to create a comic mosaic - a very different Shakespeare. Our main goal with this project is to reach an audience that would not normally participate in this kind of language and world." Does Looking for Richard address the issue of Shakespeare’s relevance today in a satisfactory way?
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